all the Passions pleasant and induces us to yield our consent and give up our selves to them and 't is that satisfaction which must be overcome by the Delights of Grace and the Comforts of Faith and Reason For as the Joy of the Mind is the result of a certain or evident Knowledge that we are in the best state that can be in relation to the Objects perceiv'd by the Understanding so the pleasantness of the Passions is a natural consequence of that confused Sensation we have of being in the best state we can be in reference to those things we perceive by our Senses Now 't is by the Joy of the Mind and the Comforts of Grace that the false delight of the Passions which makes us Slaves to sensible Goods must be vanquished All the forementioned things are to be found in all the Passions unless they be raised by confused Sensations and that the Mind perceive not the Good or Evil from whence they proceed for then 't is plain that they have not the three first qualifications It likewise appears that all these things are not free since they are in us without our Consent and even against it since the Sin but that the Consent of our Will is the only thing which is really in our power However it will be fit to explain all these things more at large and to make them more sensible by some Instances Let us suppose a Man to whom an Affront has been actually offer'd or one whose Imagination is either naturally strong and lively or over-heated by some Accident as a Disease or a Surfeit of Sorrow and Melancholy This Man in his Closet fancies that such a one who perhaps does not think upon him is willing and ready to wrong him The sensible View or the Imagination of the Opposition betwixt the Actions of his Enemy and his own designs will be the first Cause of his Passion That the Motion of this Man's Will may acquire some new determination it is not absolutely necessary that he should receive or imagine he receives any Affront for 't is sufficient that his Mind only should think on it without his Body's being concern'd in it However as this new determination would not be the determination of a Passion but only a most weak and languishing Inclination 'T is better to suppose that some great opposition is actually made to this Man's Designs or that he strongly fancies that it will be so than to make another Supposition wherein the Senses and Imagination are little or not at all concern'd The second thing to be consider'd in this Man's Passion is an increase of the Motion of his Will towards that Good of which his real or pretended Enemy endeavours to deprive him the stronger the opposition is or appears the more considerable will be the increase He at first hates his Adversary only because he loves that Good and his Hatred against him grows in proportion to his Love for it because the Motion of the Will in the Passion of Hatred is at bottom nothing else but a Motion of Love that Motion of the Soul towards Good not differing from that by which she avoids its Privation as has been already observ'd The third thing is a Sensation suitable to that Passion in our Instance 't is a Sensation of Hatred But though the Motion of Hatred be the same with that of Love yet the Sensation of Hatred is altogether different from that of Love as any one may experience in himself Motions are Actions of the Will but Sensations are Modifications of the Mind The Motions of the Will are natural Causes of the Sensations of the Mind and these Sensations of the Mind reciprocally encourage and keep up the Motions of the Will in their Determination The Sensation of Hatred is in the Man before us the natural result of the Motion of his Will excited upon the view of Evil and this Motion is afterwards maintained by the Sensation it hath produced What we have just now said of this Man might happen to him though he had not a Body But because he 's made up of two Substances naturally united the Motions of his Soul are communicated to his Body and those of his Body to his Soul so that the new Determination or the increase of the Motion of his Will naturally causes a new Determination in the Motion of the Animal Spirits which is always different in all the Passions though the Motion of the Soul be still almost the same The Spirits therefore are violently driven into the Arms Legs and Face to dispose the Body in a manner adapted to the Passion and to shed over the Face the Look of an injured Person with reference to all the Circumstances of the Injury receiv'd and to the Quality and Capacity both of the Agent and Patient That Expansion of the Spirits is so much the more strong abundant and quick as the Good is greater the Opposition more vehement and the Brain livelyer affected And therefore if the Person whereof we speak only imagine himself injur'd or if he receive a real but slight injury that makes no considerable concussion in the Brain the Expansion of the Animal Spirits will prove weak and languishing and perhaps insufficient to alter the natural and ordinary Disposition of the Body But if the Outrage be exceeding great or the Imagination enflam'd the Brain will be extraordinarily shaken and the Spirits so violently dispers'd that in a moment they will imprint on the Face and Body the Symptoms of the ruling Passion If he be strong enough to obtain the Victory his Countenance will be fierce and threatning If weak and unable to withstand the overwhelming Evil he will appear humble and submissive His Moans and Tears naturally exciting in the Spectators and even in his Enemy Motions of Pity he will draw from thence those succours which he could not expect from his own strength True it is that if the Spirits and Fibres of the Brain in the Spectators and Adversary of that unhappy Wretch be already agitated with a violent Motion contrary to that which breeds Compassion in the Soul the bemoanings of the Distress'd will but increase their Fury and so would his undoing be inevitable should he always keep the same Countenance and Aspect But Nature has provided for it for at the sight of the imminent loss of a great good there are naturally produced on the Face such strange and surprizing Characters of Rage and Despair as to disarm the most Barbarous Enemies and to make them as it were unmovable That frightfull and unexpected sight of the Lineaments of Death drawn by the Hand of Nature upon the Face of an unfortunate Person stops in the very Enemy stricken therewith the Motions of the Spirits and Blood that carried him to Revenge and in that favourable moment of Audience Nature printing again an humble submissive air upon the Face of the poor Wretch that begins to entertain some hopes because of the unmovableness and
our Freedom on its respect But whereas this inward Sensation is sometimes absent from our Mind and we consult only what confus'd remains it has left in our Memory we may by the consideration of abstracted reasons which keep us from an inward feeling persuade our selves that 't is impossible for Man to be free Just as a Stoick who in want of nothing and Philosophizing at his Case may imagine that Pain is no Evil because the Internal Sense he has of himself does not actually convince him of the contrary and so he may prove like Seneca by reasons in one sense most true that 't is a contradiction for the wise man to be miserable But though our Self-consciousness were insufficient to convince us of our Freedom yet Reason might evince as much For since the light of Reason assures us that God acts only for himself and that he can give no Motion to us but what must tend towards him the Impression towards Good in general may be irresistible but 't is plain that that which we have for particular Goods must be necessarily free For if it were invincible we should have no Motion to carry us to God though he gives it only for himself and we should be constrain'd to settle on particular Goods though GOD ORDER and REASON forbid us So that Sin could not be laid at our door and God would be the real Cause of our Corruptions forasmuch as we should not be Free but purely Natural and altogether necessary Agents Thus though inward Sensation did not teach us we were free Reason would discover it was necessary for Man to be created so if we suppose him capable of desiring particular Goods and only capable of desiring them through the Impression or Motion which God perpetually gives us for himself Which likewise may be prov'd by Reason But our capacity to suffer Pain cannot be prov'd this way but can only be discover'd by Conscience or inward Sensation and yet no Man can doubt but a Man is liable to suffer Pain As we know not our Soul by any clear Idea we have of it as I have before explain'd so 't is in vain to try to discover what it is in us that terminates the Action which God impresses or that yields to be conquer'd by a resistible Determination and which we may change by our Will or by our Impression towards all Good and our Union with him who includes the Ideas of all Beings For in short we have no clear Idea of any Modification of our Soul Nothing but our Internal Sense can teach us that we are and what we are and this only must be consulted to convince us we are free And its Answers are clear and satisfactory enough upon the Point when we actually propose to our selves any particular Good for no Man whatever can doubt whether he be invinsibly inclin'd to eat of a Fruit or avoid some slight inconsiderable Pain But if instead of hearkning to our Inward Sensation we attend to abstracted Reasons which throw us off the Contemplation of our selves possibly losing sight of them we may forget that we are in Being and trying to reconcile the prescience of God and his absolute power over us with our Liberty we shall plunge into an Errour that will overturn all the Principles of Religion and Morality I produce here an Objection which is usually made against what I have been saying which though but very weak and defective is strong enough to give a great many trouble to evade The Hating of God say they is an Action which does not partake of Good and therefore is all the Sinner's God having no part in it And consequently Man acts and gives himself new Modifications by an action which does not come from God I Answer That Sinners hate not God but because they freely and falsly judge that he is Evil for Good consider'd as such cannot be the Object of Hatred Therefore they hate God with that very Motion of Love he influences them with towards Good Now the Reason why they conclude he is not Good is their making an undue use of their Liberty for being not convinc'd with irresistible Evidence that he is not Good they ought not to believe him Evil nor consequently to hate him In Hatred two things may be distinguish'd viz. the Sensation of the Soul and Motion of the Will This Sensation cannot be Evil for it is a Modification of the Soul and has neither Moral Good nor Ill in it Nor is the Motion more corrupt since it is not distinguishable from that of Love For External Evil being only the privation of Good 't is manifest that to fly Evil is to fly the privation of Good that is to pursue Good Wherefore all that is real and positive even in our Hatred of God himself has nothing Evil in it and the Sinner cannot hate God without an abominable abuse of the action which God incessantly gives to incline him to the Love of Him God works whatever is real in the Sensations of Concupiscence and yet is not the Author of Concupiscence AS the Difficulties that are rais'd about Concupiscence are near akin to those before explain'd I think it convenient to shew that God is not the Author of Concupiscence though it be he that works all in us even in the production of sensible Pleasure It ought I think to be granted for the Reasons produc'd in the Fifth Chapter of the First Book of the preceding Treatise and elsewhere that by the natural Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body Man even before the Fall was inclin'd by preventing Pleasures to the use of sensible Goods and that as often as such and such Traces were delineated in the principal part of his Brain such and such Thoughts arose in his Mind Now those Laws were most Proper and Equitable for the Reasons I there have given Which being suppos'd as before the Trangressions all things were perfectly well order'd so Man had necessarily that Power over his Body as that he could prevent the production of these Traces when he would Order requiring that his Mind should have the Dominion over his Body Which Power of his Mind precisely consisted in this that according to its different Desires and Applications it stopt the Communication of Motions which were produc'd in his own Body by circumambient Objects over which his Will had not an immediate and direct Authority as over his proper Body And it cannot I think be conceiv'd how he could hinder the Formation of the Traces in his Brain any other way Therefore the Will of God or the general Law of Nature which is the true Cause of the Communication of Motions depended on some occasions upon the Will of Adam For God had that consideration for him that he produc'd not without his consent new Motions in his Body or at least in the principal part to which his Soul was immediately uniâed Such was the Institution of Nature before the Sin ORDER would
because he knows not what it was that depriv'd him of this necessary thing or because being unworthy of his Hatred it could not excite it 'T is true this Man Hates the Privation of the Good which he Loves But it is manifest that this kind of Hatred is really Love For he Hates the Privation of Good meerly because he Loves Good and since to fly the Privation of Good is to tend towards Good Is is evident that the Motion of his Hatred is not different from that of his Love Therefore his Hatred if he have any being not contrary to his Love and Sorrow being always contrary to Joy it is evident that his Sorrow is not his Hatred and consequently Joy is different from Love Lastly It is evident that Sorrow proceeds from the Presence of something which we hate or rather from the Absence of something which we Love Therefore Sorrow supposes Hatred or rather Love but 't is very different from them both I know St. Austin defines Pain to be an Aversion the Soul conceives from the Bodies being disposed otherwise than she would have it and that he often confounds Delectation with Charity Pleasure with Joy Pain with Sorrow Pleasure and Joy with Love Pain and Sorrow with Aversion or Hatred But there 's great Probability this Holy Father in all this follow'd the common way of speaking of the Vulgar who confound most of those things which occur in them at one and the same time Or it may be did not examine these things in so Nice and Philosophical a manner as he might have done Yet I think I both may and ought to say that to me it seems necessary exactly to distinguish these things if we would explain our selves clearly and without Equivocation upon most of the Questions handled by him For even Men of a quite opposite Opinion use to build upon the Authority of this great Man because of the various Senses and Constructions his Speech will afford which is not always Nice and accurate enough to reconcile Persons who are perhaps more eager to dispute than desirous to agree THE ILLUSTRATION UPON THE Third CHAPTER of the Second PART of the Sixth BOOK Concerning the Efficacy ascribed to Second Causes EVER since the Transgression of our first Parent the Mind rambling constantly abroad forgets both it self and Him who pierces and enlightens it and is so absurdly pliant to the Seducements of its Body and those about it as to imagine its own Happiness and Perfection is to be found in them He that alone is able to act in us is at present hidden from our Eyes His Operations are of an insensible kind and though he produces and preserves all Beings yet the Mind whilst the earnest Enquirer of the Cause of all things cannot easily know him though it meets him every moment Some Philosophers chuse rather to imagine a Nature and particular Faculties as the Causes of those which we term Natural Effects than to render to God all the Honour that is due to his Power And though they have no Proof nor even clear Idea of this pretended Nature and Faculties as I hope to make appear they had rather talk without knowing what they say and reverence a purely imaginary Power than by any Essay of Thought to discover that Invisible Hand which works all in all things 'T is unavoidable for me to believe that one of the most deplorable Consequences of Original Sin is our having no Taste nor Sense for God or our Incapacity of Tasting or Meeting him without a sort of Dread and Abhorrence We ought to see God in all things to be sensible of his Power and Force in all Natural Effects to admire his Wisdom in the wonderful Order of his Creatures In a word to Worship to Fear to Love Him only in all his Works But in our present State there is a Secret Opposition between Man and GOD Man conscious of his being a Sinner hides himself flies the Light and is afraid to meet his Maker and therefore had rather imagine in surrounding Bodies a blind Power or Nature with which he can be familiar than find in them the terrible Power of an Holy and Just GOD who knows and Operates all in all I confess there are very many Persons who from another Principle than that of the Heathen Philosophers follow their Opinion about Nature and Second Causes But I hope to convince them in the Process of this Discourse that they fall into this Sentiment out of a Prejudice which 't is impossible to shake off without those Succours which are furnish'd by the Principles of a Philosophy that has not always been sufficiently known For in all likelihood this is what has kept them from declaring for an Opinion which I think my self oblig'd to espouse I have a great many Reasons which will not let me attribute to Second or Natural Causes a Force Power or Efficacy to produce any thing whatever The chief whereof is That this Opinion is to me utterly inconceivable Though I use all possible Endeavours to comprehend it I cannot find in my self the Idea to represent to me what can be that Force or Power ascrib'd to the Creatures And I need not fear passing a rash Judgment in affirming that those who hold that the Creatures are endued with a Force and Power advance what they do not clearly conceive For in short if the Philosophers clearly conceive that Second Causes have a true Force to act and produce their Like I being a Man as well as they and participating of the same Sovereign Reason might in all probability discover the Idea which represent to them that Force But all the efforts that my Mind can make can discover no other Force Efficacy or Power than in the Will of the Infinitely perfect Being Besides when I think upon the different Opinions of Philosophers upon this subject I can no longer doubt of my assertion For if they saw clearly what this Power of Creatures was or what was in them truly powerful they would agree in their Opinion about it When Men cannot accord though they have no private Interest to hinder them 't is a certain Sign they have no clear Idea of what they say and that they understand not one another especially if they dispute on subjects that are not of a Complex Nature and of difficult discussion like this before us For there would be no difficulty to resolve it if Men had a clear Idea of a created Force or Power Here then follow some of their Opinions that we may see how little agreement there is among them There are Philosophers who maintain that second Causes act by their Matter Figure and Motion and these in one sense are right enough Others by their substantial form Many by Accidents or Qualities some by Matter and Form others by Form and Accidents and others still by certain vertues or faculties distinct from all this There are of them who affirm that the substantial Form produces Forms
in difficult Questions that the Mind must survey at one sight a multiplicity of Relations that are between two things or more it is plain that if it has not consider'd these things very attentively or if it has but a confus'd Knowledge of them it can never have a distinct Perception of their Relation and consequently cannot make any solid Judgment of them One of the main Causes of our Mind 's wanting Application for Abstract Truths is our seeing them as at a Distance whilst other things are continually offering themselves to the Mind that are nearer at hand The great Attention of the Mind brings home as I may say the remote Idea's of the Objects we consider But it often falls out that when a Man is very intent on Metaphysical Speculation he is easily thrown off from them by some accidental Sensations breaking in upon the Soul which sit closer to it than those Idea's For there needs no more than a little Pleasure or Pain to do it The Reason whereof is that Pleasure and Pain and all Sensations in general are within the very Soul They modifie her and touch her more to the quick than the simple Idea's of Objects of Pure Intellection which though present to the Mind neither touch nor modifie it at all And thus the Mind on one hand being of a straitned and narrow reach and on the other unable to prevent feeling Pain and all its other Sensations has its Capacity fill'd up with them and so cannot at one and the same time be sensible of any thing and think freely of other Objects that are not sensible The Humming of a Fly or of any other little Animal supposing it communicated to the principal part of the Brain and perceiv'd by the Soul is capable do what we can of interrupting our Consideration of very Abstract and Sublime Truths because no Abstract Idea's modifie the Soul whereas all Sensations do From hence arises that Stupidity and Drousiness of the Mind in regard of the most Fundamental Truths of Christian Morality which Men know only in a Speculative and Fruitless manner without the Grace of JESVS CHRIST All the World knows there is a GOD and that this GOD is to be serv'd and worshipp'd But who is it that serves and worships him without the Divine Grace which alone gives us a relish of Delight and Pleasure in these Duties There are but very few that do not perceive the Emptiness and Inconstancy of Earthly Goods and that are not convinc'd with an Abstract though most certain and evident Conviction that they are indeserving of our Cares and Application But where are those who despise these Goods in their Practice and deny their Pains and Application to acquire them 'T is only they that perceive some Bitterness and Distaste in the Injoyment of them or that Grace has made sensible to Spiritual Goods by an inward Delectation affix'd to them by GOD 't is these only who vanquish the Impressions of Sense and the Strugglings of Concupiscence A View of the Mind alone can never make us resist them as we should do but besides that View there must be a certain Sensation of the Heart That Intellectual Light all alone is if you please the Sufficient Grace which makes only for our Condemnation which acquaints us with our own Weakness and of our Duty of flying by Prayer to Him who is our Strength But the Sensation of the Heart is a Lively and Operative Grace 'T is this which touches us inward which fills us and perswades the Heart and without it there is no body that considers with the Heart Nemo est qui recogitet corde All the most certain Truths of Morality lye conceal'd in the folds and doubles and secret corners of the Mind and as long as they continue there are barren and inactive since the Soul has no relish of them But the Pleasures of the Senses dwell nearer to the Soul and since she cannot be insensible to or out of love with her Pleasure 't is impossible to disengage her self from the Earth and to get rid of the Charms and Delusions of her Senses by her own Strength and Abilities I deny not however but the Righteous whose Heart has been already vigorously turn'd towards GOD by a preventing Delectation may without that particular Grace perform some Meritorious Actions and resist the Motions of Concupiscence There are those who are couragious and constant in the Law of GOD by the strength of their Faith by the care they have to deprive themselves of Sensible Goods and by the contempt and dislike of every thing that can give them any temptation There are such as act for the most part without the taste of Indeliberate or Preventing Pleasure That sole Joy they find in acting according to the Will of GOD is the only Pleasure they taste and that Pleasure suffices to make them persevere in their state and to confirm the Disposition of their Heart Those who are Novice Converts have generally need of an Indeliberate or Preventing Pleasure to disintangle them from Sensible Goods to which they are fastened by other Preventing and Indeliberate Pleasures Sorrow and Remorse of their Consciences are not sufficient for this purpose and as yet they taste no Joy But the Just can live by Faith and that in Indigence and 't is likewise in this Estate they merit most Forasmuch as Men being Reasonable Creatures GOD will be lov'd by them with a Love of Choice and not with a Love of Instinct or an Indeliberate Love like that wherewith we love Sensible things without knowing they be Good otherwise than from the Pleasure we receive in them Notwithstanding most Men having but little Faith and yet constant opportunities of tasting Pleasures cannot long preserve their Elective Love for GOD against their Natural Love for sensible Goods unless the Delectation of Grace support them against the Efforts of Pleasure For the Delectation of Grace produces preserves and augments Charity as Sensible Pleasures Cupidity It is apparent enough from what has been said that Men being never free from some Passion or some pleasant or troublesome Sensations have their Capacity and Extent of Mind much taken up and when they would imploy the remainder of its Capacity in examining any Truth they are frequently diverted by some new Sensations through the dislike they take to that Exercise and the Inconstancy of the Will which tosses and bandies the Mind from Object to Object without letting it stand still So that unless we have habituated our selves from our Youth to the conquering all these Oppositions as I have explain'd in the Second Part we find our selves at last incapable of piercing into any thing that 's somewhat difficult and demands something of Application Hence we are to conclude That all Sciences and especially such as include Questions very hard to be clear'd up and explain'd abound with an infinite number of Errors And that we ought to have in suspicion those bulky
is very efficacious to the keeping up Society But there is a strange Corruption in these Inclinations no less than in Friendship Compassion Good-will and others which tend to the uniting Men together What ought to hold up a Civil Society is commonly the Cause of its Disunion and Downfal and not to depart from my Subject is often the Cause of the Communication and Establishment of Errour Among all the Inclinations necessary to Civil Society those which subject us most to Errour are Friendship Favour Gratitude and whatever induce us to speak too advantageously on others in their Presence We set no Bounds to our Love of the Person of our Friends together with them we love whatever after any sort appertains to them and whereas they commonly express their Vehemence and Passion for the Defence of their Opinions they insensibly incline us to believe approve and defend them with as great or greater Obstinacy and Passion than themselves because it would often look but ill in them to be hot in maintaining their Opinions whereas we might defend them without being blam'd for it For in them it would be Self-love in us Generosity Our Affection for other Men proceeds from as many Accounts as they may please and serve us several ways Likeness of Humours of Inclinations Employments their Air their Behaviour their Vertue Estate the Affection or Esteem they express for us the Services they have formerly done or those we hope from them and many other particular Reasons determine us to love them If it fortune then that any one of our Friends that is some Person who has the same Inclinations an handsome Deportment delightful Discourse a vertuous Repute or is of great Quality who testifies an Esteem and Affection for us who has done us any former Service or from whom we hope any future or in fine whom we love for any other particular Reason If such a Person I say chances to advance any Proposition we greedily embrace it without consulting our Reason We maintain his Opinion insollicitous for the Truth of it and even sometimes against the Conviction of our Conscience according as we are determin'd by either the Obscurity and Confusion of our Mind the Corruption of our Heart or the Advantages we hope to reap from our False Generosity There is no need of bringing particular Examples of what I say since we rarely can be in Company an Hour together without observing several if we make but a little Reflexion Favour and Laughter according to the Common Saying are seldom on the side of Truth but almost always on the side of those we love 'T is a Well-bred and Obliging Gentleman that speaks he is certainly therefore in the right If what he says be only probable it 's look'd upon as true if absolutely impertinent and ridiculous it will at least amount to a Probability If it be a Man that loves me esteems me has done me some Kindness or is dispos'd or capacitated to do it has maintain'd my Opinion on other Occasions I shall be both ungrateful and unwise if I oppugn his or even fail to applaud him Thus Truth is sported with and made to truckle to our Interest and we caress the false Opinions of each other A worthy Man ought not to take it ill to be inform'd or instructed if it be done by the Rules of good Manners but if our Friends are disgusted when we modestly represent to them their Mistake we must permit them to love themselves and their Errours since they will have it so and because we have no Power to command them nor to change their Mind But a true Friend ought never to approve the Errours of his Friend for we ought to consider that we do them greater Injury than we imagine when we defend their Opinions without distinction Our Applauses serve only to swell their Heart and strengthen them in their Errours whereby they grow incorrigible and act and decide at last as if they were infallible Whence comes it that the most Rich the most Powerful the most Noble and generally all that are above others believe themselves commonly infallible and deport themselves as if they had more Reason than Men of a Lower and Meaner Condition but from a servile Approbation indifferently given to all their Thoughts So likewise the Approbation we give our Friends insensibly leads them to believe themselves wiser than others which makes them arrogant presumptuous and imprudent and obnoxious to the grossest Errours without perceiving them For which Reason it is that our Enemies often do us better Service and open our Mind more by their Oppositions than our Friends by their Applauses because the former keep us to our Guard and make us give heed to what we advance which one thing suffices to acquaint us with our Ramblings but the latter lull us to sleep and give us an ungrounded Confidence that makes us Vain and Ignorant Men should never therefore admire their Friends and submit to their Opinions out of an Affection as they ought not out of Disaffection to oppose their Enemies But they ought to divest themselves of the Spirit of Flattery and Contradiction that they may grow sincere and approve the Evidence of Truth where ever they find it We ought moreover to fix it well in our Mind that most Men are dispos'd to Flatter or Compliment us through a kind of Natural Inclination either to shew their Parts or to obtain the good Favour of others from the Hope of a Return or lastly out of a kind of Invidiousness and Raillery And we ought never to let our Brains be turn'd with any thing they can say to us Is it not a thing of daily Practice to see Men that are unacquainted cry up each other to the Heavens upon the very first Intercourse And what more common than for Men to give excessive Praises and to express even Extatick Admiration to a Person upon a Publick Performance even in the Company of those with whom they have ridiculed him just before Whenever a Man cries out and turns pale with Admiration as if astonish'd at what he hears 't is no good Proof that the Speaker utters Wonders but rather that he has a flattering Auditory that he has Friends or it may be Enemies that give themselves diversion That he talks in an engaging strain that he is Rich or Powerful or if you will 't is a good Proof that his Discourse is founded on the confus'd and obscure but very moving and agreeable Notions of the Senses or that he has a lively Imagination since Praises are bestow'd on Friendship Riches Honours Probabilities but rarely upon Truth 'T will perhaps be expected that having treated in general of the Inclinations of the Mind I should now descend to an exact Discussion of all the particular Motions it is sensible of upon the Sight of Good and Evil viz. That I should explicate the Nature of Love Hatred Joy Sorrow and all the Intellectual Passions whether General or Particular
us The second is a New Determination of the Motion of the Will towards that Object provided it be or seem to be a Good Before that View the Natural Motion of the Soul was either undetermin'd that is to say she was carried towards Good in general or it otherwise determined by the knowledge of some particular Object But in the very instant of the mind 's perceiving that Relation of the new Object to it self that general Motion of the Will is forthwith determin'd conformably to the perception of the Mind The Soul advances near that Object by her Love that she may relish it and discover her good in it through a sensible delectation which the Author of Nature affords her as a Natural Reward of her Inclination to Good She judged that that Object was a Good by an abstracted and unpathetick Reason but she persists in the persuasion of it through the Efficacy of Sensation and the livelyer that Sensation is the stronger is her adhesion to the Good that seems to be the Cause of it But if that particular Object be considered as Evil or able to deprive us of some Good there happens no New Determination in the Motion of the Will but only the Motion towards the Good oppos'd to that seemingly evil Object is augmented which augmentation is greater or lesâer as the Evil seems to be more or less formidable to us For indeed we hate only because we love and the Evil that is without us is judg'd no farther Evil than with reference to the Good of which it deprives us So that Evil being consider'd as a privation of Good to fly from Evil is to fly the privation of Good which is the same thing as to tend towards Good and therefore there happens no new determination of the Natural Motion of the Will at the presence of an unwelcome Object but only a Sensation painful distasteful or imbitter'd which the Author of Nature inflicts on the Soul as a pain naturally consequent to her being depriv'd of Good Reason alone had not been sufficient to carry her to it wherefore this painful and vexing Sensation is superadded to quicken her Thence I conclude that in any Passion whatsoever all the Motions of the Soul towards Good are the Motions of Love But as we are affected with divers Sensations according to the various Circumstances that attend the View of Good and the Motion of the Soul towards it so we come to confound our Sensations with the Commotions of the Soul and to imagine as many different Motions in the Passions as there are different Sensations Upon this head it must be observed that Pain is a true and real Evil and no more the Privation of Pleasure than Pleasure the Privation of Pain for there is a great difference betwixt not feeling or being depriv'd of such a Sensation of Pleasure and the actual enduring of Pain So that every Evil is not precisely so because it deprives us of Good but only that Evil as I have explain'd that is without us or is not a Modification of our Soul Nevertheless as by Goods and Evils we commonly understand things good or evil and not the Sensations of Pleasure and Pain which are rather the natural Tokens by which the Soul distinguishes Good from Evil it may be said methinks without Equivocation that Evil is nothing but the privation of Good and that the natural motion of the Soul that removes us from Evil is the same with that which carries us to good for in brief all natural Motion being an Impression of the Author of Nature whose acting centers in himself and who can incline us only towards himself The true Motion of the Soul is always essentially the Love of Good and but accidentally an Aversion from Evil. I grant that Pain may be consider'd as an Evil and in that sense the Motion of the Passions which is stir'd up by it is not real since we never will Pain and though we positively will the absence of Pain yet 't is only because we positively will the Preservation or Perfection of our Being The third thing to be observ'd in every Passion is the Sensation that attends them the Sensation of Love Hatred Desire Joy Sorrow which are all different in the different Passions The fourth thing is a new Determination of the course of the Animal Spirits and Blood to the outward and inward parts of the Body Before the View of the Object of the Passion the vital Spirits were dispers'd throughout the whole Body for the preservation of all its parts in general but at the appearance of that new Object all this Order and Oeconomy is disturb'd and most part of the Spirits are thrown into the Muscles of the Arms Legs Face and other exteriour parts of the Body to put them in a disposition suitable to the ruling Passion and to give it such a gesture and motion as are necessary for the obtaining or avoiding the imminent Good or Evil But if its own Forces are insufficient for its occasions these same Spirits are distributed in such a manner as make it machinally utter certain words and cries and which diffuse over the Face and the rest of the Body such an air and comportment as is capable of actuating others with the same Passion it self is possess'd with For Men and Beasts having a mutual cohesion by the Eyes and Ears when any one of them is in a violent Commotion it necessarily affects the Spectators and Hearers and naturally makes upon their Imagination such an Impression as troubles them and moves them to preserve it As to the rest of the Animal Spirits they violently descend into the Heart Lungs Liver Spleen and other Viscera thence to draw contributions and to hasten those parts to send forth a sufficient and timely supply of Spirits necessary to preserve the Body in that extraordinary Contention The fifth thing is a sensible Commotion of the Soul who feels her self agitated by an unexpected overflow of Spirits This sensible Commotion of the Soul always attends that Motion of the Spirits that the Soul may participate of all that affects the Body even as the Motion of Spirits is raised in the Body when the Soul is carried toward any Object For the Body and Soul being mutually united their Motions are reciprocal The sixth thing are several Sensations of Love Hatred Joy Desire Sorrow that are produced not by the Intellectual view of Good or Evil as those that have been already mention'd but by the various concussions that are caused in the Brain by the Animal Spirits The seventh thing is a certain Sensation of Joy or rather internal Satisfaction which detains the Soul in her Passion and assures her that she is in the fittest State she can be in reference to the Object she considers This internal satisfaction attends all the Passions whatsoever whether they proceed from the sight of an Evil or from the sight of a Good Sorrow as well as Joy This satisfaction makes
alteration of the Countenance of his Enemy the Animal Spirits of that Enemy receive a new determination of which they were not capable a moment before and this Machinal Motion of Compassion which he yields to inclines the Soul to yield to the Pleas of Charity and Mercy Because a Man taken up with a Passion cannot without a great plenty of Spirits produce or preserve in his Brain an Image of his Misery lively enough nor a Concussion sufficiently strong to give his Body an extraordinary and constrain'd Disposition the corresponding Nerves within the Body receive upon his sight of the Evil the Concussions and Agitations that are necessary to infuse into all the Vessels that communicate with the Heart fit Humours to the producing such Spirits as the Passion requires For the Animal Spirits spreading through the Nerves that go to the Liver Spleen Pancreas and all the other Viscera agitate and shake them and by their Agitation force out such Humours as those parts keep in reserve for the Wants and Exigencies of the Machine But if those Humours always flowed in the same manner into the Heart if they received an equal Fermentation in different times and the Spirits that are made of them regularly ascended into the Brain we should not see such hasty Changes in the Motions of the Passions For instance the sight of a Magistrate would not stop of a sudden the extravagant Transports of an enraged Person persuing his Revenge and his Face all fiery with Blood and Spirits would not in an instant turn pale and wan for fear of Punishment So to hinder those Humours that are mixed with the Blood from entering the Heart constantly in the same manner there are Nerves that surround all the Avenues thereof which being compressed or dilated by the Impression that the sight of the Object and the strength of the Imagination produce in the Spirits shut up or open the way to those Humours And lest the said Humours should undergo the same Agitation and Fermentation in the Heart in divers times there are other Nerves that cause the Beatings of it which being not equally agitated in the different Motions of the Spirits drive not the Blood with the same force into the Arteries Other Nerves spread through the Lungs distribute the Air to the Heart by constringing or relaxing several Branches of the Trachea used in Respiration and order the Fermentation of the Blood proportionably to the Circumstances of the predominant Passion Last of all to regulate with the greatest Accuracy and Readiness the Course of the Spirits there are Nerves surrounding the Arteries as well those that end in the Brain as those that carry the Blood into the other parts of the Body so that the Concussion of the Brain which accompanies the unexpected Sight of some Circumstance for which 't is convenient that the Motions of the Passion should be alter'd suddenly determines the Course of the Spirits to the Nerves thus surrounding the Arteries that by their Contraction they may shut up the Passage to the Blood that ascends into the Brain and by their Dilatation lay it open to that which runs into all the other Parts of the Body When those Arteries that carry the Blood to the Brain are free and open and on the contrary those that disperse it through the rest of the Body are strongly bound up by these Nerves the Head must all be full of Blood and the Face appear all fiery but some Circumstance altering the Commotion of the Brain that caused that Disposition in the Nerves the Arteries that were strait bound are loosened and on the contrary the Arteries of the Brain strongly contracted Then is the Head emptied of Bloud the Face covered with Paleness and the small quantity of Blood which issues from the Heart and which the Nerves before mentioned admit into it as the Fewel to keep in Life descends most or all into the lower parts of the Body the Brain wants Animal Spirits and all the rest of the Body is seized with Weakness and Trembling To explain and prove the Particulars of what we have mentioned it would be necessary to give a general Knowledge of Physicks and a particular of the Humane Body but those two Sciences are still too imperfect to be treated of with as much Accuracy as I could Wish besides that should I proceed farther in this Matter it would carry me too far from my Subject and therefore I only design here to give a gross and general Idea of the Passions and am satisfied provided that this Idea be not false Those Concussions of the Brain and Motions of the Blood and Spirits are the fourth thing to be found in every Passion and produce the fifth namely the sensible Commotions of the Soul At the very Instant that the Animal Sprits are driven from the Brain into the rest of the Body to produce such Motions as are fit to keep up the Passion the Soul is carried towards the good perceived and this more or less strongly according as the Spirits come down from the Brain with more or less vehemence for 't is that Concussion of the Brain which agitates the Soul and the Animal Spirits The Motion of the Soul towards Good is so much stronger as the View of Good is more sensible and apparent and the Motion of the Spirits that proceed from the Brain and flow into the other parts of the Body is the more violent as the Vibration of the Fibres of the Brain caused by the Impression of the Object or of the Imagination is more forcible because that Concussion of the Brain occasioning a more sensible and lively View of Good necessarily makes the Commotion of the Soul in the Passions to increase proportionably to the Motion of the Spirits Those Commotions of the Soul are not different from those that immediately follow the Intellectual View of Good which we have mentioned before only they are stronger and livelyer because of the Union of the Soul and Body and the sensibleness of the View that produces them The sixth thing to be met with is the Sensation of the Passion the Sensation of Love Hatred Desire Joy or Sorrow This Sensation is not at all different from that which has been spoken of only 't is livelyer because the Body has a greater share in it but 't is always attended with confused Sensation of Satisfaction that makes all the Passions grateful which is the last thing to be found in each of them as has been already hinted The Cause of this last Sensation is such At the sight of the Object of a Passion or of any new Circumstance part of the Animal Spirits are driven from the Head to the outward Parts of the Body to put it in the Disposition that the Passion requires together with which some other Spirits make a violent descent into the Heart Lungs and other Viscera to draw from thence the necessary Supplies as has been already sufficiently explained Now the Body is never in
is not strange that our Sensations should agitate us and quicken our love for sensible things whereas our Light dissipates and vanishes without producing any zeal and ardency for Truth 'T is true that several Men are persuaded that God is their real Good love him as their All and earnestly desire to strengthen and increase their Union with him But few evidently know that by meditating on the Truth we unite our selves to God as far as natural strength can attain that it is a sort of Enjoyment of him to contemplate the true Ideas of things and that that abstracted view of some general and immutable Truths on which all the particulars depend are flights of a Mind that sequesters it self from the Body to unite it self to God Metaphysicks speculative Mathematicks and all those universal Sciences which regulate and contain the particular as the Universal Being comprehends all particular Beings seem to be Chimerical to most Men as well to the pious as to those that do not love God So that I dare hardly make bold to say that the study of those Sciences is the most pure and perfect Application to God that the Mind may be naturally capable of and that it is by the sight of the Intellectual World which is their Object that God has produced and still knows this sensible World from which Bodies receive their Life as Spirits live from the other Those that purely follow the Impressions of their Senses and motions of their Passions are not capable of relishing the Truth because it flatters them not And even the Vertuous who constantly oppose their Passions when they proffer them false Goods do not always resist them when they conceal from them the Truth and make it despicable because one may be pious without being a Man of parts To please God we need not exactly know that our Senses Imagination and Passions always represent things otherwise than they are since it appears not that our Lord and his Apostles ever intended to undeceive us of several Errours upon this matter which Descartes has discover'd to us There is a great difference betwixt Faith and Understanding the Gospel and Philosophy the greatest Clowns are capable of Faith but few can attain to the pure Knowledge of Evident Truth Faith represents to vulgar Men God as the Creator of Heaven and Earth which is a sufficient motive of Love and Duty towards him whereas Reason knowing that God was God before he was Creator not only considers him in his Works but also endeavours to contemplate him in himself or in that immense Idea of the infinitely perfect Being which is included in him The Son of God who is the Wisdom of his Father or the Eternal Truth made himself Man and became sensible that he might be known by Men of Flesh and Blood by gross material Men that he might instruct them by that which was the Cause of their Blindness and draw them to the love of him and disengage them from sensible goods by the same things that had enslav'd them for having to doe with Fools he thought fit to take upon him a sort of Folly whereby to make them wise So that the most pious Men and truest Believers have not always the greatest Understanding They may know God by Faith and love him by the help of his Grace without understanding that he is their All in the sense Philosophers understand him and without thinking that the abstracted Knowledge of Truth is a sort of a Union with him We ought not therefore to be surprized if so few Persons labour to strengthen their natural Union with God by the Knowledge of Truth since to this there is required a continual opposition of the Impressions of the Senses and Passions in a very different way from that which is usual with the Vertuous who are not always persuaded that the Senses and Passions abuse them in the manner that has been explain'd in the foregoing Books The Sensations and Thoughts in which the Body has a share are the sole and immediate Cause of the Passions as proceeding from the Concussion of the Fibres of the Brain raising some particular Commotion in the Animal Spirits And therefore Sensations are the only sensible proofs of our dependence on some things which they excite us to love but we feel not our Natural Union with God when we know the Truth and do not so much as think upon him because he is and operates in us so privately and insensibly as to be imperceptible to our selves And this is the Reason that our natural Union with God raises not our Love for him But it goes quite otherwise with our Union to sensible things All our Sensations prove it and Bodies appear before our Eyes when they act in us Their Action is visible and manifest Our Body is even more present to us than our Mind and we consider the former as the best part of our Selves So that our Union to our Body and by it to sensible Objects excites in us a violent Love which increases that Union and makes us depend on things that are infinitely below us CHAP. VI. Of the more general Errours of the Passions with some particular Instances 'T IS the part of Moral Philosophy to discover the particular Errours concerning Good in which our Passions engage us to oppose irregular affections to restore the Integrity of the Heart and to rule the Course of our Life But here we chiefly aim at giving Rules to the Mind and finding out the Causes of our Errours in reference to Truth so that we shall not proceed farther in those Matters that relate to the Love of true Good We are tending to the Instruction of the Mind and only take the Heart in the way in as much as the Heart is its Master We search into Truth it self without a special Respect to our selves and we consider its Relation with us only because that Relation is the Spring of self-Self-love's disguising and concealing it from us for we judge of all things by our Passions whence it is that we mistake in all things the Judgments of Passions never agreeing with the Judgments of Truth 'T is what we learn in these excellent Words of St. Bernard Neither Love nor Hatred know how to make a Judgment according to Truth Will you hear a true Judgment As I hear I judge says our Lord he says not as I hate as I love or as I fear Here you have a Judgment of Hatred We have a Law say the Jews and by that Law he ought to die Here a Judgment of Fear If we let him alone say the Pharisees the Romans shall come and take away our Place and Nation Here another of Love as that of David speaking of his Parricide Son Spare the young Man Absalom Our Love Hatred and Fear cause us to make false Judgments only Nothing but the pure Light of Truth can illuminate our Mind nothing but the distinct Voice of our common Master can cause us to make
great and solid Truth which they have rendred familiar and which bears 'em up and strengthens them in all Occasions CHAP. IX Of Love and Aversion and their principal Species LOve and Hatred are the Passions that immediately succeed Admiration for we dwell not long upon the Consideration of an Object without discovering the Relations it hath to us or to something we love The Object we love and to which consequently we are united by that Passion being for the most part present as well as that which we actually admire our Mind quickly and without any considerable Reflection makes the necessary Comparisons to find out the Relations they have to each other and to us or else is naturally aware of them by a preventing Sense of Pleasure and Pain Then it is that the Motion of Love we have for our selves and for the beloved Object extends to that which is admired if the Relation it has immediately to us or to something united to us appear advantageous either by Knowledge or Sensation Now that new Motion of the Soul or rather that Motion of the Soul newly determin'd join'd to that of the Animal Spirits and followed with the Sensation that attends the new Disposition that the same new Motion of the Spirits produces in the Brain is the Passion we call here Love But when we feel by any Pain or discover by a clear and evident Knowledge that the Union or Relation of the admired Object would prove disserviceable to us or to something united to us then the Motion of the Love we have for our selves or for the Thing united to us terminates in us or cleaves to the united Object without following the View of the Mind or being carried to the admired Thing But as the Motion towards Good in general which the Author of Nature continually imprints on the Soul carries her to whatever is known and felt because what is either intelligible or sensible is Good in it self so it may be said that the Resistance of the Soul against that natural Motion which attracts it is a kind of voluntary Motion which terminates in Nothingness Now that voluntary Motion of the Soul being join'd to that of the Spirits and Blood and followed by the Sensation that attends the new Disposition which that Motion of the Spirits produces in the Brain is the Passion we call here Aversion or Hatred That Passion is altogether contrary to Love and yet 't is never without Love It is altogether contrary to it because Aversion separates and Love unites the former has most commonly Nothingness for its Object and the latter has always a Being The former resists the natural Motion and makes it of no effect whereas the latter yields to it and makes it victorious However Aversion is never separated from Love because Evil the Object of the former is the Privation of Good so that to fly from Evil is to fly from the Privation of Good that is to say to tend to Good And therefore the Aversion of the Privation of Good is the Love of Good But if Evil be taken for Pain the Aversion of Pain is not the Aversion of the Privation of Pleasure because Pain is as real a Sensation as Pleasure and therefore is not the Privation of it But the Aversion of Pain being the Aversion of some internal Misery we should not be affected with that Passion should we not love our selves Lastly If Evil be taken for what causes Pain in us or for whatever deprives us of Good then Aversion depends on self-Self-love or on the Love of something to which we desire to be united So that Love and Aversion are two Mother-Passions opposite to each other but Love is the First the Chief and the most Universal As at that great Distance and Estrangement we are from God since the Fall we look upon our Being as the Chief Part of the Things to which we are united so it may be said in some sense that our Motion of Love for any thing whatsoever is an Effect of Self-love We love Honours because they raise us our Riches because they maintain and preserve us our Relations Prince and Country because we are concern'd in their Preservation Our Motion of Self-love reaches to all the Things that relate to us and to which we are united because 't is that Motion which unites us to them and spreads our Being if I may so speak on those that surround us proportionably as we discover by Reason or by Sensation that it is our Interest to be united to them And therefore we ought not to think that since the Fall Self-Love is only the Cause and Rule of all other Affections but that most part of other Affections are Species of Self-love For when we say that a Man loves any new Object we must not suppose that a new Motion of Love is produc'd in him but rather that knowing that Object to have some Relation or Union with him he loves himself in that Object and that with a Motion of Love coeval to himself For indeed without Grace there is nothing but Self-love in the Heart of Man The Love of Truth of Justice of God himself and every other Love that is in us by the first Institution of Nature have ever since the Fall been a Sacrifice to Self-love There is no doubt however but the most wicked and barbarous Men Idolaters and Atheists themselves are united to God by a natural Love of which consequently Self-love is not the Cause for they are united to him by their Love to Truth Justice and Vertue they praise and esteem good Men and do not love them because they are Men but because they see in them such Qualities as they cannot forbear to love because they cannot forbear to admire and judge them amiable And therefore we love something besides our selves but self-Self-love over-rules all the rest and Men forsake Truth and Justice for the smallest Concerns For when by their natural Force they venture their Goods and Lives to defend oppress'd Innocence or on any other Occasion their greatest Spur is mere Vanity and the hopes of getting a Name by the seeming Possession of a Vertue which is reverenc'd by all the World They love Truth and Justice when on their side but never against themselves because without Grace they cannot obtain the least Victory over Self-love There are many other sorts of natural Love We naturally love our Prince Country Relations those that have any Conformity of Humour Designs and Employments with us But all those sorts of Love are very weak as well as the Love of Truth and Justice and Self-love being the most violent of all conquers them so easily as to find no other Resistance but what it creates against it self Bodies that strike against others lose their Motion proportionably as they communicate it to the stricken and after having moved many other Bodies may at last entirely lose their own Motion It is not so with Self-love It determines every
Will being not equal even among the Damn'd it is plain they are not all equally opposite to Order and that they do not hate it in all cases unless in consequence of their Hatred to God For as no one can hate Good consider'd barely as such so no one can hate Order but when it seems to thwart his Inclinations But though it seem contrary to our Inclinations it nevertheless retains the force of a Law which Condemns and also punishes us by a Worm that never dies Now then we see what Order is and how it has the strength of a Law by that necessary Love which God has for himself We conceive how this Law comes to be general for all Minds God not excepted and why it is necessary and absolutely indispensible Lastly we conceive or we may easily conceive in general that it is the Principle of all Divine and Humane Laws and that 't is according to this Law that all Intelligences are judg'd and all Creatures dispos'd in the respective rank that belongs to them I acknowledge it is not easie to explain all this in particular and I venture not to undertake it For should I go to show the Connexion particular Laws have with the general and account for the agreement which certain manners of acting have to Order I should be forc'd to engage in Difficulties that it may be I could not resolve and which would lead me out of sight of my subject Nevertheless if it be consider'd that God neither has nor can have any other Law than his own Wisdom and the necessary Love he has for it we shall easily judge that all Divine Laws must depend on it And if it be observ'd that he has made the World with reference only to that Wisdom and Love since he acts only for Himself we shall not doubt but all natural Laws must tend to the Preservation and Perfection of this World according to indispensable Order and by their dependance on necessary Love For the Wisdom and Will of God regulates all things There is no need I should explain at present this Principle more at large what I have already said being sufficient to infer this Consequence That in the first institution of Nature it was Impossible for Minds to be subjected to Bodies For since God cannot act without Knowledge and against his Will he has made the World by his Wisdom and by the motion of his Love He has made all things by his Son and in his Holy Spirit as we are taught in Scripture Now in the Wisdom of God Minds are perfecter than Bodies and by the necessary Love God has for himself he prefers what is more perfect to what is less so Therefore it is not possible that Minds should be subject to Bodies in the first institution of Nature Otherwise it must be said that God in creating the World has not follow'd the Rules of his Eternal Wisdom nor the Motions of his natural and necessary Love which not only is inconceivable but involves a manifest contradiction True it is that at present the created Mind is debas'd below a material and sensible Body but that 's because Order considered as a necessary Law will have it so 'T is because God loving himself by a necessary Love which is always his Inviolable Law cannot love Spirits that are repugnant to him nor consequently prefer them to Bodies in which there is nothing evil nor in the hatred of God For God loves not Sinners in themselves Nor would they subsist in the Universe but through JESUS CHRIST God neither preserves them nor loves them but that they may cease to be Sinners through the Grace of CHRIST JESUS or that if they remain eternally Sinners they may be eternally condemned by immutable and necessary Order and by the Judgment of our LORD by vertue of whom they subsist for the Glory of the Divine Justice for without Him they would be annihilated This I say by the way to clear some difficulties that might remain touching what I said elsewhere about Original Sin or the general Corruption of Nature 'T is if I mistake not a very useful reflection to consider that the Mind has but two ways of knowing Objects By Light and by Sensation It sees them by Light when it has a clear Idea of them and when by consulting that Idea it can discover all the properties whereof they are capable It sees things by Sensation when it finds not in it self their clear Idea to consult it and so cannot clearly discover their properties but only know them by a confus'd Sensation without Light and Evidence 'T is by Light and a clear Idea the mind sees the Essences of things Numbers and Extension 'T is by a confus'd Idea or Sensation that it judges of the Existence of Creatures and knows its own What the Mind perceives by Light or by a clear Idea it perceives in a most perfect manner moreover it sees clearly that all the Obscurity or Imperfection of its Knowledge proceeds from its own Weakness and Limitation or from want of Application and not from the Imperfection of the Idea it perceives But what the mind perceives by Sensation is never clearly known not for want of any Application on part of the Mind for we always are very applicative to what we feel but by the defectiveness of the Idea which is extreamly obscure and confus'd Hence we may conclude that it is in God or in an immutable nature that we see all that we know by Light or a clear Idea not only because we discover by Light only numbers Extension and the Essences of Beings which depend not on a free Act of God as I have already said but also because we know these things in a very perfect manner and we should even know them in an infinitely perfect manner if our thinking Capacity were infinite since nothing is wanting to the Idea that represents them We ought likewise to conclude that we see in our selves whatever we know by Sensation However this is not as if we could produce in our selves any new modification or that the sensations or modifications of our Soul could represent the Objects on occasion whereof God excites them in us But only that our Sensations which are not distinguished from our selves and consequently cannot represent any thing distinct from us may nevertheless represent the existence of Beings or cause us to judge that they exist For God raising Sensations in us upon the presence of Objects by an action that has nothing sensible we fancy we receive from the Object not only the Idea which represents its essence but also the Sensation which makes us judge of its existence For there is always a pure Idea and a confused Sensation in the Knowledge we have of things as actually existing if we except that of God and of our own Soul I except the Existence of God For this we know by a pure Idea and without Sensation since it depends not on any cause and
Experience of the ablest Physicians THE ILLUSTRATION UPON THE Third CHAPTER of the Fifth BOOK That Love is different from Pleasure and Joy THE Mind commonly confounds things that are very different when they happen at the same time and are not contrary to each other As I have shown by many Instances in this Work because herein chiefly consist our Errors in Respect of what passes within us Being we have no clear Idea of âhat constitutes the Nature or Essence of our Mind nor of any of the Modification it can receive it often falls out that to our confounding different things they need but happen in us at the same time For we easily confound what we know not by a clear and distinct Ideâ It is not only impossible clearly to conceive wherein consists the difference of our Internal Motions it is even difficult to discover any difference between them For to do this we must turn our Eyes inward and retire into our selves not to consider them with reference to Good and Evil which we do willingly enough But to contemplate our selves with an abstract and barren consideration which costs us great trouble and distraction of Thought We easily conceive that the Roundness of a Body differs from its Motion and though we know by Experience that a Bowl on a plane cannot be press'd without being mov'd and so Motion and Roundness are found together Yet we use not to confound them with one another because we conceive Motion and Figure by clear and distinct Ideas But 't is not so with Pleasure and Love which we almost always confound together Our Mind grows as it were Moveable by Pleasure as a Bowl by it's roundness and because it is never void of an impression towards Good it immediately puts it self in Motion towards the Objects which causes or seems to cause the Pleasure So that the Motion of Love happening in the Soul at the very time of it's feeling this Pleasure is sufficient to make her undistinguish or confound them because she has no clear Idea of her Love and Pleasure as she has of Figure and Motion And for this Reason some are perswaded that Pleasure and Love are not different and that I distinguish too many things in each of our Passions But that it may clearly appear that Pleasure and Love are two very different things I divide Pleasures into two sorts the one sort precedes Reason as are agreeable Sensations and go commonly by the Name of the Pleasures of the Body The other sort neither precede Reason nor the senses and are generally call'd the Pleasures of the Soul Such is the Joy that arise in us in pursuance of a clear knowledge of confus'd sensation we have of some Good that either does or shall accrue to us For Example a Man in tasting a Fruit which he does not know finds pleasure in eating it if it be good for Nourishment Which is a preceding or preventing Pleasure for since he feels it before he knows whether the Fruit be good 't is evident it prevents his Reason An Huntsman when hungry expects to find or actually finds something Eatable which gives him an actual sense of Joy Now this Joy is a Pleasure which follows the knowledge of his present or future good It is perhaps evident by this distinction of Pleasure into that which follows and that which prevents Reason that neither of them but differs from Love For preventing pleasure undoubtedly precedes Love since it precedes all Knowledge which some way or other is always suppos'd by Love On the contrary Joy or the Pleasure which supposes foregoing Knowledge presupposes likewise Love since Joy supposes either a confus'd Sensation or a clear Knowledge of the present or future Possession of what we Love For if we possess'd a thing for which we have no Love we should receive no Joy from it Therefore Pleasure is very different from Love since that which prevents Reason prevent and causes Love and that which follows Reason necessarily supposes Love as an Effect supposes the Cause Moreover if Pleasure and Love were the same thing there could be no Pleasure without Love nor Love without Pleasure otherwise a thing could be without it self Nevertheless a Christian Loves his Enemy and a well-educated Child his Father though never so irrational and unkind The Sight of their Duty the Fear of God the Love of Order and Justice causes them to Love not only without Pleasure but even with a sort of Horrour those Persons that are no ways delightful I own they sometimes have the Sense of Pleasure or Joy upon the Reflection that they perform their Duty or upon the Hopes of being rewarded as they do deserve But besides that this Pleasure is very manifestly different from the Love they bear to their Father and Enemy though perhaps it may be the Motive of it it sometimes is not so much as the Motive of their acting but 't is only an abstract View of Order or a Notion of Fear which preserves their Love In one sense it may be truly said they have a Love for these Persons even whilst they do not think of them For Love remains in us during the Avocations of Thought and in Sleep But I conceive that Pleasure has no longer a Substance in the Soul than she is aware of it Thus Love or Charity remaining in us without Pleasure or Delectation cannot be maintain'd to be the very same thing Since Pleasure and Pain are two contraries if Pleasure were the same with Love Pain would not differ from Hatred But 't is evident that Pain is different from Hatred because it often subsists without it A Man for Instance who is wounded unawares suffers a most real and cutting Pain whilst he is free from Hatred For he knows not even the Cause of his Pain or the Object of his Hatred or rather the Cause of his Pain not deserving his Hatred cannot raise it Thus he Hates not that Cause of his Pain though his Pain moves or disposes him to Hatred 'T is true he deservedly Hates Pain but the Hatred of Pain is not Pain but supposes it Hatred of Pain does not Merit our Hatred as does Pain For the former is on the contrary very agreeable in that we are pleased in Hating it as we are displeased in Suffering it Pain therefore not being Hatred the Pleasure which is contrary to Pain is not Love which is contrary to Hatred and consequently the Pleasure which is precedaneous to Reason is not the same thing as Love I prove likewise that Joy or the Pleasure which pursues Reason is distinguish'd from Love Joy and Sorrow being contraries if Joy were the same thing with Love Sorrow and Hatred would be all one But it is evident that Sorrow differs from Hatred because it sometimes has a separate Subsistence A Man for Example by chance finds himself depriv'd of things that he has need of this is enough to make him sorrowful But it cannot provoke him to Hatred Either
* By the Essence of a thing I mean that which is first conceiv'd in it on which depend all the Modifications observ'd in it â Second Part of the Pure Mind Chap. 7. II. We know not all the Modifications our Soul is capable of * S. Aug. lib. 6. de Musica Des Cartes in his Man c. I. The Mind being limited cannot comprehend anything of an infinite Nature II. The limitation of the mind is the Origine of a great many Errors * Art of Thinking III. And especially of Heresies I. That the Philosophers want order in their Studies II. An Instance of the want of order in Aristotle Lib. 5. de generatione Anim. c. 1. III. That Geometricians take a good Method in search of Truth IV. That their Method increases the strength of the Mind and that Aristotle 's Logick diminishes it Book 6 in the 1 st Part concerning Method V. Another Fault of Learned Men. I. The Mind cannot dwell long upon Objects that have no Relation or that include not something of Infinity in them II. The Inconstancy of the Will is the Cause of that want of Application and consequently of Error III. Our Sensations take us up more than the Pure Idea's of the Mind See the 7 th Chap. of the Second Part of this Book IV. Which is the Source of the Corruption of our Morals * Namely a Natural Love for we cannot hate Pleasure by an Elective Hatred â Because Elective Love cannot be long without conforming to Natural Love I. What is meant by Idea's That they really exist and are necessary to our Perceiving all material Objects This Paragraph is in Italick because it may be passed over as being difficult to be understood unless a Man know what I think of the Soul and of the Nature of Idea's II. A Particularization of all the ways possible for us to perceivâ External Objects If a Man has a mind to know how all the Impressions of Visible Objects tho' oppos'd can be communicated without weakning let him read Mr. Des-Cartes 's Dioptrics Tanto meliora esse judico quae oculis cerno quanto pro sui natura viciniora sunt iis quae animo intelligo Aug. 6.3 de Vera Religione See the 3 d. Ch. of the 2 d. Part concerning Method Dic quia tu tibi lumen non es Serm. 8. de verbis Domini 2 Cor. 3.5 Rom. 1.19 Jac. 1.17 Ps. 94.10 Joh. 1.9 Lib 14. de Trin. cap. 13. See the Illustrations Act. Apost c. 17.28 I. Four different manners of Perception II. How we know GOD Humanis mentibus nulla interposita natura praesidet Aug. lib. de vera Relig. c. 55. III. How we know Bodies IV. How we know the Soul See the Illustrations V. How we know the Souls of other Men. I. The intimate Presence of the indefinite Idea of Being in general is the cause of all the disorderly Abstractions of the Mind and the most part of the Chimaera's of the Vulgar Philosophy which hinder many Philosophers from acknowledging the solidity of true Principles of Physick II. Of the Essence of Matter If this Definition of the word Essence be admitted all the rest is absolutely demonstrated if it be not admitted 't is only a nominal Question wherein consists the Essence of Matter or rather it cannot be the subject of a Question I. The last general Cause of our Errors II. That the Idea's of things are not always present to the Mind when we would have them III. Every finite Mind is subject to Error IV. We ought not to judge that there is no created Being besides Body and Spirit nor that GOD is a Spirit according to the conception of Spirits Riccioli 2. Vol. Nemo est paulo eruditior in Astronomicis qui Coelorum ordinem contemplatus non agnoscat Harmoniam quandam in Planetarum intervallis motibus Journal of the Learned Aug. 9 1666. See the Illustrations I. Inclinations are as necessary to Spirits as Motions to Bodies II. God having no other Principal End of his Actions than himself gives no Motion to Spirits but what tends towards himself III. The Tendency Spirits have to Particular Goods proceeds from their Motion towards Good in general IV. The Original of the chiefest Natural Inclinations which will make up the Division of this Fourth Book I. The Inclination for Good in general is the Principle of the Restlesness of the Will II. And consequently of our Inadvertency and Ignorance III. The first Instance shewing that Morals are but little known by the generality of Men. ãâã 39. de Natali Domini IV. The second Instance shewing that the Immortality of the Soul is controverted by some People V. That we are in extreme ignorance in point of Abstract things and which have but little reference to us I. Curiosity is natural and necessary II. Three Rules to moderate Curiosity III. A particular Explication of the first of these Rules Quis tam stulte curioâus est qui filium suum mitâat in Scholam ut quid Magister cogitet discat I. The Second Rule concerning Curiosity II. The Third Rule concerning Curiosity 2 Tim. 6.9 I. Of the Sâcond natural Inclination or of Self-love II. The Division of Self-love of Being and of Well-being or of Greatness and Pleasure I. Of the Inclination we have for whatever elevates us above others II. Of the false Judgments of some Religious Persons III. Of the false Judgments of the Superstitious and Hypocrites Of Voetius I. Of the Desire of seeming Learn'd II. Of the Conversation of the falsly Learn'd III. Of the Books of the Falsly Learn'd I. Pleasure ought to be shunn'd tho' it makes us happy 1 Cor. 15.16 II. It ought not to carry us to the loving Sensible Goods I. How it disables us from disvering Truth II. Some Instances Oper. Perf. * I speak according to common Opinion which is that the Chicken is form'd from the Egg though perhaps it is no more than nourish'd by it Col. 2.23 * Galilaeus put into the Inquisition for maintaining the Earth mov'd I. Of the Third Natural Inclination viz. The Friendship we have for other Men. * I speak as a Man For the Truest Earthly Grandeur consists only in the Imagination II. This Inclination makes us approve the Thoughts of our Friends and deceive them by undue Praises Chap. 4. E. 1. Page 9 10. Page 1. Page 10. Page 1. Page 20. Page 21. * Book 1. Ch. 9. B. 3. in several places Page 22. Page 9. Page 9. Page 6. Page 44. Page 47. Page 56 57. Page 62. Page 64. Page 80. Page 98. * Pref. Page 4. Page 12. (a) Page 1 The Animadverter's Answer * Book 1. Chap. 1. and elsewhere * Tunc beatum esse te judica cum tibi ex te gaudium omne nascetur cum in his quae homines eripiunt optant custodiunt nihil inveneris non dico quod malis sed quod velis Sen. Epist. 124. Rom. 7 23 24 * Before Sin that Sensation was not a pain but
Father MALEBRANCHE HIS TREATISE Concerning the SEARCH after TRUTH The Whole WORK Complete To which is Added The AUTHOR's TREATISE OF Nature and Grace BEING A Consequence of the PRINCIPLES contained in the SEARCH Together with His ANSWER to the ANIMADVERSIONS upon the First Volume His DEFENCE against the ACCUSATIONS of Monsieur De la Ville c. Relating to the same Subject All TRANSLATED by T. TAYLOR M. A. Late of Magdalen College in OXFORD The SECOND EDITION Corrected with great Exactness With the ADDITION of A Short Discourse upon LIGHT and COLOURS By the same AUTHOR Communicated in Manuscript to a Person of Quality in ENGLAND And never before Printed in any Language LONDON Printed by W. Bowyer for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon and T. Leigh and W. Midwinter at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1700. THE PREFACE THE Mind of Man is as it were by its Nature situated between its Creator and Corporeal Creatures nothing according to St. Austin being above it but GOD nor beneath it but Body But as the great Elevation it obtains above all Material Beings is no hindrance to its uniting with them and even to its Depending after a sort upon a Piece of Matter so notwithstanding the infinite distance between the Sovereign Being and the Humane Mind the latter is immediately and most intimately united with the former This last Union exalts the Mind above all things 't is this which gives it Life and Light and all its Happiness And of this Union it is St. Austin speaks in very many Places of his Works as of that which is most Natural and Essential to it On the contrary the Union it has with the Body extremely debases it and is at this Day the Principal Cause of all its Errours and its Miseries I do not wonder that the vulgar part of Men or that the Heathen Philosophers should only consider in the Soul its Relation and Union with the Body without acknowledging any Union or Relation that it has to GOD But I admire that the Christian Philosophers who ought to prefer the Spirit of GOD to the Mind of Man Moses to Aristotle St. Austin to any wretched Commentatour upon an Heathen Philosopher should regard the Soul rather as the Form of the Body than as made in and for the Image of GOD that is according to St. Austin for Truth to which alone She is immediately united 'T is true the Soul is united to the Body and is naturally the Form of it but 't is likewise true that she is united to GOD in a much stricter and more essential manner The Relation she has to her Body might have not been But her Relation to GOD is so essential that 't is impossible to conceive GOD should create a Spirit without it It is evident that GOD can have no other End of acting than Himself that He cannot create Spirits but to know and love Him that he can neither give them any Knowledge nor impress upon them any Love but what is for and tends to Himself but He might have refus'd to unite to Bodies those Spirits which He has united Therefore the Relation of our Minds to GOD is Natural Necessary and absolutely Indispensible But their Relation to our Bodies though Natural is not of absolute Necessity nor of indispensible Obligation This is not a proper place to alledge all the Authorities and Arguments which might induce us to believe That it 's more essential to the Mind to be united to GOD than to a Body That would carry us out too far To expose this Truth in its just Light it would be necessary to overthrow the principal Foundations of Pagan Philosophy to explain the Corruptions of Sin to encounter what is falsly named Experience and to argue against the Prejudices and Delusions of the Senses So that to give the common sort of Men a perfect Knowledge of it is not so easie a Task as may be undertaken in a Preface However 't is not difficult to make it out to Attentive Persons and such as are skill'd in True Philosophy For they need only be put in Mind That since the Will of GOD Regulates the Nature of all things it is more congenial to the Nature of the Soul to be united to GOD by the Knowledge of Truth and by the Love of Good than to be united to the Body since 't is certain as is abovesaid that GOD created Spirits more for the Knowledge and Love of Him than for the Informing Bodies This Argument is instantly able to startle Minds any whit enlightned to render them attentive and afterwards to convince them But 't is morally impossible for Minds immers'd in Flesh and Blood whose Knowledge goes no farther than their Senses to be ever convinc'd with such kind of Reasonings No Proofs will serve these People but such as may be even felt and handled since every thing seems Chimerical that makes not some Impression on their Senses The First Man's Sin has so weakned the Union of our Mind with GOD that none but those whose Heart is purify'd and Mind enlightned can perceive it For 't is an imaginary Union in their Opinions who blindly follow the Judgments of the Senses and Motions of the Passions On the contrary it has so strengthned the Soul's Union with the Body as to make us think these two parts of our selves but one single Substance or rather has so enslav'd us to our Senses and Passions as to persuade us our Body is the Principal of the Two Parts whereof we are compos'd If we consider the different Occupations of Men we shall have all the Reason in the World to believe they have this so mean and gross a Notion of themselves For whereas they all love Felicity and the Perfection of their Being and are constantly labouring to grow happier or more perfect could it be suppos'd they set not a greater value on the Body and the Goods of it than on the Mind and the Goods of that when we find them almost always employ'd about things relating to the former and seldom or never thinking on those that are absolutely necessary to the perfection of the latter The greatest part of Mankind lay themselves out with so much Industry and Pains merely for the Support of a wretched Life and to leave their Children some necessary Sustenance for the Preservation of their Bodies Such as by their good Fortune or Chance of Birth are freed from that Necessity do no better manifest by their Business and Employments that they look upon the Soul as the Nobler pâri of their Being Hunting Dancing Gaming Feasting are their ordinary Occupations Their Soul grown the Slave of their Body esteems and cherishes all these Divertisements though wholly unworthy of Her But because their Body is related to all things sensible the Soul is not only the Slave of their Body but through its means and for its sake of all things sensible likewise For 't is by the Body that
Spirit according to our conception of Spirits 128 CHAP. X. Some Instances of Errors in Physicks wherein Men are engaged by supposing that the things which differ in their Nature their Qualities Extension Duration and Proportion are alike in all these things 130 CHAP. XI Instances of some Errors of Morality which depend on the same Principle 133 The Conclusion of the Three first Books 134 Book the Fourth CHAP. I. 1. Inclinations are as necessary to Spirits as Motions to Bodies 2. God gives no Motion to Spirits but what tends towards himself 3. The tendency Spirits have to particular Goods proceeds but from their Motion towards Good in general 4. The Original of our chiefest natural Inclinations which will make up the division of this Fourth Book 137 CHAP II. 1. The Inclination for Good in general is the Principle of the Restlesness of the Will 2. And consequently of our Inadvertency and Ignorance 3. The First Instance shewing that Morals are but little known by the generality of Men. 4. The Second Instance shewing that the Immortality of the Soul is controverted by some People 5. That we are in extreme Ignorance in point of abstract things and which have but little reference to us 139 CHAP. III. 1. Curiosity is natural and necessary 2. Three Rules to moderate it 3. An Explication of the first of these Rules 143 CHAP. IV. A Continuation of the same Subject 1. An Explication of the second Rule concerning Curiosity 2. An Explication of the Third 146 CHAP. V. 1. Of the second natural Inclination or of Self-love 2. The Division of it into love of Being and of Well-being or of Greatness and Pleasure 147 CHAP. VI. 1. Of the Inclination we have for whatever elevates us above others 2. Of the false Judgments of some Religious Persons 3. Of the false Judgments of the Superstitious and Hypocrites 4. Of Voetius Mr. Des Cartes's Enemy 148 CHAP. VII Of the Desire of Science and of the Judgments of the falsly Learned 151 CHAP. VIII 1. Of the Desire of seeming Learned 2. Of the conversation of the falsly Learn'd 3. Of their Works 153 CHAP. IX How the Inclination for Honours and Riches conduces to Error 155 CHAP. X. Of the Love of Pleasure with regard to Morality 1. That Pleasure is to be shunn'd though it make us happy 2. It ought not to carry us to the loving sensible Goods 156 CHAP. XI Of the love of Pleasure with reference to Speculative Sciences 1. How it disables us from discovering Truth 2. Some Instances 159 CHAP. XII Of the Effects which the Thoughts of Future Happiness and Misery are capable of producing in the Mind 163 CHAP. XIII 1. Of the third Natural Inclination viz. The Friendship we have for other Men. 2. It makes us approve the Thoughts of our Friends and deceive them by undue Praises 165 Tome II. Book V. CHAP. I. OF the Nature and Original of Passions in general Page 1 CHAP II. Of the Union of the Mind with sensible Things or of the Force and Extent of the Passions in general 3 CHAP. III. A particular Explanation of all the Changes happening either to the Body or Soul in every Passion 6 CHAP. IV. That the Pleasure and Motion of the Passions engage us in Errors and false Judgments about Good that we ought continually to resist them How to impugn Libertinism 10 CHAP. V. That the Perfection of the Mind consists in its Union with God by the knowledge of Truth and the love of Vertue and contrariwise That its Imperfection proceeds only from its dependency on the Body caused by the Disorder of the Senses and Passions 13 CHAP. VI. Of the more general Errors of the Passions with some particular Instances 16 CHAP. VII Of Passions in particular and first of Admiration and its ill Effects 18 CHAP. VIII A Continuation of the same Subject What good use can be made of Admiration and other Passions 24 CHAP. IX Of Love and Aversion and their principal Species 26 CHAP. X. Of Passions in particular and in general of the way to explain them and to know the Errors they cause 29 CHAP. XI That all the Passions justifie themselves What Judgments they cause us to make in their Vindication 31 CHAP. XII That such Passions as have Evil for their Object are the most dangerous and unjust and that those that have the least mixture of Knowledge are the most lively and sensible 34 Book the Sixth CHAP. I. The Design of this Book Two general ways to keep to Evidence in the Search of Truth which shall be the Subject of this Tract 36 CHAP. II. That attention is necessary to preserve Evidence in our Knowledge that the modifications of the Soul make her attentive but share and take up too much her Capacity of perceiving 37 CHAP. III. Of the use that can be made of the Passions and Senses to preserve the attention of the Mind 39 CHAP. IV. Of the use of Imagination to make the Mind attentive and especially of the usefulness of Geometry 41 CHAP. V. Of the means to improve the extent and capacity of the Mind That Arithmetick and Algebra are of absolute necessity to it 46 Book the Sixth Part II. CHAP. I. Of the Rules that are to be observed in the Search after Truth 50 CHAP. II. Of the general Rule that concerns the subject of our Studies That School Philosophers observe it not which is the cause of several Errors in their Physicks 51 CHAP. III. Of the most dangerous Error in the Philosophy of the Ancients 54 CHAP. IV. An Explication of the second part of the general Rule That the Philosophers observe it not but that Des Cartes has exactly followed it 57 CHAP. V. An Explication of the Principles of the Peripatetick Philosophy in which is shewn that Aristotle never observed the second part of the general Rule and his four Elements with the Elementary Qualities are examined 64 CHAP. VI. General and necessary Advices to proceed orderly in the Search after Truth and in the choice of the Sciences 70 CHAP. VII Of the use of the first Rule concerning particular Questions 74 CHAP. VIII An Application of the other Rules to particular Questions 79 CHAP. IX The last instance to shew the usefulness of this Treatise wherein the cause of the Union of parts in Bodies and withal the Rules of the Communication of Motion are examined 85 The Conclusion of the Three last Books 96 Illustrations upon the foregoing Books 98 F. Malbranche's Defence against the Accusation of Monsieur De la Ville 183 Of Light and Colours 193 The End of the Contents F. MALEBRANCHE'S TREATISE CONCERNING The Search after Truth BOOK the FIRST Concerning The ERRORS of the SENSES CHAP. I. I. Of the Nature and Properties of the UNDERSTANDING II. Of the Nature and Properties of the WILL and wherein the Liberty of the SOUL consists ERROR is the Vniversal Cause of the Misery of Mankind 't is the corrupt Principle that has Produc'd Evil in the World 'T is
though our natural Inclinations are Voluntary yet they are not Free with that Freedom of Indifference I am speaking âf which contains a Power of willing or not willing or rather of willing the contrary to what our natural Inclinations carry us For though it is Voluntarily and Freely that a Man loves Good in general since there is no Love but proceeds from the Will and 't is a contradiction for the Will to suffer violence or constraint However 't is impossible to Love it with that Freedom I have just explain'd since 't is not in the Power of the Will not to wish to be Happy But it must be observ'd that the Mind consider'd under so strong a bent towards Good in general cannot determine its Motion towards a particular Good unless the same Mind consider'd as susceptible of Idea's has knowledge of that particular Good I would say to make use of the ordinary terms that the Will is a blind Power that can make no advances to things but what are represented to it by the Vnderstanding so that the Will can not diversly determine its Propensity to Good or over-rule the direct Bent of his natural Inclinations but by commanding the Vnderstanding to represent it to some particular Object The power then that the Will has of determining its Inclinations necessarily contains an ability of applying the Uderstanding to the Objects which it likes That what I have said concerning the Will and Liberty may be better understood I will make it familiar by an Instance A Man represents to himself an Honour or Preferment under the Notion of a Good which he may hope for and immediately his Will wills this Good that is the Impression which is continually carrying the Soul towards Universal and undetermin'd Good inclines it towards this Honour But whereas this Honour is not the Universal Good nor is consider'd by a clear and distinct view of the Mind as Universal Good for the Mind can never see clearly That which is not the Impression we have towards Universal Good is not stopt by this particular Good The Mind has a tendency to go farther it is not necessarily and invincibly in Love with this Honour but is intirely at its Choice and Liberty in this respect Now its Liberty consists in this that being not fully convinc'd that this Honour comprehends all the Good it is capable of Loving it may suspend both its Judgment and its Love and thereupon as shall be shewn in the Third Book may through the Union it has with the Universal Being or that Being which contains all Good think of other things and consequently Love other Goods Finally it may compare all Goods together and love them according to that order in the Proportion they are lovely and refer them all to that one which contains all and which alone is fit to fix bounds to our Love as being the only one that is capable of filling all the Capacity we have of Loving Almost the same thing may be said of the Knowledge of Truth as of the Love of Good We Love the Knowledge of Truth as the Injoyment of Good through a natural Impression and that Impression is no more invincible than that which carries us towards Good that which makes it so is only Evidence or a perfect and intire Knowledge of the Object And we have equal Liberty in our false Judgments as in our inordinate Affections as shall be made to appear in the next Chapter CHAP. II. I. Of our Judgments and Reasonings II. That they depend upon the Will III. The Vse which should be made of its Liberty on their account IV. Two general Rules for the avoiding Error and Sin V. Some general Reflections upon those Rules IT might be readily inferr'd from what has been said in the precedent Chapter that the Understanding never judges since it goes no farther than Perception or that the Judgments and Reasonings which the Understanding makes are nothing but pure Perceptions That 't is the Will alone which really judges by acquiescing in and voluntarily resting upon what the Understanding represents And thus it is the Will alone which leads us into Error But this requires a larger Explication I say then there is no other difference on the part of the Understanding between a simple Perception a Judgment and a Reasoning than that the Understanding perceives a simple thing without relation to any thing whatsoever by a simple Perception that it perceives the Relations between two things or more in its Judgments And lastly that it perceives the Relations which are betwixt the Relations of things in its Reasonings wherefore all the Operations of the Understanding are nothing but pure Perceptions In Perceiving for Example twice 2 or 4 there is only a simple Perception In Judging that twice 2 are 4 or that twice 2 make not 5 the Understanding only perceives the Relation of Equality found between twice 2 and 4 or the Relation of Inequality between twice 2 and 5. Thus the Judgment in point of the Understanding is only the Preception of the Relation which is found between two things or more But Reasoning is the Perception not of the Relation which is found between two things or more for that would be a Judgment but of the Relation which is found between two or more Relations of two or more Things Thus when I infer that 4 being less than 6 twice 2 being equal to 4 are consequently less than 6 I not only Perceive the Relation of Inequality between 2 and 2 and 6 for that would be only a Judgment but the Relation of Inequality which is between the Relation of twice 2 and 4 and that Relation between 4 and 6 which is a Reasoning The Understanding then does only perceive and 't is the Will alone which judges and reasons by voluntary resting upon what the Understanding represents to it as has been already said Notwithstanding when things which come under our Consideration are palpably Evident our Consent seems to be no longer Voluntary whence we are ready to believe that 't is not our Will but our Vnderstanding that judges thereof But that we may be sensible of our Error we must know that the things we consider never appear with that Convincing Evidence till the Understanding has throughly examin'd all their Parts and Relations necessary to form a Judgment of them whereupon it happens that the Will which can will nothing without knowledge can act no longer on the Understanding that is cannot desire the Understanding to represent something new in its Object since it has already consider'd all the parts of it any ways relating to the question to be decided it is therefore oblig'd to rest upon what has been already represented and cease from its Agitation and Casting about 't is this Acquiescence of the Will which is properly a Judgment or Reasoning Thus because this Acquiescence or Judgment is not left Free when things strike us with that Evident Conviction we fansie
likewise that it is not Voluntary But as long as there is any Obscurity in the Subject we consider and we are not perfectly assur'd we have discover'd all that 's necessary to the Resolution of the Question as it most commonly happens in those which are abstruse and difficult and include many Relations we are free to deny our Consent and the Will may still command the Vnderstanding to apply it self to something new Which makes us not so averse to believe that the Judgments we form on such kind of Subjects are Voluntary Howbeit the generality of Philosophers suppose that even the Judgments we form upon things obscure are no ways Voluntary and will have the Consent to Truth in general to be an Action of the Vnderstanding which they call Assensus to distinguish it from the Consent to Good which they attribute to the Will and term Consensus but see the cause of their Distinction and Mistake Which is That in this state of Life we often evidently perceive some Truths without any reason to Doubt of them and so the Will remains not indifferent in the Consent it gives to Truths so manifest as has been just explain'd But 't is not so in point of Good there being no Particular Good we know but we have reason to doubt whether we ought to Love it Our Passions and Inclinations which we naturally have for Sensible Pleasures are though confus'd yet through the Corruption of our Nature very strong Reasons which render us cold and indifferent even in the Love of God himself And so we are manifestly sensible of our Indifference and are inwardly convinc'd we make use of our Liberty in our Loving GOD. But we do not in like manner apprehend that we imploy our Liberty in Consenting to Truth especially when accompanied with full Evidence and Conviction which induces us to believe our Consent to Truth is not Voluntary As if it was necessary our Actions should be indifferent to become Voluntary and that the Blessed did not love God most Willingly without being diverted from it by something or other in like manner as we Consent to that evident Proposition that twice 2 are 4 without being diverted from the Belief of it by any shew of a contrary Reason But to the end we may distinctly discover what the difference is between the Consent of the Will to Truth and its Consent to Goodnesâ it is requisite to know the difference which is found between Truth and Goodness taken in the ordinary acceptation and with reference to us That difference consists in this That we have an Interest and Concern in Goodness but Truth does not at all affect us For Truth consists only in the Relation which two things or more haââ between them but Goodness consists in the Relation of agreement which things have with our selves which is the reason that the Will has but One Action in respect of Truth which is its Acquiescence in or Consent to the Representation of the Relation which is betwixt things and that it has two in respect of Goodness namely its Acquiescence in or Consent to the Relation of agreement the thing has with our selves and its Love or Tendency towards that thing which actions are extreamly different though they are usually confounded For there is a great deal of difference betwixt simply Acquiescing and being carried to love the thing which the Mind represents since we often Acquiesce in things we could gladly wish were not and which we have an aversion to Now upon a due consideration of things it will visibly appear That 't is ever the Will which Acquiesces not only in things if they be agreeable to it but the Representation of things and that the reason of the Will 's Acquiescing always in the Representation of things of the clearest Evidence is as we have already said because there is no farther Relation in them necessary to be consider'd which the Vnderstanding has not already throughly discuss'd Insomuch that 't is as it were necessary for the Will to leave off disquieting and tireing it self in vain and to rest satisfy'd in a full assurance that it is not deceived since there is nothing left to put the Vnderstanding upon a fresh Inquiry This is especially to be observ'd that in the Circumstances we are under we have but a very imperfect Knowledge of things and consequently there is an absolute necessity we should have this Liberty of Indifference whereby we are impower'd to withold our selves from giving our Consent For the better discovering this Necessity it must be consider'd that we are carry'd by our Natural Inclinations to the imbracing Truth and Goodness so that the Will never reaching after things but what the Mind has some notice and apprehension of must needs pursue that which has the Face and Appearance of Truth and Goodness But because all that has the look of Truth and Good is not always what it appears to be it is plain that if the Will had not this Liberty but must infallibly and necessarily have embrac'd every thing that came cloath'd with an Appearance of Truth and Goodness it would have almost ever been Deceived Whence probably it might be concluded That the Author of its Being was the Author of its Errors and Seducements We have therefore a Liberty given us by God that we might avoid falling into Error and all the Evils consequent upon Errors by not resting with a full Assurance upon Probabilities but only upon Truth that is by commanding the Mind with an indefatigable Application to examine every thing till it has fully enlightned and unravell'd all that comes under its Examinations For Truth generally comes attended with Evidence and Evidence consists in a clear and distinct View of all the Parts and Relations of the Object which are necessary to give a certain and well-grounded Judgment The use then we should make of our Liberty is to IMPLOY IT AS FAR AS IT WILL GO That is never to consent to any thing whatever until we are as it were forc'd to 't by the secret Reproaches of our Reason To submit our selves to the false Appearance of Truth is to inslave our selves contrary to the Will of God but honestly to yield to the inward Reproaches of our Reason which accompany the Denial of our Submission unto Evidence is to obey the Voice of Eternal Truth which speaks within us Here then are Two Rules founded upon what I have been saying which are the most necessary of all others both for Speculative Sciences and Morality and which may be look'd on as the Foundation of all Humane Sciences The First which respects the Sciences is this A Man should never give an entire Consent but only to Propositions which appear so evidently true that he cannot deny it them without feeling an internal Pain and the secret Vpbraidings of his Reason that is without being plainly convinc'd he would make an ill use of his Liberty in case he should refuse to give his Consent
by any Image it follows the Soul cannot imagine them which is a thing worthy to be remember'd Lastly By Sense the Soul perceives only Sensible gross and ruder Objects when being present they cause an Impression on the external Organs of her Body Thus it is the Soul sees things plain and rugged present to her Eyes thus she knows the Hardness of the Iron the point of a Sword and the like and this kind of Perceptions one may call Sentiments or Sensations The Soul then has no more than these three ways of Perceiving which will easily be granted if we consider that the things we perceive are either Spiritual or Material If they be Spiritual they are perceptable only by the Pure Vnderstanding If they be Material they are either Present or Absent If they be Absent the ordinary way of the Soul 's representing them is by the Imagination But if they be Present the Soul can perceive them by the Impressions they make upon her Senses And thus Our Souls are not capable of more than a three-fold Perception by Pure Intellect by Imagination and by Sense These three Faculties therefore may be lookt upon as so many certain Heads to which we may reduce the Errors of Men and the Causes of their Errors and so avoid the confusion into which the multitude of them would infallibly cast us should we talk of them without Order or Method But moreover our Inclinations and our Passions act very strongly upon us They dazzle our Mind with their false Lights and overcast and fill it with Clouds and Darkness Thus Our Inclinations and our Passions engage us in an infinite number of Errors when we suffer our selves to be guided by that false Light and abusive Glare which they produce within us We must then together with the three Faculties of the Mind consider them as the Sources of our Deviations and Delinquencies and add to the Errors of Sense Imagination and Pure Intellect those which may be charg'd upon the Passions and Natural Inclinations And so all the Errors of Men and the Causes of them may be reduc'd to five Heads and we shall treat of them according to that Order First We shall speak of the Errors of the Senses Secondly Of the Errors of Imagination Thirdly Of the Errors of the Pure Intellect Fourthly Of the Errors of our Inclinations and Fifthly Of the Errors of the Passions And thus having made an Essay to rid the Soul of the Errors which she's subject to we shall Lastly lay down a General Method to Conduct her in the Search of Truth We will begin with an Explication of the Errors of our Senses or rather of the Errors into which we fall for want of making the due use we should do of our Senses And here we shall not so much descend to our Particular Errors which are almost infinite as fix upon the general Causes of these Errors and such things as seem most necessary to inform us of the Nature of the Humane Mind CHAP. V. Of the SENSES I. Two ways of explaining how they were corrupted by Sin II. That 't is our Liberty and not our Senses which is the true Cause of our Errors III. A Rule for avoiding Error in the use of our Senses UPON an attentive Consideration of the Senses and Passions of Man we find them so well proportion'd to the End for which they were given us that we can by no means agree with those who say they are to all intents and purposes debauch'd and spoil'd by Original Sin But that it may appear it is not without Reason we are of a different Opinion it is necessary to Explain in what manner we may conceive the Order and Regularity which was to be seen in the Faculties and Passions of our First Parent in his State of Righteousness and the Changes and Disorders that were consequent to his Fall Now there are Two ways of Conceiving these things of which this is the First That it seems to be a common Notion That it is necessary to the right ordering of Affairs that the Soul should perceive lesser or greater Pleasures according to the proportion of the Littleness or Greatness of the Goods which she enjoys Pleasure is an Instinct of Nature or to speak clearer 't is an Impression of God himself who inclines us towards some Good which Impression should be so much stronger by how much that Good is greater According to which Principle it seems not to be contested that our first Parent before his Sin coming fresh out of the Hands of his Maker found greater Pleasures in the most solid Goods than in those that were not so Wherefore since he was created in order to Love God who created him and that God was his true Good it may be said God gave him a Taste and Relish of himself That he inclin'd him to the Love of the Divine Perfection by a Sense of Pleasure and that he possess'd him with those Internal Satisfactions in his Duty that counter-balanc'd the greatest Pleasures of the Senses whereof since the State of Sin Man is altogether insensible without a Supernatural Assistance and particular gift of Grace Notwithstanding since he had a Body which God design'd he should take care of and look upon as a Part of himself he gave him to Perceive by the Mediation of his Senses Pleasures like those we our selves are sensible of in the use of things which are proper for and adapted to the Preservation of our Life and Being We presume not here to determine whether the First Man before his Fall had a Power to hinder agreeable or disagreeable Sensations in the instant that the principal part of his Brain was agitated by the Actual Impression of Sensible Objects Possibly he had that Soveraignty over himself because of his Subjection to the Will of God though the contrary Opinion seems more probable For though Adam might stop the Commotions of the Blood and Spirits and the Vibrations of the Fibres of his Brain which Objects excited in it because being in a Regular State his Body must needs submit to his Mind yet it is not probable he was able to prevent the Sensations of Objects at the time he had not stopt the Motions they produc'd in that part of his Body to which his Soul was immediately united For the Union of the Soul and Body consisting principally in the mutual Relation there is betwixt Sensations and the Motions of the Organs this Union would rather seem Arbitrary than Natural if Adam had been capable of hindring Sensation when the Principal Part of his Body receiv'd an Impression from those round about it However I declare for neither of the two Opinions The First Man therefore felt Pleasure in that which was Perfective of his Body as he felt it in that which was Perfective of his Soul And because he was constituted in a Perfect State he found that of the Soul far greater than that of the Body Thus it was infinitely
amiss to declare that no fault is to be found with these Terms of Form and Essential Difference Honey is doubtless Honey by its Form and thus it is that it differs essentially from Salt but this Form or this Essential Difference consists only in the different Configuration of its Parts 'T is this different Configuration which makes Honey to be Honey and Salt to be Salt And though it be accidental to Matter in general to have the Configuration of the parts of Honey or Salt and so to have the Form of Honey or Salt yet it may be said to be essential to Honey or Salt that they may be what they are to have such or such a Configuration in their parts just as the Sensations of Cold of Heat of Pleasure and Pain are not essential to the Soul but only to the Soul which feels them in as much as by these Sensations she is said to feel Heat Cold Pleasure and Pain CHAP. XVII I. Another Instance taken from Morality which shews that our Senses offer us nothing but false Goods II. That GOD alone is our true and proper Good III. The Origine of the Error of the Epicureans and Stoicks I HAVE I think brought sufficient Arguments to prove that this Prejudice That our Sensations are in the Objects is a most fruitful Principle of Errors in Natural Philosophy It is my Business at present to bring others drawn from Morality wherein the same Prejudice joyn'd with this other That the Objects of our Senses are the true and sole Causes of our Sensations is most highly dangerous There is nothing so common in the World as to see Men devoted to sensible Goods some love Musick some Banquetting and others have a Passion for other things Now this is the way of Reasoning these Men must have taken to perswade themselves that these Objects are their Goods All the pleasant Tasts we are delighted with in Feasting the Sounds which gratifie the Ear and those other Pleasures we are sensible of upon other occasions are doubtless contain'd in sensible Objects or at least these Objects give us the Sensation of them or lastly are the only means of Conveying them to our Senses Now it is impossible to doubt that Pleasure is good and Pain evil We receive a Conviction from within and consequently the Objects of our Passions are most real goods to which we must cleave if we will be happy This is the Reasoning we generally fall into almost without being aware of it Thus because we believe that our Sensations are in Objects or that the Objects are of themselves capable of giving us the Sensation of them we consider these things as our own Goods though we are infinitely exalted above them since they are able to act only upon our Bodies and to produce some Motion in their Fibres but are incapable of acting upon our Souls or making us sensible either of Pleasure or Pain Certainly if our Soul acts not upon her self on occasion of what happens in the Body it is GOD alone who hath that Power And if she be not the Cause of her own Pleasure and Pain according to the Diversity of the Vibrations of the Fibres of her Body as it is most highly probable she is not since she feels Pleasure and Pain without consenting thereunto I know no other Hand potent enough to make her sensible thereof except that of the Author of Nature Certainly it is GOD alone who is our true Good He only is able to fill us with all the Pleasures we are capable of enjoying and it is only by the Knowledge of Him and Love of Him He has resolv'd to make us sensible of them Such as He has affixt to the Motions which happen in our Body to make us the more sollicitous for its Preservation are very little in themselves very weak as to their Capacity and very short in their Duration Notwithstanding in the estate Sin has reduc'd us to we are as it were become their Vassals But those which He shall make His Elect sensible of in Heaven will be infinitely greater since He hath Created us that we might know and love Him For whereas ORDER requires the Perception of the greatest Pleasures in the Possession of the greatest Goods GOD being infinitely above all other things the Pleasure of those who shall enjoy Him will certainly exceed all other Pleasures What we have said of the Cause of our Errors in respect of Good gives us a sufficient Knowledge of the falsity of the Opinions the Epicureans and Stoicks embrac'd touching the Sovereign Good The Epicureans placed it in Pleasure and because a Man is sensible of this no less in Vice than in Vertue and more generally in the former than in the other it has been commonly thought they let loose the Reins to all sorts of Sensible Pleasures Now the first cause of their Error is this That judging falsly there is something pleasant and agreeable in the Objects of their Senses or that they were the real Causes of the Pleasures they felt and being moreover convinc'd by an Internal Sensation which they naturally had that Pleasure was good for them at least for the time wherein they enjoy'd it they let themselves loose to all sorts of Passions from which they had no Apprehensions of receiving any dammage in the Consequence Whereas they ought to have consider'd that the Pleasure they reap'd from sensible things could not exist in those things as their true Causes nor any other way and consequently that sensible Goods could not be Goods in respect of the Soul and they should have thought of the things we have already explain'd The Stoicks on the other hand being perswaded that sensible Pleasures were only seated in and fitted for the Body and that the Soul ought to have a peculiar Good of her own plac'd Felicity in Vertue see then the Origine of their Errors Viz. They believ'd that Sensible Pleasure and Pain were not in the Soul but in the Body only and made use of this their false Judgment as a Principle for other false Conclusions as that Pain was not an Evil nor Pleasure a Good That the Pleasures of the Senses were not Good in their own Nature that they were common to Men and Beasts c. Notwithstanding it is easie to see that though the Epicureans and Stoicks were in the wrong in many things they were in the right in some for the Happiness of the Blessed consists only in a perfect and accomplish'd Vertue that is to say in their Knowledge and Love of GOD and in a most exquisite Pleasure that never fails to accompany them Let it then be well remembred That External Objects contain nothing either Pleasant or Troublesome in themselves that they are not the Causes of our Pleasures that we have no reason either to fear or love them but it is GOD alone whom 't is our duty to fear and our duty to love since 't is only He that has Power
are us'd to no other Preception than that of their Senses believe the Sun to abound with Light but those who can be Sensible and Reasonable at the same time are of another opinion provided they have as good a Faculty of Reasoning as they have of Sensation I am very well perswaded that even those who pay the greatest Deference to the testimony of their Senses would close with our Opinion had they well consider'd the things that we have said But they are too much in love with the Delusion of their Senses they have obey'd their Prejudices too long and their Soul is too unthoughtful or forgetful to acknowledge or remember that all the Perfections she imagines she sees in Bodies belong only to her self But it is not to this sort of Men we address our selves we are very little concern'd for their Approbation and Esteem They refuse to hearken to us and consequently are incompetent Judges we are satisfy'd in defending Truth and having the Approbation of those who seriously labour to rid themselves of the Errors of their Senses and to employ the Light of their Understanding We only require of them that they would seriously Meditate on these Thoughts with the greatest Attention they can and then let them judge of them Let them condemn them or acquit them we submit them to their Judgment since by their Meditation they have obtain'd a Supreme Power and Jurisdiction over them which without Injustice cannot be contested with them CHAP. XX. The Conclusion of the First Book I. That our Senses are given us only for the Preservation of our Body II. That we ought to doubt of the Reports they make III. That 't is no little thing to doubt as we ought to do I HAVE if I am not mistaken made a sufficient Discovery of the General Errors into which our Senses lead us whether in regard to their own Objects or in respect of Things which can only be perceiv'd by the Understanding And I am of an Opinion that we fall into no Error by their Conduct the cause whereof may not be discover'd by the things that have been said in case a Man will bestow a little Meditation upon them We have hitherto seen that our Senses are most faithful and exact in instructing us in the Relations which all the Bodies which surround us have with our own but are incapable of teaching us what these Bodies are in their own Nature that to make the best use of them they must only be imploy'd to the Preservation of our Health and Life and that they can't be sufficiently despis'd when they pretend to raise themselves to a Sovereignty above the Understanding This is the Principal Thing I would gladly have well remembred in all this First Book viz. Let a Man throughly consider that our Senses were only given us for the Preservation of our Body let him fortifie himself in this Notion and in order to free himself from the Ignorance he is under let him seek out other Succors and Assistances than those his Senses furnish him withall But supposing there be some such Men to be found as doubtless there be but too many of them who will not be perswaded of these last Propositions by what we have hitherto said we demand of them still much less than this we only desire of them to enter into some Distrust of their Senses and if they cannot entirely reject their Testimonies as false and treacherous let them only seriously doubt lest these Reports should not be absolutely true And certainly in my Opinion enough hath been said to cast at least some Scruple in the Mind of Reasonable Men and consequently to excite them to the Employing their Liberty otherwise than they have hitherto done for if they could once begin to doubt that the Reports of their Senses were not true they might with greater Ease with-hold their Consent and so prevent their falling into those Errors into which they have hitherto fallen especially if they could remember that Rule we have given at the Beginning of this Discourse That we ought not to give an entire Consent except to Things that appear entirely evident and to which we could not forbear consenting without being certainly convinc'd we should make an ill usâ of our Liberty in not consenting For what remains let not a Man imagine he has made but an inconsiderable Progress if he has only learn'd to Doubt To know how to Doubt with Judgment and Reason is not so small a thing as is suppos'd For we must needs say there is a great deal of difference betwixt Doubting and Doubting Some Doubt out of a Rash Passion and a Brutish Resolution others out of Blindness and Malice out of Humour and Fancy and because they will do so But there are others likewise that Doubt out of Prudence and Caution out of Wisdom and Penetration of Mind The Academicks and Atheists Doubt after the former manner but true Philosophers Doubt in the latter The first Doubt is a Doubt of Darkness which never conducts us towards the Light but sets us at a greater Distance from it The second Doubt proceeds from Light and is assistant in some measure to the production of it in its turn Those who only Doubt in the former manner know not what it is to Doubt with Understanding They Laugh at Monsieur Des Cartes's teaching us to Doubt in the first of his Metaphysical Meditations because it seems to them that it is no other than a Fantastick Doubting That it can only be said in general that our Nature is Infirm that our Mind is full of Blindness that we ought to be very careful to rid our selves of our Prejudices and some such things as these They suppose that this is enough to prevent being seduc'd by their Senses and not to be deceiv'd at all But it is not enough to complain that the Mind is weak we must make her sensible of her Weaknesses It is not enough to say She is subject unto Error we must discover to her wherein her Errors consist to which I think we have given an Introduction in this first Book by accounting for the Nature and Errors of our Senses and we will still pursue the same Design in explaining the Nature and Errors of our Imagination in the Second F. MALEBRANCHE'S TREATISE CONCERNING The Search after TRUTH BOOK the SECOND Concerning The IMAGINATION THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. I. A General Idea of the Imagination II. That it includes two Faculties an Active and a Passive III. A General Cause of the Changes which happen in the Imagination of Men and the Foundation of the Second Book IN the foregoing Book I have treated concerning the Senses I have endeavour'd to Explain their Nature and precisely to determine the Use that ought to be made of them I have discover'd the Principal and most General Errors wherein they ingage us and have attempted such a Limitation of their Power as to put Man in a capacity of Hoping
six hours a day they sometimes study six different things 'T is visible that this fault proceeds from the same Cause as the others I have been speaking of For there is great probability that if those who studied in this manner knew evidently how disproportion'd it was to the Capacity of their Mind and that it was more apt to fill it with Error and Confusion than with true Science they would not let themselves be transported with the disorderly motives of their Passion and Vanity For indeed this is not the way to be satisfy'd in our pursuits but the most ready means to know nothing at all CHAP. IV. I. The Mind cannot dwell long upon Objects that have no Relation to it or that include not something of Infinity in them II. The Inconstancy of the Will is the Cause of that want of Application and consequently of Error III. Our Sensations take us up more than the Pure Idea's of the Mind IV. Which is the Source of the Corruption of our Morals V. And of the Ignorance of the Vulgar sort of Men. THE Mind of Man is not only subject to Error for want of being Infinite or for being of less Extent than the Objects of its Consideration as has been explain'd in the two last Chapters But because it is Inconstant and nothing Resolute in its Action and unable to keep the View fixt and steady on the Object long enough to examine all the parts of it The better to conceive the Cause of this Inconstancy and Levity of the Mind we must know that the Will is the Directress of its Action that the Will applies it to the Objects which it loves and that the same Will is it self in perpetual fluctuation and disquietude whereof I assign this to be the Cause 'T is not to be doubted but GOD is the Author of all things and has made them only for Himself and that he draws the Heart of Man towards him by a Natural and Invincible Impression which he perpetually influences him withal 'T is impossible for GOD to have will'd that there should be any Will that did not love Him or that lov'd Him less than any other Good if there could be any other besides Himself it being impossible for Him to ordain that a Will should not love that which was supreamly Amiable or should love that more which was less lovely And thus Natural Love must needs carry us to GOD as proceeding from GOD and nothing being able to stop the motions thereof unless GOD Himself that impresses them There is then no Will whatever but necessarily follows the motions of this Love The Righteous and the Wicked the Blessed and the Damned love GOD with this Love and 't is this Love in one sense that is the Cause of the Misery of the latter For this Natural Love we have for GOD being the same thing with the Natural Impression which carries us towards Good in general towards Infinite Soveraign Good 't is manifest that all Minds love GOD with this Love since there is no other that is the Universal the Infinite the Soveraign Good For lastly All Spirits and even the Divels passionately desire to be Happy and to possess the Soveraign Good and they desire it without Choice Deliberation and Liberty by the bent and necessity of their Nature Being therefore made for GOD for an Infinite Good for a Good that comprehends in Himself all Goods the Natural Motion of our Heart can never stop till we arrive to the possession of this Good The Will then labouring thus with a perpetual thirst being toss'd and agitated with Desires Eagerness and Restless longings for that Good it is not in Possession of cannot but with much Uneasiness suffer the Mind to dwell any time upon Abstract Truths which don't affect it and which it judges incapable of making it Happy It therefore pushes the Mind forward continually to the Research of other Objects and when in this hurry and agitation communicated to it by the Will it meets with any Object that carries the Mark of Good I mean that by approaching the Soul makes it sensible of some internal Delight or Satisfaction then this Thirst of the Heart rises anew these Desires Eagernesses and Fervencies are re-kindled and the Mind oblig'd to wait on them fixes it self only on the Object that either is or seems to be the cause of them to approximate it to the Soul that regales and feeds upon it for some time But the Emptiness of the Creatures being unable to fill the Infinite Capacity of the Heart of Man these little Pleasures instead of extinguishing its Thirst only provoke and inflame it and give the Soul a foolish and vain Hope of being satisfy'd in the multiplicity of Earthly Pleasures which produces a far greater Inconstancy and an inconceivable Levity in the Mind which ought to make the Discovery to the Soul of all these Goods It 's true when the Mind falls by chance upon an Object of an Infinite Nature or which includes something great and mighty in it its unsettledness and casting about ceases for some time For finding that this Object bears the badge and character of that which the Soul desires it dwells upon it and closes in with it for a considerable time But this closing and adhesion or rather obstinacy of the Mind to examine Subjects infinite or too vast and unweildy is as useless to it as that Levity wherewith it considers those that are proportion'd to its Capacity since 't is too weak to accomplish so difficult an Enterprise and in vain it endeavours to effect it That which must render the Soul happy is not as I may speak the Comprehension of an Infinite Object this she is not capable of but the Love and Fruition of an Infinite Good whereof the Will is capable through the Motion of Love continually impress'd on it by GOD Himself Which being thus we need not wonder at the Ignorance and Blindness of Mankind because their Mind being subjected to the Inconstancy and Levity of their Heart which incapacitate it from considering any thing with a serious Application is unable to penetrate into a subject any whit perplex'd and difficult For in short the Attention of the Mind is to intelligible Objects what a steady View of the Eyes is to those of Sight And as a Man that can't fix his Eyes on the Bodies that are about him can never see them well enough to distinguish the differences of their least parts and to discover all the Relations those little parts have to one another So a Man who cannot fix the Eye of his Mind upon the things desir'd to be known can never have a sufficient Knowledge to distinguish all the parts and to observe all the Relations that may possibly be between themselves or themselves and other subjects Yet it is certain that all our Knowledge consists in a clear View of the Relations things stand in to one another So that when it happens as
Objects by considering its own Perfections That none but GOD sees them in that manner THE fourth Opinion is That the Mind stands in need of nothing but it self to perceive Objects and that it may by reflecting on it self and its own Perfections discover all things that are External to it It is certain that the Soul perceives in her self and without Idea's all the Sensations and Passions she is capable of Pleasure Pain Cold Heat Colours Sounds Odours Tasts her Love her Hatred her Joy her Sorrow and the rest Because all the Sensations and Passions of the Soul represent nothing out of her self which resembles them and they are only the Modifications the Mind is capable of But the difficulty lies in knowing whether the Idea's that represent things exteriour to the Soul and resemble them in one manner as the Idea's of the Sun of an House of an Horse of a River are nothing but the Modifications of the Soul So that the Mind has no need of any thing but it self to represent all these things that are without it There are those who make no scruple to affirm That the Soul being made for Thinking has in it self I mean by considering its own Perfections all that is necessary to its Perception of Objects For being in Effect more noble than all the things it distinctly conceives it may be said to contain them in some Eminent sort as the Schools love to speak that is in a more noble and sublimated manner than they are in themselves They pretend that superiour Beings comprehend after this manner the Perfections of the inferiour And hereupon being the noblest Creatures that they know they flatter themselves with possessing in a Spiritual manner all that is in the Visible World and with being able by diversly modifying themselves to perceive all that the Humane Mind can attain to know In a word they would have the Soul to be a sort of an Intelligible World that comprehends in it self the Material and Sensible World and infinitely more But methinks 't is a bold Stroke to offer a Defence of this Opinion 'T is if I mistake not a Natural Vanity the love of Independency and the desire of resembling Him who comprehends in Himself all Beings that confounds the Mind and makes us imagine our selves the Possessors of what we have not Say not says St. Augustin that ye are a Light to your selves For 't is only GOD that is a Light to Himself and who may by considering Himself see all that he has produc'd and all that he is able to produce 'T is most certain That there was none but GOD before the Creation of the World and that He was not able to produce it without Knowledge or without Idea That consequently the Idea's which GOD had are not different from Himself and so all the Creatures even the most Terrestrial and Material are in GOD though in a manner altogether Spiritual and to us incomprehensible GOD sees therefore in Himself all Beings by Reflection made on His own Perfections that represent them to Him He has besides the perfect Knowledge of their Existence For since they depend upon His Will for their Existence and He cannot be ignorant of His own Wills it follows that He cannot be ignorant of their Existence and consequently GOD beholds within Himself not only the Essence of things but their Existence also But 't is not the same with Created Spirits as not being able to see in themselves either the Essence or the Existence of Things They cannot see the Essence of them in themselves since being of a short and limited Capacity they contain not all Beings as GOD does who may be stil'd an Universal Being or simply He that is as He calls Himself Seeing then the Humane Mind is capable of knowing all Beings and Infinite Beings and yet contains them not in it self 't is an infallible Argument that it sees not their Essence in it self For the Mind has not only a successive sight of first one thing then another it also actually perceives INFINITE Though it does not comprehend it as has been said in the foregoing Chapter Wherefore being neither actually infinite nor capable of infinite Modifications at the same time it is absolutely impossible it should see in it self what it does not contain it sees not then the Essence of things by considering its own Perfections or by the diverse modifying of it self Nor does it see their Existence in it self because they depend not on its Will for their Existence and the Idea's of things may be present to the Mind though they do not exist at all For every one may have the Idea of a golden Mountain though there be no such thing as a golden Mountain in Nature And though we rely on the Testimonies of the Senses in our judging of the Existence of Objects yet Reason does not assure us that we ought always to believe them since we manifestly discover that they abuse us When a Man's Blood for instance is well warm'd or only when he sleeps he sees sometimes before his Eyes Fields Battles and the like which yet are not present and which possibly never were 'T is then indubitable that the Mind neither in it self nor by it self sees the Existence of things but in that particular depends on something else CHAP. VI. That we see all things in GOD. WE have examin'd in the preceding Chapters Four different ways for the Mind 's perceiving External Objects none of which seems likely to be true There only remains the Fifth which alone seems agreeable to Reason and the properest to manifest the Dependance our Minds have on GOD in all our Thoughts 'T is requisite to our perfect Understanding it to call to Mind what has been deliver'd in the foregoing Chapter viz. That 't is absolutely necessary for GOD to have in Himself the Idea's of all the Beings He has created since otherwise he could not have produc'd them And that hereby he sees all these Beings by considering the Perfections he includes whereunto they are related We ought to know farther that GOD is most strictly united to our Souls by His Presence so that He may be said to be the place of Spirits as Space is the place of Bodies These two things being suppos'd it is certain that the Mind can see what there is in GOD which represents Created Beings that being most Spiritual most Intelligible and most closely Present to the Mind And so the Mind may see in GOD all the Works of GOD supposing GOD willing to discover to it what He has in Himself that represents them Here then are the Reasons which seem to prove He would rather do this than create an infinite number of Idea's in every Mind In the first place though it be not deny'd absolutely that GOD might have made infinite upon infinite Numbers of Beings Representative of Objects with every Mind he has created yet it is not to be believ'd that He has done it For
to have any other Principal End of his Actions than Himself This is a common Notion with all Men capable of any Reflection and Holy Scripture will not suffer us to doubt that GOD has created all things for Himself It is necessary then not only that our Natural Love I mean the Motion he produces in our Mind should tend towards him but also that the Knowledge and the Light he gives it should discover something to us which is in Him For all that comes from GOD can have no other End but GOD. If GOD has made a Mind and given it the Sun for its Idea or for the immediate Object of its Knowledge GOD we should think had made that Mind and the Idea of that Mind for the Sun and not for Himself GOD cannot therefore make a Mind for the Knowledge of his Works were it not that this Mind should in some sort see GOD in contemplating his Works So that it may be said that unless we saw GOD in some manner we should see nothing at all just as we should love nothing at all except we lov'd GOD that is except GOD continually impress'd on us the love of Good in general For that Love being our Will we are unable to love any thing or will any thing without Him since we cannot love particular Goods but by determining towards these Goods the motion of Love that GOD gives us for Himself Thus as we love not any thing but by means of that necessary Love we have for GOD so we know nothing but through that necessary Knowledge we have of Him all the particular Idea's which we have of the Creatures being only the Restrictions of the Idea of the Creator as all the Motions of the Will towards the Creatures are only Determinations of the Motion towards the Creator I suppose there is no Theologist but will agree with me in this that the Impious love GOD with this Natural Love I speak of And St. Augustin and some other of the Fathers maintain'd it as a thing undoubted that the Wicked see in GOD the Rules of Morals and eternal Truths So that the Opinion I am explaining ought not to trouble any body Ab illa incommutabili luce Veritatis etiam impius dum ab ea avertitur quodammodo tangitur Hinc est quod etiam impii cogitant aeternitatem multa rectè reprehendunt rectéque laudant in hominum moribus Quibus ea tandem regulis judicant nisi in quibus vident quemadmodum quisque vivere debeat etiamsi nec ipsi eodem modo vivant Vbi autem eas vident Neque enim in sua natura Nam cum proculdubio mente ista videantur eorumque mentes constet esse mutabiles has verò regulas immutabiles videat quisquis in eis hoc videre potuerit ..... Vbinam ergo sunt istae regulae scriptae nisi in libro lucis illius quae veritas dicitur unde lex omnis justa describitur ...... in qua videt quid operandum sit etiam qui operatur injustitiam ipse est qui ab ea luce avertitur à qua tamen tangitur There are in St. Augustin infinite passages of the like Nature whereby he proves that we see GOD even in this Life through the Knowledge we have of eternal Truths Truth is uncreated immutable immense eternal and above all things It is true independently and by it self and is beholden to nothing else for its Perfection It renders the Creatures more perfect and all Spirits are naturally solicitous to know it nothing can have all these Perfections except GOD therefore Truth is GOD. We see immutable and eternal Truths therefore we see GOD. These are the Reasons of St. Augustin My own are somewhat different and I would not unjustly usurp the Authority of so Great a Man to countenance my Opinion 'T is my thoughts then that Truths even those which are eternal as That twice two are four are not so much as absolute Beings so far am I from believing them to be GOD. For 't is manifest that this Truth consists only in the Relation of Equality which is between twice two and four We do not say then with St. Augustin That we see GOD in seeing eternal Truths but in seeing the Idea's of these Truths for Idea's are real but the Equality between Idea's which is the Truth has nothing real in it When for instance we say the Cloth we measure is three Ells long The Cloth and the Ells are real but the Equality between the three Ells and the Cloth is no real Being but only a Relation intervening between them In saying Twice two are four the Idea's of the Numbers are real but the Equality between them is only a Relation And thus according to our own Opinion we see GOD in seeing eternal Truths not that these Truths are GOD but because the Idea's on which these Truths depend exist in GOD and perhaps too St. Augustin understood it so We are perswaded also that we know changeable and corruptible Truths in GOD though St. Augustin speaks only of the immutable and incorruptible since there is no need of subjecting GOD to any imperfection on this account nothing being more requir'd than that GOD gives us a Manifestation of what He has in Himself which relates to these things But when I say that we see in GOD material and sensible Things special Notice should be taken that I don't say We have the Sensations of them in GOD but only that they proceed from GOD who acts upon us For GOD perfectly knows sensible things but not by any Sensation In perceiving any thing of a sensible Nature two things occur in our Perception Sensation and Pure Idea The Sensation is a Modification of our Soul and 't is GOD who causes it in us which he is able to cause though He has it not Himself because he sees in the Idea he has of our Soul that it is capable of it As to the Idea which is found joyn'd to the Sensation that is in GOD and we see it because he is pleas'd to discover it to us And GOD joyns the Sensation to the Idea when the Objects are present to the intent we may believe them so and may enter into the Sentiments and Passions that we ought to have with relation to them We believe lastly that all Spirits see the eternal Laws no less than other things in GOD but with some difference They know the Divine Order and the Eternal Truths and even the Beings GOD has made according to this Order and these Truths through the Union they necessarily have with the WORD or the WISDOM of GOD who enlightens them as we have before explain'd But 't is through the impression they without intermission receive from the Will of GOD which carries them towards Him and strives as I may so say to conform their Will entirely like His own that they know this Order to be a Law I mean that they know the Eternal Laws
Reason that our Inclinations are disorder'd as we shall see better in the sequel we are oblig'd to another course For our Sensations being not to be credited we are forc'd to explain things in an higher and more transcendent manner but such as will doubtless seem Chimerical to those who take the Estimate of all things from the Senses 'T is an undeniable Truth That God can have no other Principal End of his Actions than Himself and that he may have many Subordinate Ends tending all to the Preservation of the Beings he has created He can have no Principal End besides Himself because being not liable to Errour he cannot place his ultimate End in Beings that include not all sorts of Perfection But he may have a less Principal namely the Preservation of Created Beings because all partaking of His Goodness are necessarily Good or in the Style of Scripture Valde Bona. And therefore God loves them and 't is His Love that preserves them for their Subsistence is wholly owing to the Love of God Diligis omnia quae sunt says the Wise Man nihil odisti eoruâ quae fecisti nec enim odiens aliquid constituisti fecisti Quomodo autem posset aliquid permanere nisi Tu voluisses aut quod a te vocatum non esset conservaretur And indeed 't is unconceivable that things should subsist which are not pleasing to an infinitely Perfect and Omnipotent Being since all things have their Subsistence only from His Will God therefore Wills His Glory as the Principal End and the Preservation of His Creatures only for His Glory Natural Inclinations of Spirits being undoubtedly the constant Impressions of the Will of Him who has Created and Preserves them must we may conclude be entirely like those of their Creatour and Preserver Wherefore they naturally can have no other Principal End than His Glory nor any other Second End than their own and others Preservation but this still with reference to him who gives them their Being For in brief it seeming undeniable that God cannot Will that the Wills He has Created should love a Less Good more than a Greater that is should love what is less amiable more than what is more so it is impossible for Him to Create any Creature without Directing it towards Himself and commanding it to love Him more than all things else though He may create it Free and with a Power of disengaging it self and diverting from Him As there is but One Love properly in God that is the Love of Himself and as He can love nothing but by that Love since He can love nothing but with reference to Himself So He imprints but one Love in us which is the Love of Good in general and we can love nothing but through that Love since we can love nothing but what 's a Real or Apparent Good This Love of Good in general is the Principle of all our particular Affections since this Love is really nothing but our Will The Will of Man as I have said before being only the Continual Impression of the Author of Nature which carries the Mind towards Good in general Surely we ought not to imagine that this Power of Loving either proceeds from or depends on our selves on whom only depends the Power of Loving wrong or rather of Rightly Loving Evil things because being Free we can determine and do actually determine to particular and consequently false Goods the Good Love wherewith God continually influences our Souls as long as He preserves them But not only our Will or our Love for Good in general comes from God our Inclinations likewise for particular Goods which are common to though unequally strong in all Men such as the Inclination for the Preservation of our Being and that of others to whom Nature has united us are the Impressions of the Will of God upon us For I term indifferently natural Inclination all the Impressions of the Author of Nature that are common to all Created Spirits I have been saying that God loves his Creatures and that 't is this His Love that both gives and preserves their Being and whereas he continually imprints on us a Love like His own since His Will both makes and governs ours He gives us all those Natural Inclinations which depend not on our Choice and which necessarily dispose us to the preserving our own and our Neighbour's Being For though Sin has corrupted all things it has not utterly destroy'd them Though our Natural Inclinations have not always God for their End by the free Choice of our Will yet they always have by the Institution of Nature since God who both produces and preserves these Inclinations in us does it only for Himself For all Sinners tend to God by the Impression they receive of Him though they recede from Him by the Errour and deviation of their Mind They love well it being impossible to love ill whilst God is the Author of Love but they love Evil things Evil only because God who gives Sinners the Power of Loving forbids their loving them by reason of their withdrawing Men ever since the Fall from the Love of Himself For whilst they imagine that the Creatures are the Cause of the Pleasure and Pain they feel or receive Occasionally from them they run furiously to the embracing these Bodies and so fall into an utter Oblivion of God who is not Visible to their Fyes We have still then the same Natural Inclinations or Impressions of the Author of Nature as Adam had before his fall We have even the same Inclinations as the Blessed have in Heaven For God neither makes nor preserves any Creatures but He possesses them with a Love like His own He loves Himself and us and all His Creatures and therefore Creates no Spirits but withall inclines them to love God Themselves and all the Creatures But as all our Inclinations are only the Impressions of Nature's Author which carry us to love Him and all things for His sake they can never be regular but when we love God with all our Strength and all things for the sake of God by a Free and Premeditate Choice of our Will For 't is Injustice and Abusing the Love of God which he gives us for Himself to lay it out on any thing besides or without Relation to him And thus we now know not only what are our Natural Inclinations but also what they ought to be to become regular and as they were instituted by their Author For all the Disorders of our Inclinations have no other Root than this that we fix our Ultimate End in Our selves and instead of referring all to God center all things upon Self First then we have an Inclination for Good in general which is the Principle of all our Natural Inclinations all our Passions and all the Free Affections of our Will Secondly we have an Inclination for the Preservation of our own Being or Welfare Thirdly we have an Inclination for other
Creatures which are either useful to our selves oâ those we love We have yet many other particular Inclinations which depend on these which probably we may treat of elsewhere In this Fourth Book my only Design is to reduce the Errours of our Inclinations to three Heads to the Inclination we have for Good in general to Love of of Our selves and of our Neighbour CHAP. II. I. The Inclination for Good in general is the Principle of the Restlesness of of the Will II. And consequently of our Inadvertency and Ignorance III. The first Instance shewing that Morals are but little known by the generality of Men. IV. The second Instance shewing that the Immortality of the Soul is controverted by some People V. That we are in extreme Ignorance in point of Abstract things and which have but little reference to us THAT vast Capacity which the Will has for all Goods in general by reason of its being made for a Good that comprehends in it all Goods can't be fill'd by all the things the Mind represents to it and yet the continual Motion which God impresses it withall is never stopt which necessarily gives a perpetual Disturbance and agitation to the Mind The Will which seeks after what it desires obliges the Understanding to represent all sorts of Objects which when represented by the Understanding the Soul cannot taste or if she tastes she remains unsatisfied She cannot taste them because the View of the Mind is seldom accompanied with Pleasure which is the Seasoning whereby the Soul relishes her Good and she is not satisfied because nothing can stop the Motion of the Soul except the Author of the Impression Whatever the Mind represents as the Good of the Soul is finite and whatever is finite may detain her Love for a moment but cannot fix it When new and extraordinary Objects come under the consideration of the Mind or such as have a Character of Infinite the Will gladly bears with an attentive Discussion for some time as hoping to find what she is in Search of because that which appears Infinite bears the Signature of its real Good but after a while is disgusted with this as with the rest and leaves it Hence it is ever restless and fluctuating because it is fated to seek what it never can find though always in hopes of And it loves whatever is Great Extraordinary and Infinite because having miss'd of its true Good in common and familiar things it fancies it may be found in such as are unknown We shall shew in this Chapter that the Restlessness of our Will is one of the Principal Causes of our Ignorance and the Errours we are guilty of upon infinite subjects and in the two following shall explain what it is that breeds that our Inclination for all that 's Great and Extraordinary First It is plain enough from what has been said That the Will is only solicitous to apply the Understanding to those Objects which are related to us and is very negligent as to the rest For that being by a Natural Impression ever longing and Impatient after Happiness it turns the Understanding only upon those things which afford us Pleasure and Advantage Secondly That the Will permits not the Understanding to busie it self long even about things that afford some Pleasure because as has been said all Created things may please us for a season but they quickly grow distastful and then our Mind declines them and takes new ways to other Delights and Satisfactions Thirdly That the Will is prompted to put the Understanding on these desultory advances from Object to Object from that confus'd and as it were distant Representation the Understanding gives of Him who includes in Himself all Beings as has been said in the Third Book For the Will desiring as I may so speak to bring its real good closer so as to be affected by it and to receive its quickning Motion excites the Understanding to represent it by peice-meal But then this is no longer the General the Universal and infinitely Perfect Being which the Mind perceives but something of a limited and imperfect Nature which the Will speedily abandons as finding it unable to stops Its Motion and please It any considerable time and so pursues after another Object Mean while the Advertency and Application of the Mind being absolutely necessary to the discovery of Truths ever so little abstruse it is manifest that the Vulgar of Men must be most grosly Ignorant even in point of such things as have some reference to them but inconceivably Blind as to all Abstract Truths and to which they have no sensible Relation But we must try to make these things manifest by some examples There is no Science that stands in so near a Relation to us as Moral Philosophy which teaches us our Duties to God and our King our Kindred and Friends and in general to all about us Besides it points out the way we must follow to become eternally Happy so that all Men are under an Essential Obligation or rather an dispensible Necessity of resigning themselves to the Study of it Notwithstanding Generations of Men have successively continued six thousand Years and yet this Science is still very imperfect That part of Morals which respects our Duty to God and which questionless is the Principal of all as relating to Eternity has been little known by Men of the greatest Learning and there are still to be found Men of Sense who have no Knowledge of it though the easiest part of all Moral Philosophy For first of all What difficulty is there to find out the Existence of a God Every of his works is a proof of it All the Actions of Men and Beasts prove it Whatever we think whatever we see whatever we feel demonstrates it In a word there is nothing in the World but proves that there is a God or at least may prove it to Men of attentive Minds who seriously betake themselves to Search after the Author of all things Again it is evident that we must pursue the Orders of God if we will be happy For since He is Just and powerful we cannot Disobey him without being punish'd nor obey Him without a recompence But what is it he requires of us That we love Him that our Thoughts be possess'd with Him and our Heart set upon Him For what end had God in Creating Minds and all things else Certainly no other than Himself So that being made for Him we are indispensibly oblig'd from diverting elsewhere the Impression of Love which He perpetually maintains in us in order to our perpetual loving Him These Truths are not very difficult to be discover'd by any attentive and considering Man and yet this sole Moral Principle That to become Vertuous and Happy 't is absolutely necessary to Love God above all things and in all things is the Foundation of all Christian Morality Nor is there need of very great Application to deduce from thence all necessary
constantly impresses on our Will is The Love of our selves and Our own Preservation We have already said That GOD loves all his Works and that it is only his Love which preserves them in their Being and that 't is his Will that all Created Spirits should have the same Inclination with his own 'T is his Will therefore that they all have a natural Inclination for their own Preservation and that they love themselves So that Self-love is reasonable because Man is really amiable in as much as GOD loves us and would have us love our selves but it is not reasonable to love our selves better than GOD since GOD is infinitely more lovely than we are It is injust for us to place our ultimate End in our selves and to centre our Love there without reference to GOD since having no real Goodness or Subsistence of our selves but only by the participation of the Goodness and Being of GOD we are no farther amiable than we stand related to him Nevertheless the Inclination we should have for GOD is lost by the Fall and our Will now has only an infinite Capacity for all Goods or Good in general and a strong Inclination to possess them which can never be destroy'd But the Inclination which we ought to have for our own Preservation or our self-Self-love is so mightily increas'd that 't is at last become the absolute Master of our Will It has even chang'd and converted the Love of GOD or the Inclination we have for Good in general and that due to other Men into its own nature For it may be said that the Love of our selves at present ingrosses all because we love all things but with relation to our selves whereas we should love GOD only first and all things after as related to him When Faith and Reason certifie us that GOD is the sovereign Good and that he alone can fill us with Pleasures we easily conceive it our Duty to love him and readily afford him our Affections but unassisted by Grace self-Self-love always is the first Mover All pure and defecate Charity is above the strength of our corrupt Nature and so far are we from loving GOD for himself that Humane Reason cannot comprehend how 't is possible to love him without Reference to our selves and making our ultimate End our own Satisfaction Self-love therefore is the only Master of our Will ever since the Disorders of Sin and the Love of GOD and our Neighbour are only Consequences of it since we love nothing at present but with the hopes of some Advantage or because we actually receive some Pleasure therein This Self-love branches into two sorts viz. Into the Love of Greatness and the Love of Pleasure or into the Love of ones Being and the Perfection of it and into the Love of Well-being or Felicity By the Love of Greatness we affect Power Elevation Independency and a Self-subsisting Being We are after a sort ambitious of having a Necessary Being and in one sense desire to be as Gods for GOD only has properly Being and Necessary Existence for that every Depending Nature exists only by the Will of its Upholder Wherefore Men in desiring the Necessity of their Being desire Power and Independency which may set them beyond the reach of the Power of others But by the Love of Pleasure they desire not barely Being but Well-being Pleasure being the best and most advantageous Mode of the Soul's Existence For it must be noted That Greatness Excellency and Independency of the Creature are not Modes of Existence that render it more happy of themselves for it often happens that a Man grows miserable in proportion to his growing great But as to Pleasure 't is a Mode of Existence which we cannot Actually receive without being Actually more happy Greatness and Independency are commonly External Modes consisting in the relation we have to things about us But Pleasures are in the very Soul are real Modes which modifie her and are naturally adapted to content her And therefore we look upon Excellency Greatness and Independency as things proper for the Preservation of our Being and useful sometimes by the order of Nature to the continuance of our Well-being But Pleasure is always a Mode of the Mind's Existence which of it self renders it Happy and Content So that Pleasure is Well-being and the Love of Pleasure the Love of Well-being Now this Love of Well-being is sometimes more powerful and strong than the Love of Being and Self-love makes us desire Non-existence because we want Well-being This Desire is incident to the Damn'd for whom it were better according to the Saying of our SAVIOUR not to be at all than to be so ill as they are because these Wretches being the declar'd Enemies of him who contains in himself all Goodness and who is the sole Cause of all the Pleasures and Pains we are capable of 't is impossible they should enjoy any Satisfaction They are and will be eternally miserable because their Will shall ever be in the same Disposition and Corruption Self-love therefore includes two Loves that of Greatness Power and Independence and generally of all things thought proper for the preservation of our Being and that of Pleasure and of all things necessary to our Well-being that is to our being Happy and Content These two Loves may be divided several ways whether because we are compounded of two different parts of a Soul and Body by which they may be divided or because they may be distinguish'd or specify'd by the different Objects that are serviceable to our Preservation But I shall insist no longer upon this because designing not a Treatise of Morality there is no need of making an exact Disquisition and Division of all the things relating to us as our Goods Only this Division was necessary to reduce into some order the Causes of our Errours First I shall speak to the Errours that are caus'd by the Inclination we have for Greatness and whatever sets our Being free from Dependence upon others In the next place I shall treat of those which proceed from our Inclination to Pleasure and whatever meliorates our Being as much as possible and contents us most CHAP. VI. I. Of the Inclination we have for whatever elevates us above others II. Of the false Judgments of some Religious Persons III. Of the false Judgments of the Superstitious and Hypocrites IV. Of Voetius Mr. Des Cartes's Enemy WHatever tends to exalt us above others by making us more perfect as Science and Vertue or gives us Authority over them by rendring us more powerful as Honours and Riches seems to put us in a sort of Independence All those that are below us reverence and fear us are always prepar'd to execute what we please for our Preservation and are afraid of offending us or resisting our Desires which makes Men constantly endeavour to be Masters of these Advantages which elevate them above others for they don't consider that their Being and
pursuant to his first Will to give us the Sensation of Pleasure when we don't deserve it either because the Action we do is unprofitable or criminal or that being full of Sin we have no Right to demand a Recompence The Enjoyment of Sensible Pleasures was justly due to Man in his Regular Actions whilst he remain'd Innocent But âince the Fall there are no Sensible Pleasures entirely innocent or incapable of harming us when we taste them For it is commonly sufficient only to taste them to become their Slave Thirdly GOD being Just cannot chuse but punish one day the Violence that was done him by obliging him to reward with Pleasure criminal Actions committed against him When our Soul shall be dis-united from our Body GOD will be dispens'd from the Obligation he has impos'd upon himself of giving Sensations answerable to the Motions of the Animal Spirits but he will still be oblig'd to satisfie his Justice and so that will be the season of his Wrath and Vengeance Then though he change not the Order of Nature but remain ever fix'd and immutable in his first Will he will punish the unmerited Pleasures of the Voluptuous with Pains that will never have an end Fourthly Because the Certainty we have in this Life of the future Execution of that Justice exagiâates the Mind with dreadful Anxieties and throws it into a sort of Despair which renders the Voluptuous miserable even amidst the greatest Pleasures Fifthly Because of those disquieting Remorses which almost ever attend the most Innocent Pleasures by reason we are inwardly convinc'd we don 't deserve them which Remorses rob us of a certain internal Joy that is found even in the Severities of Repentance And therefore though Pleasure be a Good yet it must be acknowledg'd that the Enjoyment of it is not always to our Advantage for the foregoing Reasons And for others of like nature most requisite to be known and easily deducible from them it must be granted that it is most commonly highly advantageous to suffer Pain though really an Evil. Nevertheless every Pleasure is a Good and actually makes happy the Enjoyer at the time of Enjoyment and so long as he enjoys it and every Pain is an Evil and makes the Sufferer actually unhappy at the instant of suffering and so much as he suffers it The Righteous and Holy may be said to be the most miserable of all Men in this Life and most worthy of Compassion Si in vita tantum in Christo speramus miserabiliores sumus omnibus hominibus says St. Paul For those that weep and suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake are not blessed for suffering Persecution for the sake of Righteousness but because the Kingdom of Heaven is Theirs and a great Reward is laid up for them in Heaven that is because they shall be happy Such as are persecuted for Righteousness are thereby Righteous Vertuous and Perfect as being in the Divine Order and because Perfection consists in the observing it But they are not happy because they suffer There shall be a time when they shall suffer no more and then they shall be happy as well as righteous and perfect However I deny not but the Righteous even in this Life may be in some measure happy by the Strength of their Hope and Faith which bring those future Goods as it were present to their Minds For it is certain that the vigorous and lively Hope of any Good brings it closer to the Mind and anticipates the Enjoyment and thus makes a Man happy in part since 't is the Taste and the Possession of Good 't is Pleasure that makes us happy Therefore we should not tell Men that Sensible Pleasures are not good and that they render the Possessors never the Happier since this is false and at the time of Temptation they find it so to their Misfortune They ought to be told That these Pleasures are in their own nature good and after a sort capable to make them happy yet for all that to be avoided for such like Reasons as the foremention'd but that they have not strength enough to withstand them of themselves because they desire to be happy by an invincible Inclination which these transitory Pleasures to be avoided by them in some measure satisfie and therefore are under a fatal necessity of being lost unless rescued and assisted These things are to be inculcated to them to give them a distinct Knowledge of their own Imbecillities and their need of a Redeemer We ought to speak to Men as our Lord and not as the Stoicks do who understand neither the Nature nor Distemper of an humane Mind We must continually tell them they are to hate and despise themselves and not look for a Settlement and Happiness here below that they must continually bear their Cross or the Instrument of their Suffering and lose their Life at present to save it everlastingly Lastly we must shew them their Obligation to act quite contrary to their Desires to make them sensible of their Impotence to Good For their Will is invincibly bent on Happiness which 't is impossible actually to obtain without doing what they have a Mind to Perhaps being sensible of their present Evils and knowing their future they will humble themselves on Earth possibly they will cry to Heaven will seek out a Mediator stand in fear of sensible Objects and conceive a salutary Abhorrence for whatever flatters Concupiscence and their Senses Probably they may enter into that Spirit of Prayer and Repentance so necessary to the obtaining Grace without which no Strength no Health no Salvation can be expected We are inwardly convinc'd that Pleasure is good which inward Conviction is not false for Pleasure is really so We are naturally convinc'd that Pleasure is the Character of Good and that natural Conviction is certainly true for whatever causes Pleasure is unquestionably very good and amiable But we are not assur'd that sensible Objects or even our Soul it self are capable of producing Pleasure in us For there is no reason why we should believe it but a thousand why we should not Thus sensible Objects are neither good nor amiable they are to be employ'd as serviceable to the Preservation of Life but we must not love them as being incapable of acting upon us The Soul ought only to love what is good to her and able to make her happier and more perfect and therefore nothing but what 's above her can be the Object of her Love since 't is evident her Perfection can derive from nothing that is not so But because we judge that a Thing is the Cause of some Effect when it constantly attends it we imagine that sensible Objects act on us because at their approach we have fresh Sensations and because we see not him who causes them really in us In tasting a Fruit we have a Sensation of Sweetness and we attribute that Sweetness to the Fruit which we judge both to cause it and contain it We
see not GOD as we see and touch this Fruit nay we do not so much as think on him nor perhaps on our selves And so we judge not that GOD is the true Cause of that Sweetness nor that it is a Modification of our Soul but impute both the Cause and Effect to the Fruit we eat What I have said of Sensations relating to the Body may be understood of those which have no relation to it such are those which are incident to pure Intelligences A Spirit contemplates it self and finds nothing wanting to its Happiness or Perfection or else sees that it is not in possession of what it desires Upon the View of its Happiness it feels Joy upon the sight of its Misery it feels Sorrow It immediately imagines that 't is the sight of its Happiness which produces in it self this Sensation of Joy because this Sensation still accompanies this Perception and fancies likewise that the sight of its Misery is what produces in it the Sensation of Sorrow because the latter is a constant Attendant of the former The true Cause of these Sensations which is GOD alone does not appear to it nor does it it may be think on GOD. For GOD acts in us in an imperceptible manner GOD rewards us with a Sense of Joy when we find our selves in the state we ought to be in to the intent we may continue in it that our Anxiety may cease and that we may fully enjoy our Happiness without suffering the Capacity of our Mind to be taken up with any thing else But he produces in us a Sensation of Sorrow when we know we are not in our convenienâ state to the end we may not stay in it but restlesly seek out for the Perfection which we want For GOD continually drives us towards Good when we know that we do not possess it but gives us a powerful Check when we see we are fully possess'd of it Wherefore 't is evident to me that the Sensations of Intellectual Joy and Sorrow no less than Sensible are not the voluntary Productions of the Mind Our Reason then should constantly teach us to discover that invisible Hand which fills us with Good and which lies disguis'd to our Mind under Sensible Appearânces This Hand we are to adore and to love and also to fear since though it loads us with Pleasures it can likewise over-whelm us with Pains We ought to love it with a Love of Choice an enlightned Love a Love worthy of GOD and our selves Our Love is worthy of GOD when it proceeds from our Knowledge of his being Amiable and this Love is worthy of our selves for that being Reasonable Creatures we ought to bestow our Love on that which Reason teaches us is worthy of it But we love sensible Things with a Love unworthy our selves and undeserv'd by them whilst being reasonable we love them without any Reason for it as not clearly knowing them to be lovely and on the contrary knowing they are not But we are betray'd by Pleasure to the Love of them the blind and irregular Love of Pleasure being the true Cause of the false Judgments of Men in Subjects of Morality CHAP. XI Of the Love of Pleasure with Reference to Speculative Sciences I. How it disables us from discovering Truth II. Some Instances OUR Inclination for Sensible Pleasures being misgovern'd is not only the Original of those dangerous Errours we are guilty of in Subjects of Morality and the general Cause of the Corruption of our Manners but likewise one of the main Causes of the Depravation of our Reason And it insensibly engages us in most gross but less dangerous Errours in point of Subjects purely Speculative because it disables us from bringing a sufficient Attention to comprehend and judge well of things that do not affect us We have spoken several times already of the Difficulty we find to apply our selves to Subjects somewhat Abstract the Subject of our Discourse requiring it As towards the End of the First Book where we shew'd that Sensible Ideas more affecting the Soul than Ideas purely Intellectual she was more taken up with the out-side manners than the Things themselves So again in the Second where treating of the Tenderness of the Fibres of the Brain we shew'd whence the Softness of certain Effeminate Minds proceeded Lastly in the Third when speaking of the Attention of the Mind it was necessary to shew that it was very careless of things Speculative but very attentive to such as affected her and made her feel Pleasure or Pain Our Errours have most commonly several Causes contributing to their Rise so that it ought not to be thought it is for want of Order that we repeat almost the same things and assign several Causes of the same Errours it is really because they have so many I still speak of Occasional Causes for we have often declar'd they have no other true and real Cause than the wrong use of our Liberty which wrong use consists in our not using it so much as we might as we have explain'd at the beginning of this Treatise We are not therefore to be blam'd if in order to make it fully conceiv'd how for Instance the Sensible Manners Things are involv'd in surprize and lead us into Errour we were oblig'd by way of Anticipation to speak of our Inclination for Pleasures in the other Books which seems fitter to have been reserv'd for this wherein we purposely treat of the Natural Inclinations and the same may be said of other things in other places All the harm that will come of it is this that we may dispense with many things here which we had been oblig'd to explain if it had not been done elsewhere All things in the Humane Nature are so link'd and twin'd to one another that we find our selves often as it were over-whelm'd with the Number of things necessary to be said at the same time to set our Conceptions in an open and clear Light We are sometimes forc'd to let things go unseparated which Nature has join'd together and to proceed against our own prescrib'd Method when this Method throws us in Confusion as it inevitably does on some Occasions And yet after all it is impossible to make others take in all our Conceptions All that can commonly be pretended to is to put others in a Capacity of discovering with Pleasure and Ease what we have discover'd our selves with great Pains and Fatigation And since 't is impossible to make any Discovery without Attention our Studies should be chiefly employ'd on Means of making others Attentive This is what we have essay'd to do though we must acknowledge but weakly perform'd and we are the willinger to confess we have been defective that the Confession may provoke our Readers to supply themselves what is wanting in us to make them attentive in order to penetrate the Bottom of Subjects which deserve to be thorowly consider'd Infinite are the Errours wherein our Inclination for Pleasures and in general
more like a Divine than Philosopher For example among other things he concludes That u if the Will had not this Liberty but must have embrac'd every thing that came cloath'd with an appearance of Truth it would have almost ever been deceived whence probably it might be concluded that the Author of its Being was the Author of its Errours and Seducements And afterwards We have therefore a Liberty given us by God that we might avoid falling into Errour 'T is visible this reasoning is founded on the Author 's supposing God will not deceive us x But may it not be doubted whether God has not made us for the enjoyment of probability only and resolv'd to reserve the knowledge of Truth as his own peculiar or whether he designs not this as a pure accession to our Happiness y in Heaven wherefore we ought not to conclude that he would be a Deceiver if he should not afford us the means of discovering it z I leave it Sir to you to think what the Pyrronists would say if they should hear this arguing Many such there are in the process of this piece especially in the last part whereof most Chapters contain Arguments which include theological Questions a b Whether then he considers all these Suppositions as Articles of Faith or regards them as Truths demonstrable by Philosophy he ought still to distinguish them from the Fundamentals of his Work If he considers them as Articles of Faith he is very well pârsuaded they are obscure If he looks on them as conclusions of Humane Science his Method ought to precede them and not imploy them as Principles to depend upon If I thought the World would be concern'd to know exactly that the Animadverter has not understood what he has pretended to encounter I would thus continue him on to the end of his Book and would make it undeniably appear that he has hardly ever taken my Sense and that he had no Idea of my Design but I believe that reasonable Men will be very indifferent in this particular and therefore not to weary them to no purpose and yet to discharge that Debt which some persons think I owe to Truth I will answer in few words all the Chapters of the Animadversions and I desire such as shall have leasure and curiosity enough to examine whether my Answers are just by confronting the Animadversions with the Search In the fourth Article or Chapter the Animadverter opposes my Opinions at large without knowing them He does not consider there are two sorts of Traces one which the Mind forms to represent things by as the Trace which accompanies the Idea of a Square the other which accompanies abstract Ideas but represents them not such are the Traces which the Sound of Words and the Sight of Characters produce in the Brain which naturally have no power to represent or raise Ideas This one Distinction overthrows the grand Reasonings of our Author In this fifth Chapter he puts upon me many Opinions which I never had 'T is not true That I acknowledge all our Ideas to be but Modes of our Soul 's existing On the contrary I have in the third Book which he reflects on given a Chapter on purpose to shew that Opinion indefensible When a Man will play the Critick 't is fit methinks he should read the Book he takes to task Nor is it true that I own that the Ideas we receive by the Senses represent only the Effects produc'd in us hy external Objects I have said the contrary in several places in the fifteenth Chapter of the first Book and elsewhere Why does he not cite or rather why does he not examine what he Criticises on For what remains I cannot distinctly conceive all the Argumentations he here makes I know not the Reason of them those who attentively read them may think of them what they please But I scruple not to affirm that he is so far from impugning my Opinion about the manner of the Minds perceiving external Objects that on the contrary what he says in this Article shews he knows nothing of it In his sixth Chapter he imposes on me what he calls my sixth Supposition or rather he has no knowledge of my Opinion upon that Subject To me he seems not so much as to have read what I have written on it he affirms in several places that I bottom upon Mr. des Cartes 's resolution upon that Question when yet my Opinion is intirely different from his But 't is evident to all that understand Mr. des Cartes and have read what I have said upon that Question that the Author neither understands mine nor Mr. des Cartes's Opinions Mean-while he argues vehemently without knowing what he opposes and even sometimes without discovering what he aims at The Author is very much in the wrong in his seventh Chapter to require me to prove the Existence of Extension when I mean only to assault the Errours of the Senses in point of sensible Qualities and I should have repented if I had follow'd that Method I prove what is serviceable to me in the sequel and I establish nothing upon the Supposition he attributes to me Moreover I cannot tell how it came into his Head after seven years to complain of an Answer of Monsieur Rohault he should have replied to it whilst he was alive but he wanted courage for every one knows with what accuracy and force that learned Man repell'd the Blows that were offer'd him and with two or three words pronounc'd without all manner of Heat and Passion humbled the Imagination of such as being full of themselves thought to cover him with confusion In answer to the eighth Chapter I desire the Author to take notice first that there is difference between an Evil and the Representation of it and therefore the Will may fly the former and yet aquiesce in the latter Secondly that though the Will be nothing but the natural Motion of the Soul towards Good in general yet the Rest or Acquiescence of the Soul in evident Truths proceeds from the Will because Rest is produ'd by Motion God will still imprint on us this natural Motion of Love when we shall intirely repose our selves upon him For the Motion of Love doth not cease by the possession of Good and by the view of Truth as Motion of Bodies is interrupted by Rest. We might say farther that even Bodies rest not as capable of Figures but with respect to Motion The rest need no Answer if the Reader will carefully consider those places in the Search which he attacks for 't is needless to answer Objections which vanish upon a distinct Understanding of what I have written though they appear considerable in themselves In the ninth Chapter the Author opposes my own Objections and neglects the Answers I have given them and not knowing there are several sorts of Liberty he fancies with a great deal of Joy that I have fallen into a Contradiction I
the Will of man as a Will it essentially depends on the Love that God bears to himself on the Eternal Law and in short on the Will of God It is only because God loves himself that we love any thing for if God did not love himself or did not continually influence the Soul of man with a Love like his own that is with the Motion of Love which a Man feels in himself for Good in general we should love nothing we should will nothing and consequently should be destitute of Will since Will is nothing else but that Impression of Nature that carries us towards Good in general as hath been said several times But the Will considered as the Will of Man essentially depends upon the Body since it is by reason of the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits that it feels its self affected with all its sensible Commotions And therefore I have called Natural Inclinations all the Motions which the Soul has common with pure Intelligences together with some in which the Body hath a great Share but of which it is only the indirect Cause and End and I have explained them in the foregoing Book Here I understand by Passions All the Motions which naturally affect the Soul on occasion of the extraordinary Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits And so shall these sensible Commotions be the Subject of this Book Though the Passions be inseparable from the Inclinations and Men be only susceptible of a sensible Love and Hatred because they are capable of a Spiritual Love and Hatred however it was though fit to treat of them separately in order to prevent Confusion For if it be considered That the Passions are far stronger and livelyer than the Natural Inclinations that they have for the most part other Objects and are always produced by different Causes it will be granted That we do not distinguish without Reason things that are inseparable in their own Nature Men are capable of Sensations and Imaginations only because they are capable of pure Intellections the Senses and Imagination being inseparable from the Mind and yet none finds fault with those that distinctly treat of those Faculties of the Soul which are naturally inseparable Last of all the Senses and Imagination differ not more from the pure Understanding than the Passions from the Inclinations And therefore as the three first Faculties use to be distinguished so ought also the two last that we may the better distinguish what the Soul receives from its Author with Relation to its Body from that which it also has from him but without that Relation The only Inconveniency that may grow out of the distinction of two things so naturally united is the necessity of repeating some things that had been said before as is usual in the like occasions Man is one though he be Compounded of several parts and the union of those parts is so intimate that one of them cannot be affected without a Commotion of the whole All his Faculties are linked together and so subordinated that it is impossible to explain some of them without touching upon the others So that when we labour to find out a Method to prevent Confusion we necessarily fall into Repetitions but 't is better to repeat than not to be Methodical because we ought above all to be plain and intelligible and therefore whatever we can doe in this occasion is to repeat if possible without wearying the Reader The Passions of the Soul are Impressions of the Author of Nature which incline us to love our Body and whatever is useful for its preservation As the natural Inclinations are Impressions of the same Author that principally move us to love him as the Sovereign Good The natural or occasional Cause of these Impressions is the Motion of the Animal Spirits which disperse through the Body to produce and maintain in it a disposition suitable to the Object perceiv'd that the Mind and Body may in that conjuncture mutually help each other For 't is the Institution of God that our Willings be attended with such Motions of our Body as are fit to put them in execution and that the Motions of our Body which Machinally rise in us at the perception of some Object be follow'd with a Passion of the Soul that inclines us to will what seems at that time profitable to the Body It is the continual Impression of the Will of God upon us that keeps us so strictly united to a portion of matter for if that Impression of his Will should cease but a moment we should instantly be rid of the Dependency upon our Body and all the Changes it undergoes For I cannot understand what some people imagine that there is a necessary Connection betwixt the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits and the Commotions of the Soul Some small Particles of Choler violently move in the Brain must therefore the Soul be agitated with some Passion and must that Passion be Anger rather than Love What Relation can there be conceived betwixt the Idea of an Enemy's Imperfections the Passion of Contempt or Hatred and the Corporeal Motion of some Particles of the Blood that beat against some parts of the Brain How they can imagine that the one depend upon the other and that the Union or Connection of two things so distant and so incompatible as the Mind and Matter can be caused and preserved any otherwise than by the continual and Almighty Will of the Author of Nature is to me unconceivable Those that suppose that Bodies necessarily and by themselves communicate their Motion to each other in the instant of their concourse make but a probable supposition neither is their prejudice altogether groundless since Bodies seem to have an Essential Relation to Bodies But the Mind and Body are two sorts of Beings so opposite that those who think that the Commotions of the Soul necessarily follow upon the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits do it without the least probability For nothing but our own Consciousness of the Union of those two Beings and the Ignorance of the continual Operations of God upon his Creatures can make us imagine another Cause of the Union of our Soul and Body than the Will of God It is hard to determine whether that Union or Connection of the thoughts of the Mind of Man with the Motions of his Body is a punishment of Sin or a Gift of Nature And some persons believe it a rash and imprudent Attempt to chuse one of these Opinions rather than the other It is well known that Man before his Sin was not a Slave but absolute Master of his Passions and that he could merely by his Will stop at his pleasure the Agitation of the Blood that caused them But we can hardly persuade our selves that the Body did not importune the Soul of the first Man to find out such things as were fit for the preservation of his Life We can scarce believe but Adam before his
a convenient Staâe but the Soul relishes it with great Satisfaction whereas it is never in a State conârary to its Good and Preservation but that she endures it with pain And therefore when we follow the Motions of our Passions and stop not the Course of the Spirits which the View of the Object of the Passion produces in the Body to put in it the most convenient State with relation to that Object the Soul by Nature's Law is affected with a Sensation of Satisfaction and Delight because her Body is in the Disposition it requires whereas when according to the Laws of Reason the Soul stops the Current of the Spirits and withstands those Passions she suffers a Pain proportionable to the Evil that may from thence arise to the Body For as the Reflection that the Soul makes upon her self is necessarily accompanied with the Joy or Sorrow of the Mind and afterwards with the Joy or Sorrow of the Senses when doing her Duty and submitting to the Orders of God she is conscious that she is in a due and convenient state or when having given her self up to her Passions she is afterwards affected with Remorse which teaches her that she is in a corrupt Disposition So the Course of the Spirits raised for the good of the Body is first attended with sensible and afterwards with Spiritual Joy or Sorrow according as the Course of the Animal Spirits is retarded or promoted by the Will There is however this notable difference betwixt the Intellectual Joy that attends the clear Knowledge of the good Estate of the Soul and the sensible Pleasure that accompanies the confused Sensation of the good disposition of the Body that the intellectual Joy is solid and substantial without Remorse and as immutable as its Original Cause the Truth whereas sensible Joy is almost ever followed with the Sorrow of the Mind or the Remorse of the Conscience and is as restless and fickle as the Passion or Agitation of the Blood from whence it proceeds To conclude the first is for the most part attended with an exceeding Joy of the Senses when it is derived from the Knowledge of the great good that the Soul possesses whereas the other is very rarely accompanied with any great Joy of the Mind though it proceeds from a Good considerable for the Body but contrary to the Good or Perfection of the Soul 'T is nevertheless true That without the Grace of our Lord the satisfaction the Soul relishes when she gives her self up to her Passions is more grateful than that which she enjoys when she follows the Rules of Reason which satisfaction is the Source of all the Disorders that have attended the Original Sin and would have made us all Slaves to our Passions had not the Son of God rid us from their Tyranny by the Delectation of his Grace For what I have said on behalf of the Joy of the Mind in opposition to the Joy of the Senses is only true amongst the Christians and was altogether false in the Mouths of Seneca Epicurus and all the most rational of the Heathen Philosophers because the Yoke of Christ is only sweet to those that belong to him and his Burthen only light when his Grace helps us to support the Weight of it CHAP. IV. That the Pleasure and Motion of the Passions engage us in Errours and false Judgments about Good That we ought continually to resist them How to impugn Libertinism ALL those general Qualities and Effects of the Passions that we have hitherto treated of are not free they are in us without our Leave and nothing but the Consent of our Will is wholly in our Power The View or Apprehension of Good is naturally followed with a Motion of Love a Sensation of Love a Concussion of the Brain a Motion of the Spirits a new Commotion of the Soul that encreases the first Motion of Love a new Sensation of the Soul that likewise augments the first Sensation of Love and lastly a Sensation of Satisfaction which recompenses the Soul for the Bodies being in a convenient State All this happens to the Soul and Body naturally and mechanally that is without her having any part in it nothing but her Consent being her own real Work This Consent we must regulate preserve and keep free in spite of all the Struggle and Attempts of the Passions We ought to submit our Liberty to none but God and to yield to nothing but to the Voice of the Author of Nature to inward Evidence and Conviction and to the secret Reproaches of our Reason We ought never to consent but when we plainly see we should make an ill Use of our Liberty in with-holding our Consent This is the principal Rule to be observ'd for the avoiding of Errour God only makes us evidently perceive That we ought to yield to what he requires of us to him alone therefore we ought to devote our Services There is no Evidence in the Allurements and Caresses in the Threats and Frightnings caused in us of the Passions they are only confused and obscure Sensations to which we must never yield up our selves We must wait till all those false Glimpses of the Passions vanish till a purer Light illuminates us till God speaks inwardly to us We must enter within our selves and there seek him that never leaves us that always enlightens us He speaks low but his Voice is distinct his Light is weak but pure But no his Voice is as strong as 't is distinct and his Light is as bright and active as 't is pure But our Passions continually keep us from home and by their Noise and Darkness hinder us from being instructed by his Voice and illuminated by his Light He speaks even to those that ask him no Questions and those whom Passions have carried farthest from him fail not yet many times to hear some of his Words but loud threatning astonishing Words sharper than a two-edged Sword piercing into the inmost Recesses of the Soul and discerning the Thoughts and Designs of the Heart For all things are open to his Eyes and he cannot see the unruly Actions of Sinners without lashing them inwardly with smarting Reproofs We must then re-enter into our selves and approach near him we must interrogate him listen to him and obey him for by always listning to him we shall never be deceived and always obeying him we shall never be subjected to the Inconstancy of the Passions and the Miserie 's due to Sin We must not like some pretenders to Wit whom the Violence of Passion has reduced to the Condition of Beasts who having a long time despised the Law of God seem at last to have retained no Knowledge of any other than that of their infamous Passions We must not I say imagine as do those Men of Flesh and Blood that it is following God and obeying the Voice of the Author of Nature to give up our selves to the Motions of Passions and to comply with the secret Desires
of our Heart This is the utmost possible Blindness 't is according to St. Paul the temporal Punishment of Impiety and Idolatry that is to say the Desert of the most enormous Crimes And herein indeed the greatness of this terrible Punishment consists that instead of allaying the Anger of God as do all the others in this World it continually exasperates and encreases it till that dreadful Day comes wherein his just Wrath shall break out to the Confusion of Sinners Their Arguings however seem likely enough as being agreeable to common Sense countenanc'd by the Passions and such I am sure as all the Philosophy of Zeno could never overthrow We must love Good say they Pleasure is the Sign which Nature has affix'd to it to make it known and that Sign can never be fallacious since God has instituted it to distinguish Good from Evil. We must avoid Evil say they again Pain is the Character which Nature has annex'd to it and a Token in which we cannot be mistaken since it was instituted by God for the distinguishing it from Good We feel Pleasure in complying with our Passions Trouble and Pain in opposing them and therefore the Author of Nature will have us to give up our selves to our Passions and never to resist them since the Pleasure and Pain wherewith he affects us in those Cases are the infallible Criterion of his Will And consequently it is to follow God to comply with the Desire of our Hearts and 't is to obey his Voice to yield to the Instinct of Nature which moves us to the satisfying our Senses and our Passions This is their way of Reasoning whereby they confirm themselves in their infamous Opinions And thus they think to shun the secret Reproofs of their Reason and in Punishment of their Crime God suffers them to be dazzled by those false Glimpses delusive Glarings which blind them instead of inlightning them and strike them with such an insensible Blindness as they do not so much as wish to be cured of it God delivers them to a reprobate Sense he gives them up to the Desires of their corrupt Heart to shameful Passions to Actions unworthy of Men as the Holy Scripture speaks that having fatned themselves by their Debauches they may to all Eternity be the fit Sacrifice of his Vengeance But let us solve this Difficulty which they offer The Sect of Zeno not knowing how to untie the Knot has cut it by denying that Pleasure is a Good and Pain an Evil But that 's too venturous a Stroke and a Subterfuge unbecoming Philosophers and very unlikely I am sure to convert those who are convinc'd by Experience That a great Pain is a great Evil. Since therefore Zeno and all his Heathen Philosophy cannot solve the Difficulty of the Epicures we must have recourse to a more solid and inlightned Philosophy 'T is true that Pleasure is Good and Pain Evil and that Pleasure and Pain have been join'd by the Author of Nature to the Use of certain Things by which we judge whether they are Good or Evil which make us persue the Good and fly from the Evil and almost ever follow the Motions of the Passions All this is true but relates only to the Body which to preserve and keep long a Life much like to that of Beasts we must suffer our selves to be ruled by our Passions and Desires The Senses and Passions are only given us for the good of the Body sensible Pleasure is the indelible Character which Nature has affix'd to the Use of certain Things that without putting our Reason to the trouble of examining them we might presently imploy them for the preservation of the Body but not with intent that we should love them For we ought only to love those Things which Reason undoubtedly manifests to be our Good We are Reasonable Beings and God who is our Sovereign Good requires not of us a blind an instinctive a compell'd Love as I may say but a Love of Choice an enlightned Love a Love that submits to him our whole Intellectual and Moral Powers He inclines us to the Love of him in shewing us by the Light that attends the Delectation of his Grace that he is our Chief Good but he moves us towards the Good of the Body only by Instinct and a confused Sensation of Pleasure because the Good of the Body is undeserving of either the Attention of our Mind or the Exercise of our Reason Moreover our Body is not our selves 't is something that belongs to us and absolutely speaking we cannot subsist without it The Good of the Body therefore is not properly our Good for Bodies can be but the Good of Bodies We may make use of them for the Body but we must not be taken up with them Our Soul has also her own Good viz. the only Good that is superiour to her the only one that preserves her that alone produces in her Sensations of Pleasure and Pain For indeed none of the Objects of the Senses can of themselves give us any Sensation of them it is only God who assures us of their Presence by the Sensation he gives us of them which is a Truth that was never understood by the Heathen Philosophers We may and must love that which is able to make us sensible of Pleasure I grant it But by that very Reason we ought only to love God because he only can act upon our Soul and the utmost that sensible Objects can do is to move the Organs of our Senses But what matters it you 'll say from whence those grateful Sensations come I will taste ' em O thou ungrateful Wretch know the Hand that showres down Good upon thee You require of a just God unjust Rewards You desire he should recompence you for the Crimes you commit against him and even at the very time of committing them you make use of his immutable Will which is the Order and Law of Nature to wrest from him undeserved Favours for with a guilty Managery you produce in your Body such Motions as oblige him to make you relish all sorts of Pleasures But Death shall dissolve that Body and God whom you have made subservient to your unjust Desires will make you subservient to his just Anger and mock at you in his turn 'T is very hard I confess that the Enjoyment of Corporeal Good should be attended with Pleasure and that the Possession of the Good of the Soul should often be conjoin'd with Pain and Anguish We may indeed believe it to be a great Disorder by this Reason that Pleasure being the Character of Good and Pain of Evil we ought to possess a Satisfaction infinitely greater in loving God than in making use of sensible Things since He is the true or rather the only Good of the Mind So doubtless will it be one Day and so was it most probably before Sin entred into the World At least 't is very certain that before the Fall Man suffered
no Pain in discharging his Duty But God is withdrawn from us since the Fall of Adam he is no more our Good by Nature but only by Grace we feel now no Delight and Satisfaction in the Love of him and he rather thrusts us from than draws us to him If we follow him he gives us a Rebuff if we run after him he strikes us and if we be obstinate in our Persuit he continues to handle us more severely by inflicting very lively and sensible Pains upon us And when being weary of walking through the rough and stony Ways of Vertue without being supported by the Repast of Good or strengthned by any Nourishment we come to feed upon sensible Things he fastens us to them by the relish of Pleasure as though he would reward us for turning back from him to run after counterfeit Goods In short since Men have sinn'd it seems God is not pleas'd that they should love him think upon him or esteem him their only and sovereign Good It is only by the delectable Grace of Christ our Mediator that we sensibly perceive that God is our proper Good For Pleasure being the sensible Mark of Good we then perceive God to be our Good when the Grace of our Redeemer makes us love him with Pleasure Thus the Soul not knowing her own Good either by a clear View or by Sensation without the Grace of Jesus Christ she takes the Good of the Body for her own she loves it and closes to it with a stricter Adhesion by her Will than ever she did by the first Institution of Nature For Corporeal Good being now the only one left that is sensible must needs operate upon Man with more Violence strike his Bâain livelier and consequently be felt and imagined by the Soul in a more sensible manner And the Animal Spirits receiving a more vehement Agitation the Will by consequence must love it with a greater Ardency and Pleasure The Soul might before Sin blot out of her Brain the too lively Image of Corporeal Good and dissipate the sensible Pleasure this Image was attended with The Body being subject to the Mind the Soul might on a sudden stop the quavering Concussion of the Fibres of the Brain and the Commotion of the Spirits by the meer Consideration of her Duty But she lost that Power by Sin Those Traces of the Imagination and those Motions of the Spirits depend no more upon her whence it necessarily follows that the Pleasure which by the Institution of Nature is conjoin'd to those Motions and Traces must usurp the whole Possession of the Heart Man cannot long resist that Pleasure by his own Strength 't is Grace that must obtain a perfect Victory Reason alone can never doe it None but God as the Author of Grace can overcome himself as the Author of Nature or rather exorate himself as the Revenger of Adam's Rebellion The Stoicks who had but a confused Knowledge of the Disorders of Original Sin could not answer the Epicures Their Felicity was but Ideal since there is no Happiness without Pleasure and no Pleasure to be sensibly perceiv'd by them in Vertuous Actions They might feel indeed some Joy in following the Rules of their phantastick Vertue because Joy is a natural Consequence of the Consciousness our Soul has of being in the most convenient State That Spiritual Joy might bear up their Spirits for a while but was not strong enough to withstand Pain and overcome Pleasure Secret Pride and not Joy made them keep their Countenance for when no body was present all their Wisdom and Strength vanished just as Kings of the Stage lose all their Grandeur in a Moment It is not so with those Christians that exactly follow the Rules of the Gospel Their Joy is solid because they certainly know that they are in the most convenient State Their Joy is great because the Good they possess through Faith and Hope is Infinite for the Hope of a great Good is always attended with a great Joy and that Joy is so much livelier as the Hope is stronger because a strong Hope representing the Good as present necessarily produces Joy as also that sensible Pleasure which ever attends the Presence of Good Their Joy is not restless and uneasie because grounded on the Promises of God confirm'd by the Blood of his Son and cherished by that inward Peace and unutterable Sweetness of Charity which the Holy Ghost sheds into their Hearts Nothing can separate them from their true Good which they relish and take Complacency in by the Delectation of Grace The Pleasures of Corporeal Good are not so great as those they feel in the Love of God They love Contempt and Pain They feed upon Disgraces and the Pleasure they find in their Sufferings or rather the Pleasure they find in God for whom they despise all the rest to unite themselves to him is so ravishing and transporting as to make them speak a new Language and even boast as the Apostles did of their Miseries and Abuses when they departed from the presence of the Council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the Name of JESUS Such is the Disposition of Mind in true Christians when they are most basely affronted for the Defence of Truth CHRIST being come to restore the Order which Sin had overthrown and that Order requiring that the greatest Goods be accompanied with the most solid Pleasures it is plain that things ought to be in the manner we have said But we may farther confirm and strengthen Reason by Experience for 't is known that as soon as any Person has formed but the bare Resolution to despise all for God he is commonly affected with a Pleasure or internal Joy that makes him as sensibly and lively perceive that God is his Good as he knew it evidently before The true Christians assure us every Day that the Joy they feel in an unmixt loving and serving God is inexpressible and 't is but reasonable to believe the Relation they make of what happens within them On the contrary the Impious are perpetually vexed with horrible Disquietudes and those that are shar'd betwixt God and the World partake of the Joys of the Just and of the Vexations of the Impious They complain of their Miseries and 't is reasonable to believe that their Complaints are not groundless God strikes Men to the Quick and through the very Heart when they love any thing besides him and 't is this Stroke that causes a real Misery He pours an exceeding Joy into their Minds when all their Adherencies are to him only and that Joy is the Spring of true Felicity The Abundance of Riches and Elevation to Honours being without us cannot cure us of the Wound God makes and Poverty and Contempt that are likewise without us cannot hurt us under the Almighty's Protection By what we have said 't is plain That the Objects of the Passions are not our Good that we must not follow their
Motions unless it be for the Preservation of Life that sensible Pleasure bears the like Proportion to Good as Sensations to Truth and that as our Senses deceive us in Matters of Truth so do likewise our Passions in point of our Good that we ought to yield to the Delectation of Grace because it evidently moves us to the Love of a true Good is not followed with the secret Reproaches of Reason as the blind Instinct and confused Pleasure of the Passions but is always attended with a secret Joy suitable to the good State we are in Last of all since God alone can operate upon the Mind of Man he cannot find any Happiness out of God unless we would suppose that God rewards Disobedience or that he commands to love more what less deserves to be loved CHAP. V. That the Perfection of the Mind consists in its Vnion with God by the Knowledge of Truth and the Love of Vertue and contrariwise that its Imperâection proceeds only from its Dependency on the Body caused by the Disorder of the Senses and Passions THE shortest Reflection is sufficient to let us know that the Good of the Mind must needs be something of a Spiritual Nature for our Bodies are much inferiour to our Mind they are unable to act upon it by their own strength they cannot immediately unite themselves to it lastly âhey are not intelligible of themselves and therefore cannot be its Good whereas Spiritual things being intelligible of their own Nature can be united to the Mind and consequently be its Good provided they be Superiour to it For that a thing may be the Good of the Mind it must not only be Spiritual as it self but it must also be Superiour to it that it may act upon it enlighten it and reward it since otherwise it cannot make it perfecter and happier nor by consequence be its Good Now of all Intelligible or Spiritual things God alone is thus Superiour to the Mind whence it follows That nothing but God alone either is or can be our true Good and that we cannot become either more happy or more perfect but by enjoying him Every one is persuaded that the Knowledge of Truth and the Love of Vertue make the Mind moâe perfect and that the Blindness of the Mind and the Depravation of the Heart lessens its natural Perfection The Knowledge of Truth and the Love of Vertue cannot then be any thing else but the Union of the Mind to God or if I may so speak a Possession of him and on the conârary the Blindness of the Mind and the Depravation of the Heart can be nothing else but a separation of the Mind from God and its Union with something Inferiour to it viz. with the ââdy since that is the only Union that can make it imperfect and unhappy And therefore to know the Truth or to know things as far as they are agreeable to the Rules of Truth is really to know God And to love Vertue or to love things as far as they are amiable or according to the Rules of Vertue is to love him The Mind is situate as it were betwixt God and Bodies betwixt Good and Evil between that wâiâh enlightens and that which blinds it that which rules and that which misrules it that which can make it perfect and happy and that which can render it imperfect and miserable When it discovers some Truth or sees things as they are in their own Nature it sees them in the Ideas of God that is discovers them by a clear and distinct view of what is in God representing them For as I have observed elsewhere the Mind of Man contains not in it self the Perfections or Ideas oâ all the Beings it is capable of perceiving 't is not the universal Being and therefore cannot see iâ it self such things as are distinguish'd from it self It does not instruct or enlighten it self by consulting with it self as being neither Perfection nor Light to it self it stands in need to be enlightned by the immense Light of Eternal Truth Thus the Mind by knowing Truth is united to God and in some manner knows and possesses him We may not only say That a Mind perceiving the Truth partly knows God who comprehends it we may add also That in some sort it knows things as God himself knows them For the Mind knows their true Relations and so does God the Mind sees them in viewing the Perfections of God that represent them God perceives them the same way for God neither perceives by Sense nor Imagination but sees in himself as being the Intellectual World the Corporeal and Sensible World which he has created 'T is the same with the Mind in its Knowledge of Truth it comes not to it by Sensation or Imagination for Sensations and Pantasms offer but false Representations of things to the Mind so that whosoever discovers the Truth sees it in the Intellectual World to which 't is united and in which Good sees it for this material and sensible World is not intelligible of it self so that the Mind sees in the Light of God as does God himself all the things which it plainly sees though it sees them very imperfectly and so very differently from God in that respect Thus when the Mind sees Truth it not only is united to God possesses and beholds God but also sees Truth in one sense as God himself sees it So when we love according to the Rules of Vertue we love God for by regulating our Love according to these Rules the Impression of Love towards him which he continually produces in our Heart is not turn'd off by free Will nor chang'd into Self-Love The Mind at that time freely follows the Impression which God gives and God never giving any Impression which does not tend towards him since he only acts for himself it is plain That to love according to the Rules of Vertue is to love God But 't is not only to love God 't is likewise to love as God loves He loves himself only and his Works but because they relate to his Perfections and proportionably to the degrees of Conformity they have with them It being the same Love by which God loves himself and whatever he has made or done To love according to the Rules of Vertue is to love God only to love him in all things and to love things proportionably as they partake of his Goodness and Perfections since this is to love them according to the degree they are lovely In short 't is to love by the Impression of the same Love by which God loves himself for 't is the Love by which God loves himself and whatever else with relation to him that animates us when we love as we ought whence I conclude That we then love as God loves It is therefore evident That the Knowledge of Truth and the regular Love of Vertue constitute all our Perfection since they are the costomary Attendants on our Union with God which also
affords us the Enjoyment of him as far as we are capable of it in this Life whereas the Blindness of the Mind and the Depravation of the Heart make our Imperfection and are the Results of the Union of our Soul and Body as I have proved in several Places shewing that we never know the Truth nor love the real Good when we follow the Impressions of our Senses Imaginations and Passions All this is evident and yet Men who all passionately desire the Perfection of their Being care but little to increase the Union which they have with God nay they are continually at work to strengthen and enlarge that which they have with sensible things The Cause of that surprizing Disorder cannot be too much explain'd The Possession of Good must naturally produce two Effects in the Possessour at once must render him more perfect and more happy however it does not always fall out so 'T is impossible indeed that the Mind should actually enjoy a Good without being actually more perfect but it may happen that it actually enjoys it without being actually happier Those that know Truth best and love most the most lovely Goods are always actually more perfect than those that live in blind Ignorance and disorderly Practice but they are not always actually happier It is even so with Evil it ought at once to make both imperfect and unhappy but though it always makes Men more imperfect yet it does not always make them more unhappy or at least makes them not unhappy proportionably to its making them imperfect Vertue is often bitter and distastful whereas Vice is sweet and pleasant so that it is especially by Faith and Hope that pious Men are truly happy whilst the wicked have the actual Enjoyments of Pleasures and Delights It ought not to be so indeed but however it is so Sin has brought forth that Disorder as I said in the foregoing Chapter and that Disorder is the principal Cause not only of the Corruption of our Morals but also of the Ignorance and Darkness of our Mind By that Disorder it is that our Imagination persuades it self that Bodies may be the Good of the Mind For Pleasure as I have often said is the sensible Character or Mark of Good But now of all the Pleasures we enjoy upon Earth the most sensible are those which we imagine to receive by the Body We judge though too inconsiderately without doubt that Bodies can be and are effectually our Good And 't is so hard to oppose the Instinct of Nature and to withstand the Arguments of the Senses that the design of it does not so much as come into our Mind We think not on the Disorders introduc'd by Sin We consider not that Bodies can act upon the Mind but as occasional Causes that the Mind cannot immediately or by it self enjoy any Corporeal thing and that all the ways it has of uniting to an Object are by its Knowledge and Love that God only is superiour to it can reward or punish it by Sensations of Pleasure or Pain that can enlighten and move it in a word act upon it Those Truths though most evident to attentive Minds are not however so powerful to convince us as is the deceiving Experience of a sensible Impression When we consider something as part of our selves or look on our selves as a part of that thing we judge it our Good to be united to it we love it and this love is so much the greater as the thing whereunto we think our selves united seems to be a more considerable part of the whole we make up together with it Now there are two sorts of Proofs which persuade us that a thing is part of our self viz. the Instinct of Sensation and the Evidence of Reason By the Instinct of Sensation I am persuaded that my Soul is united to my Body or that my Body makes part of my Being but I have no full Evidence of it since I know it not by the light of Reason but by the Pain or Pleasure I feel at the presence and impression of Objects My Hand is prick'd I suffer Pain thence I conclude that my Hand makes part of my self my Cloaths are rent and I endure nothing therefore I say my Cloaths are not my self my Hair is cut without Pain but cannot be pluck'd up without smart that puzzles the Philosopher and he knows not what to determine In the mean while this perplexity shows that even the wisest rather judge by the instinct of Sensation than by the light of Reason that such or such things belong or belong not to themselves For should they determine them by Evidence and the light of Reason they would quickly know that the Mind and the Body are two sorts of Beings altogether opposite that the Mind cannot be united to the Body by it self and that the Soul is wounded when the Body is struck only because of her Union with God 'T is then only by the Instinct of the Sensation that we look on our Body and all the sensible things to which we are united as part of our selves that is as belonging to that which thinks and feels in us For what is not cannot be known by evident Reason since Evidence discovers Truth alone But on the contrary 't is by the light of Reason that we know the Relation we have with Intellectual things We discover by a clear View of the Mind that we are united to God in a more strict and essential manner than to our Body that without him we are nothing and neither can doe nor know neither will nor be sensible of any thing that he is our All or if we may so speak that we make up a whole with him of which we are but an infinitely small part The light of Reason discovers us a thousand Motives to love God only and to dispise Bodies as unworthy of our Love But we are not naturally sensible of our Union to God nor persuaded that he is our All by the Instinct of sense 't is only the Grace of our Lord which produces in some Men that spiritual sense to help them to overcome the contrary Sensations by which they are united to their Body For God as the Author of Nature inclines Minds to the love of him by a Knowledge of Illumination and not of Instinct and in all probability 't is but since the Fall that God as the Author of Grace has superadded Instinct to Illumination because our light is at present so mightily impair'd as to be incapable of bringing us to God being besides continually weakn'd by contrary pleasure or instinct and rendred ineffectual We therefore discover by the light of the Mind that we are united to God and to the intellectual World which he contains and are convinced by Sensation that we are united to our Body and by it to the material and sensible World God has Created But as our Sensations are more lively moving frequent and lasting than our Illuminations so 't
true Judgments provided we only judge of what he says and as he says in Imitation only of our Lord as I hear I judge But let 's see how it is that our Passions seduce us that we may the easier resist them The Passions are so nearly related to the Senses that remembring what hath been said in the first Book it will not be difficult to explain how they lead us into Errour because the general Causes of the Errours of the Passions are altogether like to those of the Errours of the Senses The most general Cause of the Errours of the Senses is as we there have shewn our attributing to external Objects or to the Body the proper Sensations of our Soul annexing Colours to the Superficies of Bodies diffusing Light Sounds and Odours in the Air and fixing Pain and Titillation to those Parts of our Body that receive some Changes by the Motion of other contiguous Bodies Almost the same thing may be said of the Passions we too rashly ascribe to the Objects that cause or seem to cause them all the Dispositions of our Heart our Goodness Meekness Malice Sowreness and all the other Qualities of our Mind The Object that begets some Passion in us seemes afrer a sort to contain in it self the Passion produced in us when we consider it as sensible things seem to contain in themselves the Sensations which their Presence excites in us When we love any Person we are naturally inclin'd to believe that he loves us and can hardly imagine that he designs to hurt us or to oppose our Desires But if Hatred succeed in the place of Love we cannot Persuade our selves that he has any Affection for us we interpret all he does in the worst Sense we are always distrustful and upon our Guard though he thinks not upon us or perhaps intended to doe us Service In short we unjustly attribute to the Person that stirs up a passion in us all the Dispositions of our Heart and with as much Imprudence as we ascribe to the Objects of the Senses all the Qualities of our Mind Moreover by the same Reason that we believe other Men receive the same Sensations from the same Objects as we do we think they are agitated with the same Passions for the same Subjects if they are in a State of being susceptible of them We suppose them to love and desire the same things as we our selves do whence proceed secret Jealousies and Hatreds if the desired Good cannot be enjoyed entire by several for the contrary happens in Goods that can be possessed without Division by several Persons as Science Vertue the Sovereign Good and the like We also suppose that they hate fear or fly from the same things that we do whence proceed secret Plots or publick Associations according to the nature and state of the thing hated by which means we hope to rid our selves of our Miseries We therefore ascribe to the Objects of our Passions the Commotions they produce in us thinking that all other Men and even sometimes Beasts are agitated as we are and besides judge yet more rashly the Cause of our Passions which is often but imaginary is really in some Object When we have a passionate Love for any Body his Grimace and Faces are charming his Ugliness is not distastful his ill-composed Motions and Gestures are regular or at least natural If he never speak he is wise if he be a great Talker he is witty if he speak upon all adventures he 's Universal if he continually interrupt others it is because he 's full of Fire of Life and Spirit if he pretend to top and sway every where 't is because he deserves it Thus can Passion cover or dissemble the Imperfections of Friends and advantagiously set off their most inconsiderable Qualities But when that Friendship which only proceeds as other Passions do from the Agitation of the Blood and Animal Spirits comes to cool through want of Heat and Spirits fit to nourish it when Interest or some false Relation alters the Disposition of the Brain then Hatred succeeding Love is sure to represent to us in that Object of our Passion all the Defects that are capable of stirring up our just Aversion We perceive in him Qualities quite contrary to those we admired before We are asham'd of having lov'd him and the ruling Passion never fails to justifie it self and to ridicule that which it has follow'd The Power and Injustice of Passions are not included within such narrow Limits as those we have described but extend infinitely farther not only disguising their principal Object but also whatever has any reference to it They make us love not only the Qualities of our Friends but also most part of those of the Friends to our Friends And in those who are endued with any strength and extent of Imagination the Passions have so vast a reach and out-let that it is not possible to determine their Limits Those Things I have mention'd are such general and fruitful Principles of Errour Prejudice and Injustice that it is impossible to observe all the Consequences of them Most of the Truths or rather Errours entertained in some Places Times Commonalties and Families proceed from thence What is followed in Spain is rejected in France what is true at Paris is false at Rome what is certain amongst the Dominicans is uncertain amongst the Franciscans and what appears undoubted to the Black Fryars seems an Errour to the White The Dominicans believe themselves obliged to stick to St. Thomas Why Because that Doctor was one of their Order Whereas the Franciscans follow the Opinion of Scotus because he was a Black Fryar There are likewise Truths and Errours proper to certain Times The Earth turned two thousand Years ago then it remain'd unmovable till our Days wherein it has began to turn again Aristotle was formerly burnt and a Provincial Council approved by the Pope most wisely forbad his Physicks to be taught He was admired ever since and falls now again into Contempt Opinions that are now publickly received in the Schools were formerly rejected as Heresies and their Assertors excommunicated by the Bishops because Passions stirring up Factions Factions establish those sorts of Truths or Errours that are as inconsistent as the Principle they proceed from Men may indeed be indifferent as to the Unmovableness of the Earth or the Essence of Bodies consider'd in themselves but they are no longer so when they look on those Opinions as defended by their Adversaries Thus Hatred kept up by a confused sense of Piety breeds an indiscreet Zeal that kindles by degrees and at last produces such Events as are not so surprizing to all the World till a great while after their arrival We can hardly imagine that Passions should reach so far because we know not that their Impetuosity extends to whatever may satisfie them Perhaps Hâman would have done no harm to the Jewish People but because Mordecai a Jew forbore to salute him he
on a sudden design'd the destroying of the whole Nation that his Revenge might be the more splendid Two Men sue each other about a Piece of Land they ought only to produce in Court their Titles to it and to say nothing but what relates to the Case or to set it off fair However they seldom fail to slander one another to contradict each other in every thing to raise trifling Contestations and Accusations and to intricate the Suit with an infinity of Accessary Circumstances which confound the Principal In short the Passions reach as far as the sight of the Mind does in those that are affected by them I would say there is nothing to which we may suppose their Object to be related but their Motion will extend to it which is done after the following manner The Tracks of the Objects are so connected to each other in the Brain that it is impossible the Course of the Spirits should violently move any one of them without raising several others at the same time The principal Idea of the Thing perceiv'd is therefore necessarily accompanied with a vast number of accessary Ideas which increase more and more as the Impression of the Animal Spirits is more violent Now that Impression cannot but be very violent in the Passions because they continually hurry into the Brain abundance of such Spirits as are fit to preserve the Traces of the Ideas which represent their Object So that the Motion of Love or Hatred extends not only to the Chief Object of either Passion but also to all the Things that are found any ways relating to it because the Motion of the Soul in the Passion follows the Perception of the Mind as the Motion of the Animal Spirits in the Brain follows the Traces of the Brain as well those that excite the principal Idea of the Passion 's Object as those that are related to it And therefore we must not be surprized if Men carry their Hatred or Love to such a heighth and commit such strange and capricious Actions Every one of those Effects has its proper Cause though unknown to us because their accessary Ideas being not always like to ours we cannot rightly judge of them So that Men act always by some particular Reason even in those Actions that appear most extravagant to us CHAP. VII Of the Passions in particular And first Of Admiration and its ill Effects WHatever I have said hitherto of the Passions is general yet 't is no hard matter to draw particular Inferences from it If one do but reflect upon what occurs in his own Breast and upon the Actions of others he will discover at one View a greater number of those Truths than can be explain'd in a considerable time However there are so few who think of retiring into themselves and make any Attempt to that purpose that to quicken them and raise their Attention it will not be amiss somewhat to descend into Particulars It seems when we handle or strike our selves that we are almost insensible whereas if we be but never so little touched by others we receive such lively Sensations as awaken our Attention In a word as it never comes into our Mind to tickle our selves and if it did perhaps the Attempt would be unsuccessful So almost for the same Reason the Soul cares not to feel and sound her self is presently disgusted at that sort of Exercise and commonly is incapable of feeling or knowing all the Parts that belong to her till touch'd and made sensible to her by others So that it will be necessary for the facilitating some People in acquiring the Knowledge of themselves to mention some of the particular Effects of the Passions to âeach them by touching them of what Make and Constitution their Soul is of In the mean while those that shall read the following Thoughts must be forewarn'd that they will not always be touched to the Quick nor be aware that they are subject to the Passions and Errours of which I shall speak because particular Passions are not always the same in all Men. All Men indeed have the same natural Inclinations which referr not to the Body and likewise all those that relate to it when 't is in a very good Constitution But its various Tempers and frequent Alterations produce an infinite Variety in particular Passions To which diversity of Constitutions if that variety of Objects be added which cause very different Impressions upon those who follow not the same Employments and manner of Life it will plainly appear that such a Person who is lively touched by some Things in one Place of his Soul may be absolutely insensible as to many others so that we should commonly mistake should we always judge of the Commotions of others by what we feel in our selves I am not afraid of being deceiv'd when I assert That all Men would be happy for I fully and certainly know that Chinese and Tartars Angels and Devils in a word all Spirits whatsoever have an Inclination for Felicity Nay I know that God shall never produce any Spirit without that Desire I never saw either Chinese or Tartar so that I never learn'd it from Experience nor yet from my inward Consciousness which only teaches me that I would my self be happy God alone can inwardly convince me that all other Men Angels and Devils desire Happiness and he only can assure me that he will never create a Spirit that shall not care for Felicity For who else can positively assure me of what he does and even thinks And as he cannot deceive me so I may safely relie on what I learn from him And therefore I am certain that all Men would be happy because that Inclination is natural and independent on the Body It goes quite otherwise with particular Passions For because I love Musick Dancing Hunting Sweet-meats high-season'd Dishes c. I cannot certainly conclude that other Men have the same Passions Pleasure is doubtless sweet and grateful to Men but all find it not in the same Things The Love of Pleasure is a Natural Inclination not depending upon the Body and therefore general to all Men But the Love of Musick Hunting or Dancing is not general because the Disposition of the Body from which it proceeds being different in several Persons the Passions they produce are not always the same General Passions as Desire Joy and Sorrow are the Mean betwixt natural Inclinations and particular Passions They are general as well as Inclinations but they are not always of the same strength because the Cause which produces and feeds them is not always equally active There is an infinite Variety in the Degrees of Agitation of the Animal Spirits in their Plenty and Scarcity in their Solidity and Fineness and in the Relation betwixt the Fibres of the Brain and those Spirits And therefore it often happens that we touch not Men in any part of their Soul when we treat of particular Passions but if they chance to
be touched they are violently moved On the contrary the mentioning of general Passions and Inclinations never fail to affect us but so weakly and faintly that we are scarce sensible of it I mention this lest any should judge of what I say by his own Commotions that he either has or shall receive from my Discourse but rather that he should judge of it by considering the Nature of the Passions I speak of Should we purpose to handle all the particular Passions and distinguish them by the Objects that raise them it is plain the Task would be endless and we should only repeat the same thing The former because the Objects of the Passions are infinite the latter because we should be constantly engag'd in the same Subject The particular Passions for Poetry History Mathematicks Hunting Dancing are but one general Passion For for example the Passions of Desire or Joy for whatever pleases are not different Passions though delightful Objects in particular differ much And therefore the Number of Passions must not be multiplied by the Number of Objects which are infinite but only by the principal Relations they may have to us And so it will appear as we shall explain it hereafter that Love and Hatred are the Mother-Passions which produce no other general Passions besides Desire Joy and Sorrow that the particular Passions are made up only of those Three primitive and more or less compounded according to the number of accessary Ideas that attend the principal Idea of the Good or Evil which has rais'd them or as the Good and Evil are more or less circumstantiated with reference to us If we remember what has been said of the Connection of Ideas and that in all great Passions the Animal Spirits being extreamly agitated stir up in the Brain all the Traces any ways related to the moving Object we shall own that there is an infinite Variety of different Passions which have no particular Names and cannot be explain'd but by saying they are inexplicable If the primitive Passions of the Complication of which others are made up were not susceptible of more or less it would not be difficult to determine the Number of all the Passions but that number of complicated Passions must needs be infinite because one and the same Passion having infinite Degrees may by its Conjunction with others be infinitely complicated so that there were perhaps never two Men affected with the same Passion if by that Name be understood an even Mixture and Likeness of all the Motions and Sensations that are occasionally rais'd in us upon the presence of some Object But as more or less do not alter the Species so it may be said that the Number of Passions is not infinite because the Circumstances that attend Good or Evil which excite the Passions are not innumerable But let us explain our Passions in particular When we see any thing the first time or when having seen it several times accompanied with some Circumstances we see it again attended with others we are surprized and admire it Thus a new Idea or a new Connection of old Ideas raises in us an Imperfect Passion which is the first of all and nam'd Admiration I call it imperfect because 't is not excited either by the Idea or Sense of Good The Brain being then struck in some unusual Places or in a new manner the Soul is sensibly moved and therefore must needs strongly apply her self to what is new in that Object for the same Reason that a bare Tickling the Soale of the Feet raises a very lively and moving Sensation in the Soul rather by the Novelty than by the Strength of the Impression There are other Reasons of the Application of the Soul to new Things but I have explain'd them where I speak of the Natural Inclinations Here we consider the Soul only as related to the Body in which respect the Commotion of the Spirits is the natural Cause of her Application to new Things In Admiration strictly taken we consider things only as they are in themselves or as they appear and look not on them as related to us or as good or bad Hence it comes that the Spirits disperse not through the Muscles to give the Body the Disposition that is required for persuing Good or shunning Evil and shake not the Nerves that go to the Heart and other Viscera to hasten or retard the Fermentation or Motion of the Blood as it happens in other Passions All the Spirits go the Brain to print a lively and distinct Image of the surprizing Object that the Soul may consider and know it again whilst the rest of the Body remains in the same posture and as unmovable For as there is no Commotion in the Soul so there is no Motion in the Body When the admired Things appear great Admiration is always follow'd with Esteem and sometimes with Veneration whereas it is always accompanied with Contempt and sometimes with Disdain when they appear little The Idea of Grandeur causes a great Motion of the Spirits in the Brain and the Tracks that represent it are kept very long And likewise a great Motion of the Spirits raises in the Soul an Idea of Greatness and powerfully fixes the Mind on the Consideration of that Idea On the contrary the Idea of Littleness produces but an inconsiderable Motion of Spirits in the Brain and the Traces representing it are soon blotted out And likewise a small Motion of Spirits raises in the Soul an Idea of Meanness and stays the Mind but little on the Consideration of that Idea Those things deserve to be taken notice of When we consider our selves or something united to us our Admiration is always accompanied with some moving Passion which however only agitates the Soul and the Spirits that go to the Heart because there being no Good to seek nor Evil to avoid the Spirits disperse not themselves through the Muscles to dispose the Body to some Action The Contemplation of the Perfection of our Being or of something belonging to it naturally produces Pride or Self-esteem Contempt of others Joy and some other Passions The Contemplation of our own Grandeur causes Haughtiness that of our Strength Valour or Boldness and that of any other Advantage naturally raises some other Passion which is still a kind of Pride On the contrary the Conâideration of some Imperfection of our Being or of something belonging to it naturally produces Humility Contempt of our selves Reverence for others Sorrow and some other Passions The âight of our Littleness causes Pusilanimity that of our Weakness Timidity and that of any Disadvantage whatsoever naturally raises some other Passion which is still a kind of Humility But neither that Humility nor that Pride are properly Vertues or Vices being only Passions or involuntary Commotions which yet are very useful to Civil Society and even in some Cases absolutely necessary for the preservation of the Life or Goods of those that are actuated by them 'T is necessary
other Love by its Impressions upon it and its own Motion diminishes not on the contrary it gets new Strength by its new Victories For as that Motion never goes out of the Heart so it cannot be lost though it be continually communicated Self-love is therefore the Ruling and Universal Love since it is to be found and bears the sway every where so that all the Passions having no proper Motion of their own it may be said that Self-love is the most extensive and powerful of all Passions or the Ruling and Universal Passion And as all Vertues are but Species of that first Vertue we call Charity according to St. Austin so all Vices and Passions are but as so many Effects and Sorts of Self-love or of that general Vice we call Concupiscence We often distinguish in Morals the Vertues or Species of Charity by the Difference of Objects but that sometimes confounds the true Idea we ought to have of Vertue which rather depends on its own Motive than any thing else And therefore we shall not follow that Method in treating of the Passions nor distinguish them by the Objects because one and the same Object may excite them all and that ten thousand Objects may raise but one For though Objects differ from each other yet they differ not always in relation to us nor do they stir up in us different Passions The promis'd Staff of a Mareschal of France differs from a Bishop's Crosier or Pastoral Staff promis'd yet those two Marks of Honour excite almost the same Passion in the Ambitious since they raise in the Mind of both the same Idea of Good But the same Mareschal's Staff when promised granted enjoyed taken away stirs up Passions altogether different because it raises in the Mind different Ideas of Good We must not then multiply the Passions by their different Objects that cause them but only admit as many as there are accessary Ideas that attend the chief Idea of Good or Evil and considerably alter it in relation to us For the general Idea of Good or the Sensation of Pleasure which is good to him that enjoys it agitating the Soul and Animal Spirits produces the general Passion of Love and the accessary Ideas of that Good determine that general Agitation of Love and Course of the Spirits in such a particular manner as puts the Mind and Body in a convenient Disposition in relation to the perceived Good And thus they produce all the particular Passions And therefore the general Idea of Good produces an indeterminate Love which is but an Extension of Self-love The Idea of Good as possess'd produces a Love of Joy The Idea of Good not as possess'd but hop'd for that is as judg'd possible to be possess'd produces a Love of Desire And lastly The Idea of any Good that is neither possess'd nor hop'd for or which is the same the Love of any Good which we cannot hope to enjoy without losing some other or which we cannot preserve when we are possess'd of it produces a Love of Sorrow Those are the Three simple and primitive Passions that have Good for their Object for the Hope that produces Joy is not a Commotion of the Soul but a simple Judgment However we must observe That Men confine not their own being within themselves but extend it to all Things and Persons to whom they believe it their Advantage to unite themselves So that we must conceive that they are possess'd in some manner of a Good when enjoy'd by their Friends though they do not possess it immediately themselves And therefore when I say That the Possession of Good produces Joy I understand it not only of an immediate Possession or Union but also of any other for we naturally feel a Joy upon the Success or good Fortune of those we love Evil as I said can be taken Three ways for the Privation of Good for Pain and for the Thing that causes the Privation of Good or produces Pain In the first sense the Idea of Evil being the same with the Idea of a Good not enjoy'd it is plain that Idea produces Sorrow or Desire or even Joy for Joy is always excited from that we find our selves exempt of the Privation of Good that is to say when we possess Good So that those Passions that refer to Evil taken in that sense are the same as those that relate to Good because at the Bottom they have likewise Good for their Object When Evil signifies Pain which alone is always a real Evil to him that suffers it whilst he suffers it then the Sense of that Evil produces those Passions of Sorrow Desire and Joy that are Species of Aversion and not of Love because their Motion is altogether opposite to that which accompanies the Perception of Good that Motion being but the Resistance of the Soul against the natural Impression The Actual Sense of Pain produces an Aversion of Sorrow The Pain we suffer not but are afraid to suffer produces an Aversion of Desire And lastly the Pain we neither suffer nor are afraid to suffer or what is the same the Pain that shall be attended by a considerable Reward or the Pain from which we are freed produces an Aversion of Joy Those are the Three simple or primitive Passions that have Evil for their Object for the Fear that produces Sorrow is not a Commotion of the Soul but a bare Judgment Lastly If by Evil we understand the Person or the Thing that deprives us of Good or causes us to endure Pain the Idea of Evil produces a Motion of Love and Aversion together or only a Motion of Aversion The former when the Evil is that which deprives us of Good for by the same Motion we tend towards Good and fly from that which hinders its Possession And the latter when 't is the Idea of an Evil which causes Pain in us for 't is by the same Motion of Aversion that we hate Pain and whatever produces it And therefore there are Three simple or primitive Passions that relate to Good and as many that refer to Pain or to that which causes it viz. Joy Desire and Sorrow For we are joyful when Good is present and Evil is past we are sorrowful when Good is gone and Pain is present and we are agitated with Desires when Good and Evil are to come Those Passions that relate to Good are particular Determinations of that Motion God gives us for Good in general and therefore have a real Object but others who have not God for the Cause of their Motion terminate only in Nothingness CHAP. X. Of Passions in particular and in general of the way to explain them and to know the Errours they cause WHen we consider how Passions are formed it visibly appears that their Number is undeterminable or that there are more than we have Terms to express them by For Passions differ not only by the various Complication of the Three first Primitive which would not encrease them to
Brutal They find Pleasure in living by the Impressions of their Passion and suffer inward Pain in resisting it which is sufficient to make Reason that commonly descends to be the Slave to Pleasure to argue in such a manner as may best defend the Cause of it If therefore it be true that all Passions justifie themselves 't is evident that Desire must of it self move us to judge favourably of its Object if it be a Desire of Love and unkindly if it be a Desire of Aversion The Desire of Love is a Motion of the Soul raised by the Spirits that provoke it to the Enjoyment or Use of such things as are not in its power for we desire even the Continuation of our Enjoyment because future things depend not on us 'T is then necessary for the Justification of that Desire that the Object which produces it be esteemed good in it self or in reference to something else the contrary must be said of that Desire which is a kind of Aversion I grant we cannot judge any thing to be good or bad without some Reason but Passions have no Object which is not good in some sense And if it may be said there are some which contain no real Goodness and therefore cannot be contemplated as Good by the Mind yet no one can say but they may be enjoyed as Good since they are supposed to agitate us and that Commotion Enjoyment or Sense is more than sufficient to move the Soul to entertain a kind Opinion of the Object If we so easily judge that Fire contains in it self the Heat we feel and Bread the Savour we relish because of the Sensation those Bodies excite in us though that be never so incomprensible to the Mind which cannot conceive Heat and Savour as Modifications of a Body thence it follows That there is no Object of our Passions how vile and contemptible soever it appears but we may judge it good when the Enjoyment of it affects us with pleasure For as we imagine that Heat goes out of Fire when we feel it so we blindly believe that the Objects of the Passions cause the pleasure which we receive in their Enjoyment and that therefore they are good since they are able to doe us good The like may be said of the Passions that have Evil for their Object But as I said just before there is nothing but deserves either Love or Aversion either by it self or by something else to which it relates and when we are agitated with some Passion we quickly discover in its Object the Good or Evil that may nourish the same It is therefore easie to know by Reason the Judgments which our Passions make whilst agitating us For if a Desire of Love move us we may well conceive that it will not fail to justifie it self by the favourable Judgments it shall make of its Object We easily perceive that those Judgments will have more Extent as the Desire shall be more violent and that they will be sometimes absolute and without exception though but a very small part of the thing appears good We may without difficulty understand that those favourable Judgments will reach all things that shall have or seem to have any Connection with the principal Object of the Passion proportionably to the strength of the Passion and the Extent of the Imagination The contrary will happen if it be a Desire of Aâversion the Reasons of which are as easily comprehended and perfectly confirmed and made good by Experience But let us make these Truths more sensible and familiar by some Instances Men naturally desire Knowledge because all Minds are created for Truth But that Desire how just and reasonable soever it may be in it self often becomes a dangerous Vice by the false Judgments that attend it Curiosity frequently offers to the Mind vain Objects of its Study and Lucubrations ascribes to them false Ideas of Greatness ennobles them with the deceiving Lustre of Rarity and dresses them up with such gay and splendid Apparel that one can hardly forbear to Contemplate them with too much Pleasure and Application There is no Trifle but will wholly take up some Persons whose fruitless Toil is still justified by the false Judgments that arise from their vain Curiosity For instance those that bestow their time in Learning Tongues imagine that all the Sciences consist in the Knowledge of Terms and find out a Thousand Reasons to justifie themselves and the Veneration those pay them whom an unknown Term confounds is none of the weakest though the least reasonable Some Persons employ their whole lives in learning to speak who ought perhaps to hold their Peace all the while since 't is evident he ought to be silent who has nothing worth the hearing to say But 't is not that which they propose from their Learning They should know that he must think well use his Understanding to exactness discern Truth from Falshood clear Ideas from obscure those of the Mind from those of the Imagination that will speak accurately They imagine themselves fine and uncommon Wits because they know how to please the Ear with an Elegant Harmony how to flatter the Passions by Figures and âaking Gestures how to rejoyce the Imagination by lively and sensible Expressions whilst they leave the Mind empty of Ideas void of Light and Understanding Some probable reason may justifie their Passion that spend a great deal of time in the study of their own Tongue since they make use of it all their Life but as to those who indifferently apply themselves to all sorts of Languages I know not what to say in their behalf The Passion of those who make a complete Library of all sorts of Dictionaries may be excusable as well as the Curiosity of those who make a collection of Coins and Medals of all Countries and Times that may be useful in some occasions and if it doe them not much good at least it does them no harm a Store-house of such Curiosities being not cumberâome since they carry not with them either their Books or Medals But how may the Passion of those be justifiable that make their Head a Library of Dictionaries that neglect their Affairs and Essential Duties for words of no use They are smatterers in their own Tongue frequently mingling strange and unknown words in their Discourses and never paying their Countreymen with Current Money Their Reason seems not to be better guided than their Tongue for all the Corners and Recesses of their Memory are so full of Etymologies that their Minds must lie as stifl'd under the innumerable number of words that are perpetually flying about it However it must be granted that Philologers and Linguists will not stick for Reasons to justifie their capricious Studies Which to know you need but to listen to the Judgments those pretenders to Science make of Tongues or suppose some Opinions that are taken amongst them for undoubted Axioms together with the Inferences that may be deduc'd from
them For instance that those Persons who speak several Tongues are as many individual Men as they know different Languages since Speech distinguishes us from Beasts that the Ignorance of Tongues deprives us of a multitude of things since Ancient Philosophers and Strangers are more Learned then we Suppose but these and the like Principles and Conclusions and you 'll quickly form such Judgments as are fit to beget the Passion for Tongues and consequently like those wherewith the same Passion inspires the Linguists to vindicate their Studies There is not a Science so abject and contemptible but some part of it will shine very bright to the Imagination and dazle the Mind when Passion heightens those false Glimpses That Splendour I own vanishes when the Blood and Spirits cool and the Light of Truth begins to shine but that Light disappears also when the Imagination grows warm again and leaves but some transitory Shadows of those solid Reasons which pretended to condemn our Passion Farthermore when the Passion that agitates us finds it self a dying it repents not of its demeanour but on the contrary it disposes all things either to an honourable Funeral or to be reviv'd spedily again that is to say it always prepares the Mind to frame Judgments in its Vindication In this condition it makes a sort of Alliance with such other Passions as may keep it up in its weakness supply it with Spirits and Blood in its necessity raise it out of its Ashes and give it a new Birth For Passions are not unconcern'd for one another and those that can live together faithfully contribute to their mutual preservation So that all the Passions that are not contrary to the Studies of Tongues or of any thing else do continually sollicite and fully confirm those Judgments that are made to vindicate it A Pretender to Learning imagines himself now as surrounded with respectfull Hearers then as Conquerour of those whom he has amaz'd with his unintelligible words and almost always as one rais'd far above the common sort of Men. He flatters himself with the Commendations he receives with the Preferments that are proposed to him with the Courtship that is made to him He 's of all Times and Countries He is not limited as vulgar Wits to the present nor confin'd within the Walls of his Town but is continually communicating himself abroad and his Communication makes his Delight See how many Passions combine together to manage the Cause of pretended Learning how hotly they prosecute their Judgments and bribe the Mind in its favour Should every Passion act separately without caring for the rest they would vanish immediately after their Rise not being able to make a sufficient number of false Judgments to maintain themselves and defend the Glimmerings of Imagination against the Light of Reason But all Passions concur admirably well to their mutual Preservation assisting and strengthning each other though never so remote provided they be not declared Enemies as though they were minded to follow the Rules of a well-order'd State If the Passion of Desire were alone all the Judgments it might pass would only amount to represent the Good as attainable For the Desire of Love consider'd as such is produced by the Judgments we make that it is possible to enjoy such a Good And so this Desire could only form Judgments about the Possibility of enjoying it since the Judgments which follow and preserve the Passions are exactly like those which precede and produce them But that Desire is animated by Love fortified by Hope increased by Joy renewed by Fear attended by Courage Emulation Anger Irresolution and several other Passions that form each in their turn a great variety of Judgments which succeed each other and maintain the Desire that has produced them 'T is not therefore strange that the desire of a mere Trifle or of a Thing that is evidently hurtful or fruitless should however justifie it self against Reason for many Years nay during the whole Life of a Man that is agitated with it since so many other Passions endeavour to vindicate it I shall here set down in few Words how Passions justifie themselves that I may explain Things by distinct Ideas Every Passion agitates the Blood and Spirits which when agitated are driven into the Brain by the sensible Sight of the Object or the Strength of the Imagination in such a manner as is fit to imprint deep Tracks representing that Object They bend and even sometimes break by their impetuous Course the Fibres of the Brain and thereby leave the Imagination soil'd and corrupted For these Traces obey not the Commands of Reason nor will they be blotted out when it pleases on the contrary they put a Force upon it and oblige it incessantly to consider Objects in such a manner as moves and inclines it to favour the Passions Thus the Passions act upon the Imagination and the corrupted Imagination makes an Effort against Reason by continually representing Things not as they are in themselves that the Mind might pronounce a true Judgment but as they are in reference to the present Passion that it might pass a favourable Sentence in its behalf The Passions not only bribe the Imagination and Mind in their favour but produce in other Parts of the Body such Dispositions as are necessary to preserve them The Spirits they move stop not in the Brain but run as I have elsewhere shewn to all other Parts of the Body especially to the Heart the Liver the Spleen and the Nerves that surround the principal Arteries and lastly to all Parts whatsoever that may supply necessary Spirits for the maintenance of the predominant Passion But while these Spirits disperse themselves into all the Parts of the Body they destroy all along and by degrees whatever might hinder their Course and make their Passages so slippery and smooth that a very inconsiderable Object exceedingly moves us and consequently inclines us to make such Judgments as favour the Passions Thus it comes to pass that they establish and justifie themselves If we consider how various the Constitution of the Fibres of the Brain and withal the Commotion and Quantity of the Spirits and Blood may be in the different Sexes and Ages we shall easily and nearly conjecture to what Passions some Persons are most subject and consequently what Judgments they pass upon Objects For instance we may make a very near Guess by the plenty or want of Spirits that is observable in some People the same Thing being proposed and explained to them in the same manner that some of them will make Judgments of Hope and Joy whilst others shall pass such Judgments as proceed from Fear and Sorrow For those that abound with Blood and Spirits as young Men cholerick Persons and those that are of a Sanguine Complexion use to doe being very susceptible of Hope because of the secret Sense of their Strength will not believe that they shall meet with any Opposition to their Designs which
Ideas for we must only reason upon our Ideas and if there be any thing of which we have no clear distinct and particular Idea we shall never know it nor argue from it with any Certainty Whereas perhaps by reasoning upon our Ideas we may follow Nature and perhaps discover that she is not so hidden as is commonly imagin'd As those who have not study'd the Properties of Numbers often imagine that it is not possible to resolve some Problemes which are however simple and easie so those that have not meditated upon the Properties of Extension Figures and Motions are very apt to believe and even to assert that most part of the Physical Questions are inexplicable But we must not be deterr'd by the Opinion of those who have examin'd nothing or nothing at least with due Application For though few Truths concerning Natural Things have been fully demonstrated yet 't is certain that there are some that are general which cannot be doubted of though it be very possible not to think upon them to know nothing of them and to deny them If we meditate orderly and with due Time and all necessary Application we shall discover several of those certain Truths I speak of But for more Conveniency it will be requisite carefully to read des Cartes's Principles of Philosophy without approving of any thing he says till the Strength and Plainness of his Reasons shall suffer us to doubt no longer As Moral Philosophy is the most necessary of all Sciences so it must be study'd with the greatest Application it being very dangerous to follow in this the Opinions of Men. But to the avoiding Errour and keeping to Evidence in our Perceptions we must only meditate upon such Principles as are confess'd by all those whose Hearts are not corrupted by Debauchery and their Minds blinded with Pride For there is no Moral Principle undeniable to Minds of Flesh and Blood who aspire to the Quality of Bold Wits Such People conceive not the most simple Truths or if they do they constantly deny them through a Spirit of Contradiction and to keep up the Reputation of great Wits Some of the most general Principles of Morality are That God having made all things for himself has made our Understanding to know and our Will to love him That being so just and powerful as he is we cannot be happy but by obeying his Commands nor be unhappy in following them That our Nature is corrupted our Mind depending on our Body our Reason on our Senses and our Will on our Passions That we are uncapable of performing what we plainly see to be our Duty and that we have need of a Redeemer There are yet many other Moral Principles as That Retirement and Penitency are necessary to diminish our Union with sensible Objects and to increase that which we have with intelligible Goods true Goods and the Goods of the Mind That we cannot enjoy vehement Pleasures without becoming Slaves to them That nothing must be undertaken by Passion That we must not long for Settlements in this Life c. But because these last Principles depend on the former and on the Knowledge of Man it behoves us not to take them at first for granted If we orderly meditate upon those Principles with as much Care and Application as so great a Subject deserves and admit no Conclusion for true but such as follows from those Principles we shall compose a very certain System of Morals and perfectly agreeable with that of the Gospel though not so large and compleat I grant that in Moral Reasonings it is not so easie to preserve Evidence and Exactness as in some other Sciences and that the Knowledge of Man being absolutely necessary to those that will proceed far many Learners make no considerable Progresses therein They will not consult themselves to be sensible of the Weakness of their Nature They are soon weary of interrogating the Master who inwardly teaches them his Will that is the Immutable and Eternal Laws and the true Principles of Morality They cannot listen with Pleasure to him that speaks not to their Senses who answers not according to their Desires and flatters not their secret Pride They have no Veneration for such Words the Lustre of which dazles not their Imagination which are lowly pronounc'd and never distinctly heard but when the Creatures are silent But they consult with Pleasure and Reverence Aristotle Seneca or some new Philosophers who seduce them by the Obscurity of their Words by the Elegancy of their Expressions or the Probability of their Reasons Since the Fall of our first Parents we esteem nothing but what refers to the Preservation of the Body and the Conveniencies of Life and as we discover that sort of Good by means of the Senses so we endeavour to use them on all Occasions The Eternal Wisdom which is our true Life and the only Light that can illuminate us often shines but upon the Blind and speaks but to the Deaf when it speaks within the Recesses of our Soul because we are for the most part exercis'd abroad And as we are continually putting Questions to the Creatures to learn any News from them of the Good we are in search of it was requisite as I have said elsewhere that this Wisdom should offer it self to our Senses yet without going out of our selves that we might learn by sensible Words and convincing Examples the way to eternal Happiness God perpetually imprints on us a natural Love for him that we may always love him yet by that same Motion of Love we incessantly recede from him running with all the strength he gives us to the sinsible Good which he forbids us to love and therefore as he desires we should love him so he must make himself sensible and offer himself before us to stop by the delectation of his Grace all our restless Agitations and begin our Cure by Sensations or Satisfactions like to the preventing Pleasures that had been the Original of our Disease For these reasons I pretend not that Men may easily discover by the strength of their Mind all the Rules of Morality necessary to Salvation and much less that they should be able to act according to their Light for their Heart is still more corrupted than their Mind I only say that if they admit nothing but evident Principles and argue consequently from them they shall discover the same Truths that are taught us in the Gospel because it is the same Wisdom which speaks immediately and by it self to those that discover the Truth in evident Reasonings and which speaks in the Holy Scriptures to those that understand them in their right sense We must therefore study Morality in the Gospel to spare our selves the trouble of Meditation and to learn with certainty the Laws and Rules of our Life and Manners As to those who are not satisfied with a bare Certainty because it only convinces the Mind without enlightening it they must meditate upon those Laws and
we must put Queries to them in order to illuminate and determine them If by these Queries we discover that their Ideas are not agreeable with ours 't is in vain to answer them for to answer one who imagines that a Desire for instance is nothing but the Motion of some small Particles call'd Spirits that a Thought is but a Trace or an Image which the Objects or those Spirits have left in the Brain and that all the Reasonings of Men consist but in the various Situation of some little Corpuscles which dispose themselves differently in the Head to answer him I say that the Soul taken in his Sense is immortal is to deceive him or to appear ridiculous to him but to tell him that she is mortal is in some Sense to confirm him in a very dangerous Errour we must then reply nothing at all but only endeavour to make him retire into himself that he may receive the same Ideas that we have from him who is only able to enlighten him 'T is likewise a Question which seems pretty difficult To know whether Beasts have a Soul however the Equivocation being taken off it is so far from being hard that those who suppose they have one and those that think they have none are ignorantly at bottom of the same Opinion The Soul may be taken for something Corporeal dispersed through all the Body which gives it Life and Motion or else for something Spiritual Those that pretend Beasts have no Soul understand it in the second Sense for never any Man denied that there is in Animals something Corporeal which is the Principle of their Life or Motion since it cannot be denied even of Watches On the contrary Those who assert that Beasts have Souls understand it in the first Sense for few believe them endued with a Spiritual and Indivisible Soul so that both Peripateticks and Cartesians believe that Beasts have a Soul or a Corporeal Principle of their Motion and both think they have none or that there 's nothing in them Spiritual and Indivisible And therefore the Difference betwixt the Paripateticks and Cartesians consists not in that the former believe Beasts have a Soul and the latter deny it but only in that the Aristotelians think that Beasts are capable of Pain and Pleasure of perceiving Colours hearing Sounds and of all the other Sensations and Passions of Men whereas the Cartesians are of a contrary Opinion The latter distinguish the Word Sensation to take off the Equivocation For instance They say that when one is too near the Fire the Parts of Wood strike against his Hand vibrate the Fibres which Vibration is communicated to the Brain and determines the Animal Spirits contained in it to disperse through the outward Parts of the Body in such a manner as is fit to make them shrink in or withdraw They agree that all those things or the like may possibly be found in Animals and that they actually are as being Properties of Bodies And the Peripateticks dissent not from it The Cartesians add that the Percussion or Vibration of the Fibres of the Brain in Men is attended with a Sensation of Heat and that the course of the Animal Spirits to the Heart and other Viscera is accompanied with a Passion of Hatred or Aversion which Sense and Passion of the Soul they deny to be in Beasts whereas the Peripateticks assert that Brute Animals feel that Heat as well as we do that they have as we an Aversion to what is uneasie to them and generally that they are capable of all our Sensations and Passions The Cartesians do not think that Beasts are sensible of Pleasure or Pain nor that they love or hate any thing because they admit nothing in them but what is material and believe not that Sensations and Passions may be Properties of any Matter whatsoever On the contrary some Peripateticks esteem Matter capable of Sensation and Passion when 't is extremely subtle and refined that Beasts may feel by means of the Animal Spirits that is to say of a very subtle and fine Matter and that our Soul is susceptible of Sensation and Passion only because she is united to such a Matter And therefore to resolve that Question Whether Beasts have a Soul we must retire within our selves and consider with all possible Attention our Idea of Matter if we can conceive that Matter so and so figur'd as square round oval c. is some Pain Pleasure Heat Colour Odour Sound c. then we may assert that the Soul of Beasts though never so material is however capable of Sense but if we cannot conceive it we must not assert it for we must assure no farther than we can conceive And likewise if we conceive that Matter toss'd and extremely agitated upwards downwards in a Circular Spiral Parabolical Elliptick Line c. is any thing of Love Hatred Joy Sorrow c. We may say that Beasts have the same Passions as we but if we apprehend it not we must not say it unless we will speak without understanding our selves But I am sure no Motion of Matter will ever be mistaken for Love or Joy by him that shall earnestly think upon it So that to resolve that Question Whether Beasts have Sense we need only take off Equivocation as those that are called Cartesians use to do for then that Question will be made so simple and easie as to be resolved with a little Attention 'T is true that St. Austin supposing according to the common prejudice of Mankind that Beasts have a Soul which he never doubted of as far as I can perceive because he never seriously examin'd it in his Works this great Man I say perceiving that it is contradictory to say that a Soul or a Substance which thinks feels desires c. is material believed that the Soul of Beasts was really spiritual and indivisible He proves by very evident Reasons that a Soul or whatever has Sense Imagination Fear Desire c. must needs be Spiritual but I never observed that he produc'd any Reason to maintain that Beasts have Souls He even cares not to prove it because 't is likely that scarce any body doubted of it in his time There being now Men who endeavour wholly to free themselves of their Prejudices and call in Question all Opinions that are not grounded upon clear demonstrative Reasonings it has been call'd into doubt whether Animals have a Soul susceptible of the same Sensations and Passions as ours however there are still several Defenders of the ancient Prejudices who pretend to prove that Beasts feel will think and argue even as we do though in a more imperfect manner Dogs say they know their Masters love them and patiently bear the Blows they receive from them as judging it their best interest not to forsake them but as to Strangers they hate them so much as not to away with their Flatterings All Animals love their Young Birds which build their Nests in the
this That if two Bowls of Lead or of any other less Elastick Matter meet they rebound not after their Collision but proceed almost according to the Rules before establish'd which they keep to so much more exactly as they are less springing Bodies therefore rebound after their Percussion because they are hard that is as I have explain'd because there is an extremely agitated Matter which compresses them and which passing through their Pores with an extreme Violence repel the Bodies which strike against them But it ought to be suppos'd that the Percutient Bodies break not those which they dash against by a Motion over-powering the Resistance the little Parts of the subtile Matter are capable of making as when we discharge a Musket against a piece of Wood. 'T is true the subtile Matter compresses soft Bodies and passes with a rapid Course through their Pores no less than through those of hard and yet these soft Bodies have no Elasticity The Reason whereof is this that the Matter passing through soft Bodies can with a great deal of Ease open it self new Passages by reason of the Minuteness of the Parts composing them or of some other particular Configuration proper for that Effect which hard Bodies will not admit by reason of the Largeness and Situation of their Parts which are contrary to the same Thus when a hard Body strikes another that is soft it alters all the Roads the subtile Matter us'd to pass through which is commonly visible as in a Musket-Bullet which flattens when it is smitten But when a hard Body strikes against another like it it either makes none or very few new Paths and the subtile Matter in its Pores is oblig'd to return upon the same Ground or else must repel the Body which blocks up its little Avenues Lastly It seems evident that every mov'd Body continually endeavouring to tend in a Right Line and declining from it as little as is possible when it meets Resistance ought never to rebound since by that Motion it extremely deviates from a Right 'T is necessary therefore either that Bodies should grow flat or that the stronger should conquer the weaker and make it bear it company But because Bodies are springing and hard they cannot go in company since if A pushes a a repels A and so they must recede from one another Notwithstanding if two Bodies were in a Vacuum though never so hard they would go in company because having no Body to surround them they could have no Elastick Force the Striker making no Resistance to the Striking but Air Gravitation c. resisting the great Motion which the striking Body gives the stricken the stricken resists the striking and hinders it from following For Experience teaches us that Air and Gravity resist Motion and that this Resistance is so much greater as the Motion is more violent 'T is easie to discover from what I have been saying how it comes to pass that in the Percussion of different Bodies encompass'd with Air or Water c. sometimes the Smiting rebounds sometimes communicates all its Motion and remains as it were unmoveable and sometimes it follows the Smitten but always with less Degrees of Swiftness if one or other of them be not perfectly soft For all this depends on the Proportion that is found between the Magnitude the Hardness and the Weight of one and the other supposing them mov'd with an equal Swiftness If they are very hard the Smiting rebounds more because the Elaterium is stronger If the Smiting is very little the Smitten very large and weighty the Smiting rebounds still much because of the Weight and the great Mass of Air surrounding the Smitten which withstands the Motion Last of all If the Force of the Hardness is as it were abated by the little Volume of Air answering the Littleness of the stricken Body or the contrary it may happen that the Smiting may remain as immoveable after the Percussion We need therefore but compare the Hardness of percutient Bodies and the Air which the Percuss'd ought to agitate anew at the time of Percussion whereby to move to give a pretty exact Conjecture concerning what must happen in the Percussion of different Bodies I still suppose an equal Swiftness in the striking for the Air more resists a great Motion than a little one and there is as much Motion in a Body twice as little as in another when proceeding twice as fast as that other Thus the Smitten being driven as fast again may be consider'd as having a Volume of Air twice as big to repel in order to its moving But it ought still to be observ'd that at the Moment of one Body's striking another the Parts of this same Body have two contrary Motions for those on the Fore-side have a backward Tendency by reason of the Collision when at the same time those behind tend forwards on the Account of the first Motion and 't is that Counter-motion which flattens soft Bodies and is the Cause that some hard Bodies break in pieces but when Bodies are very hard this Counter-stroke which vibrates some of the Parts and makes a sort of Trepidation in them as appears from the Sound they give always produces some Changes in the Communication of Motion which are very difficult to be known for many Reasons and 't is in my Mind to little purpose to examine them in particular Would a Man meditate on all these things I believe he would easily answer some Difficulties which might still be rais'd upon the Subject but if I thought that what I have said were insufficient to shew that Rest has no Force to resist Motion and that the Rules of the Communication of Motions given by Monsieur des Cartes are in part false I would here make out that it is impossible by his Supposition to move our selves in the Air And that which makes the Circulation of Motion in Fluid Bodies possible without recurring to a Vacuum is that the first Element easily divides it self in several different manners the Repose of its Parts having no Force to resist Motion The CONCLUSION of the Three last BOOKS I Have if I mistake not sufficiently shewn in the Fourth and Fifth Books that Men's natural Inclinations and Passions frequently occasion their falling into Errour because they induce them more to a precipitate Judgment than a careful Examination of Things I have shewn in the Fourth Book that our Inclination for Good in general is the Cause of the Restlesness of the Will that this Restlesness of the Will puts the Mind in continual Agitation and that a Mind continually agitated is utterly unfit for the Discovery of any the least intricate and hidden Truths That the Love of new and extraordinary Things frequently prepossesses us in their behalf and that whatever bears the Character of Infinite is capable of confounding our Imagination and mis-leading us I have explain'd how our Inclination for Greatness Elevation and Independency insensibly engage us in a falsly-pretended
the Resolution of Questions of little Use the Knowledge whereof commonly more gratifies our Pride than perfects our Understanding I think it my Duty to say that I may profitably conclude this Work that the most expeditious and certain Method of discovering Truth and uniting our selves to God in the purest and perfectest manner possible is to live as becomes true Christians to follow exactly the Precepts of Eternal Truth which unites it self with us only to re-unite us with it 'T is to listen rather to the Dictates of our Faith than Reason and to tend to God not so much by our natural Forces which since the Sin are altogether languid and inactive as by the Assistance of Faith by which alone God purposes to lead us into that immense Light of Truth which will dissolve and dissipate all our Darkness For in brief 't is much better as good Men to spend some Years in Ignorance of certain Things and find our selves enlighten'd in a Moment for ever than by Natural Means and abundance of Trouble and Application purchase a very imperfect Science that shall leave us in Darkness to all Eternity ILLUSTRATIONS UPON THE FOREGOING BOOKS The PREFACE Wherein is shewn what should be our Opinion of the several Judgments commonly pass'd on Books that encounter Prejudices WHen a BOOK is first to appear in the World one knows not whom to consult to learn its Destiny The Stars preside not over its Nativity their Influences have no Operation on it and the most confident Astrologers dare not foretell the diverse Risks of Fortune it must run Truth not being of this World Celestial Bodies have no power over her and whereas she is of a most spiritual Nature the several Positions or Combinations of Matter can contribute nothing either to her Establishment or Ruine Besides the Judgments of Men are so different in respect of the same things that we can never more hazardously and imprudently play the Prophet than in presaging the happy or unfortunate Success of a BOOK So that every Man who ventures to be an Author at the same time throws himself at the Reader 's Mercy to make him or esteem him what he pleases But of all Authors those who encounter Prejudices ought most infallibly to reckon upon their Condemnation their Works âit too uneasie on most Mens Minds and if they escape the Passions of their Enemies they are obliged to the almighty Force of Truth for their Protection 'T is a common Miscarriage with all Mankind to be too precipitate in judging for all Men are obnoxious to Errour and only obnoxious upon this account But all hasty and rash Judgments are ever consonant to Prejudices and therefore Authors who oppugn them cannot possibly escape Sentence from all their Judges who appeal to Ancient Opinions as the Laws whereby they ought to pronounce For indeed most Readers are both Judge and Party in respect of these Authors Their Judges they are that Quality is incontestable but they are a Party likewise being disturb'd by these Authors in the possession of their ancient Prejudices for which they have the plea of Prescription and to which they have been accustom'd many Years I confess there 's Abundance of Equity Sincerity and good Sense in a great many Readers and that they sometimes are Judges rational enough to supersede common Opinions as not being the infallible Rules of Truth Many there are who retire into themselves and consult that Inward Truth which ought to be their Rule to judge of all things but very Few that consult it upon all Occasions and None at all who do it with all that Faithfulness and Attention that is necessary to judge infallibly at all times And thus though we might suppose there were nothing blameable in a Treatise which yet it would be Vanity to pretend to I am persuaded it would be impossible to find one single Man to approve it in every respect especially if his Prejudices were attacked by it since it is not naturally possible that a Judge constantly provok'd affronted and outrag'd by a Party should do him entire Justice or that he should give himself the trouble of a strenuous Application to those Reasons which at first sight appear to him as extravagant Parodoxes or ridiculous Parolâgisms But though a Man be pleased with many things in a BOOK if he fortunes to meet with some that are offensive he shall seldom be wanting to speak ill of it but most commonly forgetfull to give it any good Character self-Self-love has a thousand Motives to induce us to condemn what we dislike and Reason in this Instance fully justifies these Motives since Men fansie they condemn Errours and defend Truth when they defend their Prejudices and censure those that assault them So that the most equitable Judges of Books that fight against Prejudices pass commonly such a general Sentense as is no way favourable on their behalf Perhaps they will say there is something good in such a Work and that the Author justly opposes certain Prejudices but yet they shall be sure to condemn him and as his Judges give an authoritative and grave decision upon the point maintaining that he carries things too far on such or such an occasion For when an Author is ruining Prejudices which the Reader is not prepossess'd with whatever he shall say will seem reasonable enough But the same Author ever stretches things too far when he engages the Prejudices wherewith the Reader is too deeply ting'd But whereas the Prejudices of different Persons are not constantly the same should one carefully gather the several Judgments that are made upon the same things it would commonly appear that according to these Judgments there is nothing Good and at the same time nothing Bad in such kind of Books There would be nothing good because there is no Prejudices but one or other espouses and there would be nothing bad because there is no Prejudice whatever but some or other condemn In which Judgments there is so much Equity that should a Man pretend to make use of them to correct his Piece he must necessarily strike it all out for fear of leaving any thing that was Condemn'd or not to touch it for fear of expunging something that was approv'd So that a poor Author that studies to be inoffensive finds himself perplex'd on all hands by all the various Judgments which are pronounc'd both for and against him and unless he resolve to stand his ground and to be reckon'd obstinate in his Opinions he must inevitably contradict himself at every turn and appear in as many different Forms as there are different Heads in a whole Nation However Time will do every Man Justice and Truth which at first seems a Chimerical and ridiculous Phantasm by degrees grows sensible and manifest Men open their Eyes and contemplate her they discover her Charms and fall in love with her This Man who condemns an Author for an Opinion that he dislikes by chance meets with
act upon our Mind In a word we are neither our own Light nor our own Felicity as I have proved at large in the Third Book and elsewhere Lastly God inclines us to this particular Good For God inducing us to all that 's Good by a necessary Consequence inclines us to particular Goods by producing the Idea or Sensation of them in our Mind This therefore is all that God effects in us when we sin But whereas a particular Good includes not in it all Good and the Mind considering it with a clear and distinct View cannot imagine it concludes all God does not necessarily and invinsibly incline us to the love of it We are conscious of the Liberty we have to stay this Love and of our Tendency to proceed farther In a word we feel the Impression we have for Good Universal or to speak as others do we are sensible that our Will is not under any constraint or necessity to fix upon this particular Good So then this is what the Sinner does He stops he rests he follows not the Impression of God he does nothing For Sin is Nothing He knows that the grand Rule he is to observe is to employ his Liberty so far as it will go and that he is not to fasten upon any Good unless he be inwardly convinc'd it would be offending against ORDER to refuse to stay upon it If he discovers not this Rule by the light of his Reason he learns it at least from the secret Reproaches of his Conscience He is obliged then to follow the Impression he receives for the Universal Good and to think of other Goods besides what he enjoys and what he is only to make use of For 't is by thinking on other Goods besides what he enjoys that he can produce in himself new Determinations of his Love and make use of his Liberty Now I prove that by the Impression God gives him for Good in general he may think of other Goods besides that of his present Enjoyment it being precisely in this that the Difficulty consists 'T is a Law of Nature that the Ideas of Objects should offer themselves to our Mind when we desire to think of them provided our Capacity of Thought be not fill'd up by the lively and confus'd Sensations we receive occasionally from the Motions in our Body Now we can Will the thinking on all things because the natural Impression which carries us towards Good reaches to all possible Objects of our Thought And we can at all times think on all things because we are united to Him who comprehends the Ideas of all things as I have formerly proved If it be true then that we can Will the considering nearly what we already see as afar off since we are united with the Universal Being and if it be certain that by virtue of the Laws of Nature Ideas approach us when we desire it we ought thence to infer First That we have a Principle of our Determinations For 't is the actual Presence of particular Ideas that positively determines towards particular Goods the Motion we have towards Good in general and so changes our Natural Love into Free and deliberate Loves Our Consent or Acquiescence in the preception of a Particular Good has nothing real or positive in it on our Part as I shall explain by and by Secondly That the Principle of our Determinations is always free in regard to particular Goods For we are not invincibly inclin'd to love them since we can examine them in themselves and compare them with the Idea which we have of the Sovereign Good or with other particular Goods Thus the Principle of our Liberty consists in this that being made for God and united to him we can always think on the true Good or on other Goods besides those which our Thoughts are actually engag'd on But this on supposition that our Sensations do not take up the Capacity of our Mind For to the end we may be free with the Liberty foremention'd it is necessary not only that God should not push us invincibly to particular Goods but also that we should be able to employ our Impression for Good in general to the loving other Objects than those we love at present But as those only can be the actual Objects of our Love which can be of our Thoughts and that we cannot actually think except on those which occasion very lively Sensations whilst they occasion them it is plain that the dependance we have upon our Body weakens our Liberty and in many Junctures quite destroys the use of it So that our Sensations obliterating our Ideas and the Union we have with our Body whereby we discern only our selves enfeebling that we have with God whereby all things are present to us the Mind ought not to give way to be shar'd by confus'd Sensations if it would preserve entire the free Principle of its Determinations From all which it is evident that God is not the Author of Sin and that Man endues not himself with any new Modifications God is not the Author of Sin because he continually impresses on the Sinner who stops at a particular Good a Motion to go farther gives him a Power of thinking on other things and tending to other Goods than those which actually engage his Thoughts and Affections and commands him not to love whatever he can refuse to love without inward Disquiet and Remorse withal continually recalling him to his God by the secret Reproaches of his Reason 'T is true that in one sense God inclines the Sinner to Love the Object of his Sin if this Object appears Good to a Sinner for as most Divines say whatever there is of a positive nature of Act or Motion in the Sin proceeds from God But 't is only by a false Judgment of our Mind that the Creatures seem good to us I mean capable of acting in us and making us happy But the Sin of a Man consists not in his loving a particular Good for every Good as such is amiable but in his loving only this Good or loving it as much or more than another that is greater or in his loving a Good which God forbids him to enjoy for that the Mind being subject to the Body pursuant to the Fall the Love or rather the Enjoyment of this Good would encrease his Concupiscence and alienate him from the love of the supreme Good In a word the Sin of Man consists in his not referring all particular Goods to the supreme or rather in his not considering and loving the supreme Good in all the particular and so not regulating his Love by the WILL of GOD or according to essential and necessary ORDER of which all Men have a more or less perfect Knowledge as they are stricter or looser united to God or are more or less Sensible to the Impressions of their Senses and Passions For our Senses import our Soul into our whole Body and our Passions as it were export
it to circumambient Objects and so remove us from the Divine Light which would penetrate and illuminate us Nor does Man give himself new Modifications For the Motion of Love which God constantly imprints on us is neither augmented nor diminish'd whether we do or do not actually love I mean whether this natural Motion of Love be or be not determin'd by some Idea of our Mind Nor does this Motion cease by its Acquiescence in the Possession of Good as Motion of Bodies ceases by their Rest. There is great likelihood that God pushes us at all times alike with an even Force towards him for he pushes us on towards Good in general as fast as we are capable and we are at all times equally capable because our Will or our natural Capacity of Willing is always equal to it self Thus I say the Impression or natural Motion which carries us towards Good never encreases or diminishes I confess we have no clear Idea nor indeed inward Sensation of the Evenness of that Impression or natural Motion towards Good But this comes from our not knowing it by Idea which I have formerly prov'd and from our not being conscious of our Faculties whilst they do not actually operate We feel not what is natural and common and always the same in us as the Heat and Beating of the Heart We are even insensible of our Habits and whether we are deserving of the Love or Wrath of God We have perhaps infinite Faculties which are perfectly unknown to us For we are not inwardly conscious of all that we are but only of all that we feel Had we never felt Pain nor desir'd particular Goods we could not by our Self-Consciousness have told whether we are capable of feeling Pain or of willing those Goods It being our Memory and not our internal Sense which teaches us we are capable of feeling what we do not feel or of being mov'd by such Passions as do not actually agitate us There is nothing therefore that can hinder our believing that God draws us towards him with an equal Force though in a very different manner and that he preserves in our Soul an equal Capacity of willing or one and the same Will as he preserves in Matter collectively taken an equal quantity of Motion But though this should not be certain yet I can't see how it can be said that the Augmentation or Diminution of the Natural Motion of our Soul depends on us since we cannot be the Cause of the Extent of our own Will It is moreover certain from what I said before That God produces and preserves in us all that 's real and positive in the particular Determinations of the Motion of our Soul namely our Ideas and Sensations For this it is which determines our Motion towards Good in general to particular Goods but not in an irresistible manner because we have a tendency to go farther Hence all that is done on our part when we sin is our not doing all we yet have the power to do by means of our impression towards Him who comprehends all Goods for all our Power is deriv'd from our Union with Him who works all in us Now the principal cause of our sinning is that preferring Enjoyment to Examination by reason of the Pleasure accruing to our Enjoying and the Pain attending our Examining we desist to employ the Motion which is given us for the pursuit and disquisition of Good and we dwell upon the enjoyment of things which we should no more than make use of But if we observe the Matter nearly we shall see that in this there is nothing real on our part but only an intermission and cessation of Enquiry which corrupts as I may say the Action of God in us but yet can never destroy it So then when we do not sin What is it we do We do all that God does in us for we do not confine to a particular Good or rather a False one the Love which God impresses on us for the True And when we sin What do we do then Nothing For we love a false Good to which God does not carry us by an irresistible impression we cease to persue the true Good and frustrate the Motion God gives us towards it Now whilst we love a particular good only or against ORDER we receive as great an impression of Love from God as if we did not fix upon it Moreover this particular Determination which is neither necessary nor invincible is given us of God and therefore in sinning we produce no new Modification in our selves However I own that when we sin not but resist Temptation we may be said in one sense to give our selves a new Modification because we chuse to think on other things than the seeming Goods wherewith we are tempted But all that we then do is produc'd by the Action which God puts in us that is either by our Motion towards Good in general or by our Will assisted by Grace I mean enlightned by Knowledge and forwarded by a preventing delectation For in fine If the willing different things be suppos'd to be giving different Modifications I deny not but in this Sense the Mind may diversly modifie it self by the Action it receives from God But 't is always to be observ'd that this Action deriv'd into us from God depends upon our selves and is not irresistible with respect to particular Goods For upon the presentation of a particular Good we are inwardly conscious of our Liberty on its behalf as we are of our Pleasure and Pain when they sensibly affect us And the same Reason convinces us we are Free that convinces us we Exist for 't is the inward consciousness or feeling of our own Thoughts that give us to know we have a Being And if at the same time that we are sensible of our Liberty with respect to a particular Good we ought to doubt of it for want of having a clear Idea thereof we ought no less to doubt of our Pain and our Existence at the time of our Misery since we have no clear Idea either of our Soul or Pain It goes quite otherwise with our inward Sensation or Conscience than with our outward Senses The latter always deceive us in something when we follow their reports but the former never deceives us 'T is by the outward Senses I see Colours on the surface of Bodies that I hear Sound in the Air that I feel Pain in my Hand and their Testimony deceives me if I rely upon it But 't is by my inward Sensation that I see Colour that I hear Sound that I suffer Pain and I err not in believing I see when I see hear when I hear and suffer when I suffer provided I stop and go no farther These things are too self-evident to be longer insisted on Therefore being inwardly conscious of our Liberty at the time of a particular Good 's being present to the Mind we are not to be doubtful of
have it so and consequently HE whose essential and necessary Will is always conformable to ORDER Which Will remaining immutably the same the Establish'd Order was subverted by the first Man's Disobedience because for the demerits of his Sin it was consonant to Order that he should be Lord of nothing It is not reasonable that the Sinner should suspend the Communication of Motions that the Will of God should conform to his or that any exceptions should be made to the Law of Nature on his Behalf In so much that Man is subject to Concupiscence his Mind depends on his Body he feels in himself indeliberate Pleasures and involuntary and rebellious Motions pursuant to that most just and exact Law which unites the two Parts of which he is compos'd Thus the formal Reason of Concupiscence no less than that of Sin is nothing real and positive being no more in Man than the loss of the Power he had to wave and suspend to the Communication of Motions on some occasions Nor are we to admit any positive Will in God to produce it For this loss which Man has sustain'd was not a consequence of Order or of the immutable Will of God which never swerves from it and is constantly the same but only a consequence of Sin which has rendred Man unworthy of an Advantage due only to his Innocence and Uprightness Wherefore we may say that not God but Sin only has been the Cause of Concupiscence Nevertheless God Works all that is Real and Positive in the Sensations and Motions of Concupiscence for God does every thing but all that has nothing of Evil. 'T is by the general Law of Nature that is by the Will of God that sensible Objects produce in Man's Body certain Motions and that these Motions raise in the Soul certain Sensations useful to the preservation of the Body or the Porpagation of the Species Who then dare presume to say these things are not good in themselves I know it is said that Sin is the Cause of certain Pleasures But do they that say it conceive it Can it be thought that Sin which is nothing should actually produce something Can nothing be suppos'd to be a real Cause However 't is so said but possibly for want of taking due pains of seriously considering what they say or because they are unwilling to enter on an Explication that is contrary to the Discourses they have heard from Men who it may be talk with more Gravity and Assurance than Reflexion and Knowledge Sin is the Cause of Concupiscence but not of Pleasure as Free Will is the Cause of Sin though not of the natural Motion of the Soul The Pleasure of the Soul is good as well as its Motion or Love and there is nothing good but what God does The Rebellion of the Body and the guilt of Pleasure proceed from Sin As the Adherency of the Soul to a particular Good or its Rest proceeds from the Sinner But these are only Privations and Nothings whereof the Creature is capable Every Pleasure is Good and likewise in some measure makes happy the Possessour at least for the time of the Enjoyment But it may be said to be evil because instead of elevating the Mind to Him that is the true Cause of it through the Errour of our Intellectual and corruption of our Moral Part it prostrates it before sensible Objects that only seem to produce it Again it is evil in as much as it is Injustice in us who are Sinners and consequently meriting rather to be punish'd than rewarded to oblige God pursuant to his Primitive Will to recompense us with pleasant Sensations In a word not to repeat here what I have said in other places it is evil because God at present forbids it by Reason of its alienating the Mind from himself for whom he hath made and preserves it For that which was ordain'd by God to preserve Righteous Man in his Innocence now fixes sinful Man in his Sin and the Sensations of Pleasure which he wisely establish'd as the easiest and most obvious Expedients to teach Man without calling off his Reason from his true Good whether he ought to unite himself with the invironing Bodies at present fill the Capacity of his Mind and fasten him on Objects incapable of acting in him and infinitely below him because he looks upon these Objects to be the true Causes of the Happiness he enjoys occasionally from them THE SECOND ILLUSTRATION UPON THE First CHAPTER of the First BOOK Where I say That the Will cannot diversly determine its Propensity to Good but by commanding the Vnderstanding to represent to it some particular Object IT must not be imagin'd that the Will commands the Understanding any other Way than by its Desires and Motions there being no other Action of the Will nor must it be believ'd that the Understanding obeys the Will by producing in it self the Ideas of Things which the Soul desires for the Understanding acts not at all but only receives Light or the Ideas of Things through its necessary Union with Him who comprehends all Beings in an intelligible manner as is explain'd in the Third Book Here then is all the Mystery Man participates of the Sovereign Reason and Truth displays it self to him proportionably to his Application and his praying to it Now the Desire of the Soul is a Natural Prayer that is always heard it being a natural Law that Ideas should be so much readier and more present to the Mind as the Will is more earnest in desiring them Thus provided our Thinking Capacity or Understanding be not clogg'd and fill'd up by the confus'd Sensations we receive occasionally from the Motions occurring in our Body we should no sooner desire to think on any Object but its Idea would be always present to our Mind which Idea Experience witnessing is so much more present and clear as our Desire is more importunate and our confus'd Sensations furnish'd to us by the Body less forcible and applicative as I have said in the foregoing Illustration Therefore in saying that the Will commands the Understanding to represent to it some particular Object I meant no more than that the Soul willing to consider that Object with Attention draws near it by her Desire because this Desire consequently to the efficacious Wills of God which are the inviolable Laws of Nature is the Cause of the Presence and Clearness of the Idea that represents the Object I could not at that time speak otherwise than I did nor explain my self as I do at present as having not yet prov'd God the sole Author of our Ideas and our particular Volitions only the occasional Causes of them I spoke according to the common Opinion as I have been frequently oblig'd to do because all cannot be said at once The Reader ought to be equitable and give Credit for some time if he would have Satisfaction for none but Geometricians pay always down in hand THE ILLUSTRATION UPON THE
consequently exceeding great But in answer to this I say First That purely Intellectual Joy leaves the Mind to its entire Liberty and takes up but very little of its Thinking Capacity wherein it differs from Sensible Joy which commonly disturbs the Reason and lessens the Liberty I answer Secondly That the Happiness of Adam at the first Instant of his Creation did not consist in a plenary and entire Possession of the Supreme Good it being possible for him to lose it and become miserable But herein his Happiness especially consisted That he suffer'd no Evil and was in the good Favour of Him who must have perfected his Felicity if he had persever'd in his State of Innocency Thus his Joy was not excessive nay it was or ought to have been temper'd with an Alloy of Fear for he ought to have been diffident of himself I answer Lastly That Joy does not always intend the Mind upon the true Cause that produces it As a Sense of Joy arises upon the Contemplation of one 's own Perfections it is natural to believe that Prospect is the Cause of it for when a Thing constantly follows from another 't is naturally look'd upon as one of its Effects Thus a Man considers himself as the Author of his own present Happiness he finds a secret Complacency in his Natural Perfections he loves himself and thinks not of Him who operates in him in an imperceptible manner 'T is true Adam more distinctly knew than the greatest of Philosophers that God alone was able to act in him and produce that Sense of Joy which he felt upon the Consideration of his Happiness and Perfections This he knew clearly by the Light of Reason when he attended to it but not by any Sensation which on the contrary taught him that his Joy was a Consequence of his Perfection seeing he had the constant Sense of it and that without any Application on his part And so this Sensation might lead him to consider his own Perfections and take pleasure in himself if he either forgot or any ways lost sight of Him whose Operations in us are not of a sensible Nature So far would this Joy have been from rendring him impeccable as is pretended that on the contrary it might probably be the Occasion of his Pride and Fall And 't is for this Reason that I say in this Chapter that Adam ought to have taken care not to have suffer'd the Capacity of his Mind to be fill'd with a presumptuous Joy kindled in his Soul upon Reflexion on his own Natural Perfections THE ILLUSTRATION UPON THE Fifth CHAPTER of the First BOOK Where I say That Preventing Delight is the Grace of JESUS CHRIST THough I say in this Chapter that Preventing Delight is the Grace which JESUS CHRIST has particularly merited for us and that I term it elsewhere absolutely The Grace of our LORD yet this is not said as if there were no other Grace besides this or as if there were any but what He has merited but I name it so to distinguish it from the Grace which GOD gave Adam in his Creation which commonly we call the Grace of the Creator For the Grace by which Adam might have persever'd in Innocence was chiefly a Grace of Light or Knowledge as I have explain'd in the foregoing Reflexion because being free of Concupiscence he had no need of Preventing Pleasures to resist it But the Grace which is at present necessary to support us in our Duty and to beget and keep Charity alive in us is Preventing Delectation For as Pleasure produces and cherishes the Love of the Things that cause or seem to cause it so Preventing Pleasures which Bodies occasionally administer produce and maintain in us our Cupidity So that Cupidity being entirely opposite to Charity if God did not beget and sustain in us the Latter by Preventing Delectations 't is plain that it would be enfeebled by the Preventing Pleasures of Concupiscence proportionably as Concupiscence was corroborated by them What I here say supposes that God leaves our Concupiscence to work in us and does not weaken it by an infus'd Abhorrence to sensible Objects which as a Result from Sin must necessarily tempt us I speak of Things according to ordinary procedure But supposing that God lessens Concupiscence instead of increasing Delectable Grace it comes to the same thing for it is plain that a Balance may be put two Ways in aequilibrio when one of the Scales is too heavy burthen'd either by adding Weight to the opposite Scale or retrenching the Excess of the over-weighted Nor do I suppose it is impossible to do any good Action without a Preventing Delectation Upon which Particular I have explain'd my self sufficiently in the Fourth Chapter of the Third Book And it seems too evident to be doubted that a Man having his Heart possess'd with the Love of God may by the Strength of his Love unassisted with Preventing Delight give for instance a Peny to a poor Man or patiently suffer some little Affront I am persuaded likewise that this Delight is not necessary except when the Temptation is strong or the Love for God weak However it may be said to be absolutely necessary to a Righteous Man whose Faith might one would think be resolute and his Hope strong enough to conquer very violent Temptations the Joy or Fore-taste of Eternal Happiness being capable of resisting the sensible Allurements of transitory Goods 'T is true Delectation or Actual Grace is necessary to every good Action if by these Words be meant Charity in which Sense St. Austin commonly took them For 't is evident that whatever is done without some Respect or other had to God is good for nothing But clearing the Terms of Equivocations and taking Delectation in the Sense I have given I cannot see how what I have said can be call'd in question But see wherein the Difficulty consists Pleasure and Love are suppos'd to be one and the same thing because seldom apart and St. Austin does not always distinguish them And on this Supposition they may reasonably say as they do and we may conclude with St. Austin Quod amplius nos delectat secundum id operemur necesse est For certainly we will what we love and so likewise it may be said that we cannot perform any good or meritorious Action without Delectation or Charity But I hope to make it appear in the Explanation I shall make upon the Tract concerning the Passions that there is as much difference between Pleasure and deliberate or indeliberate Love as there is between our Knowledge and our Love or to give a sensible Representation of this Difference between the Figure of a Body and its Motion THE ILLUSTRATION Upon what I have said at the Beginning of the Tenth CHAPTER of the First BOOK And in the Sixth CHAPTER of the Second BOOK CONCERNING METHOD That 't is very difficult to prove the Existence of Bodies What we ought to Esteem of the Proofs which are
continually operates by Order represents to their Understanding as often as desir'd the clear and lively Idea of that Object So that according to this Explication the Memory and other Habits of pure Intelligences consists not in an Easiness of operating which results from any Modifications of their Being but in the immutable Order of God and in a Right the Mind obtains to those things which have been already submitted to it And all the Power of the Mind immediately and solely depends on God alone the force or facility of acting which all Creatures have in their Operations being in this Sence but the efficacious Will of the Creatour Nor do I think we are oblig'd to give up this Explication by reason of the evil Habits of Sinners and damn'd Persons For tho' God does all that is Real and Positive in the Actions of Sinners it is evident by what I have said in the first Illustration that he is not the Author of Sin Nevertheless I believe as I think I ought that after the Action of the Soul there remain some Changes which dispose it to that same Action again But as I know them not so I cannot explain them for I have no clear Idea of my own Mind wherein to discover all the Modifications it is capable of I believe by Theological and not clear and evident Proofs that the Reason of pure Intelligences seeing the Objects they have before consider'd more distinctly than others is not meerly because God represents them in a livelier and perfecter manner but because they are really more dispos'd to receive the same Action of God in them Just as the facility of playing on an Organ which some have acquir'd proceeds not from any greater Force and Action which the Animal Spirits that are necessary to the Motion of the Fingers have in them than in other Men but from the Smoothness and Glibness which the Passages of the Animal Spirits have gotten by Exercise as in this Chapter is explain'd But yet I grant the Use of Memory and the other Habits is unnecessary in those who being perfectly united to God find in his Light all sorts of Idea's and in his Will all the facility of acting that can be desired THE ILLUSTRATION UPON THE Seventh CHAPTER of the Second BOOK A Reduction of the Proofs and Explications I have given of Original Sin Together with the Answer to the Objections that I thought most urgent IN order to answer methodically to the Difficulties that may arise touching Original Sin and its manner of Derivation from Fathers to Children I thought fit to exhibit in few words what I have said on that Subject in several places of the foregoing Treatise Here follow my principal Proofs which I have disposed after a particular fashion to make them more sensible to those that will consider them I. God wills Order in his Works What we clearly conceive to be agreeable to Order God wills and what we conceive clearly to be repugnant to It God wills not which is a Truth manifest to all those who can consider the infinitely perfect Being with a steady and clear'd View Nothing can unfix or trouble their prospect of this Truth whilst they clearly see that all the Difficulties that can be raised against this Principle proceed but from the Ignorance of those things which are necessary to be known to solve them II. God has no other End in his Operations than himself this Order demands III. God creates and preserves the Mind of Man to be taken up with him to know and to love him as being himself the End of his own Works Order will have it so God cannot will that a Being should love what is not amiable or rather He cannot will that what is less amiable should be more beloved Therefore 't is evident that Nature is corrupted and in Disorder since the Mind loves Bodies that are not amiable and that commonly more than God Original Sin then or the Corruption of Nature needs no Proof For every one finds plain enough in himself a Law which captivates and disorders him a Law that is not given by God since it is contrary to Order by which His Will is governed IV. Nevertheless Man before his Fall was admonished by preventing Sensations and not by clear Knowledge whether he ought to unite to or separate from the encompassing Bodies Order required it 'T is a Disorder that the Mind should be oblig'd to apply it self to them for though it may be united to them it is not made for them It ought therefore to have Knowledge of God and Sense of Bodies Again whereas Bodies are incapable of being the Good of the Mind it would with Regret and Pain unite to them if it knew them to be only what they are without being sensible of something in them which is not Wherefore the Counterfeit Good ought to be discerned by a preventing Sensation that it may be lov'd with a Love of Instinct and the True Good ought to be known by a clear Knowledge that it may be lov'd with a rational Love and a Love of Choice Lastly Man being made and preserved by God to know and love him ought not to have the Capacity of his Mind either possess'd or shar'd in spight of him with the Knowledge of the infinite Figures and Configurations of Bodies about him or of that he animates and yet to know by a clear Knowledge Whether such a Fruit at such a Season be fit for Nourishment of his Body manifestly requires the Intelligence of so many things and the making so many Argumentations as would quite fill up the most comprehensive of created Minds V. But though the first Man was advertis'd by preventing Sensations Whether he ought or ought not to make use of surrounding Bodies yet he was not mov'd by involuntary and rebellious Passions and he obliterated out of his Mind the Idea's of sensible things when he pleas'd whether he us'd them or not because Order would have it so The Mind may be united to a Body but it should command it and not depend on it Again All the Love which God invests us with ought to terminate on him because he produces nothing in us but what is for himself Lastly Bodies are not amiable but below what within us is capable of loving Therefore in the first Institution of Nature Bodies could not turn our Mind towards them nor incline it to consider them and love them as its Goods VI. The Bodies about us act not on our Soul save when they produce some Motions in our Body and that these Motions are communicated to the principal Part of our Brain For it is by the Changes which happen in this Part that the Soul changes her self and finds her self mov'd by sensible Objects This I have sufficiently prov'd and Experience demonstrates the same Which being suppos'd it is clear from the preceding Article that Adam stopt when he pleas'd the Motions communicated to his Body at least those communicated to the
by these Sensations what he ought to do for the preservation of his Life But he was never willing to be perturbated by them in spight of his VVill. For that 's a Contradiction Moreover when he desir'd to apply himself to the contemplation of Truth without any distraction of Thought his Senses and his Passions kept an intire Silence Order would it should be so for that 's a necessary sequel of that absolute power he had over his Body I answer secondly that it is not true that the Pleasure of the Soul is the same thing with its Motion and its Love Pleasure and Love are modes of the Souls Existence But Pleasure has no necessary relation to the object that seems to cause it and Love is necessarily related unto Good Pleasure is to the Soul what Figure is to Body and Motion is to Body what Love is to the Soul But the Motion of a Body is very different from its Figure I grant that the Soul which has a constant Propeâsity to Good advances as I may say more readily towards it when instigated by a sense of Pleasure that when discourag'd by her suffering Pain as a Body when driven runs easier along if it have a Spherical than if it have a Cubical Figure But the figure of a Body differs from its Motion and it may be Spherical and yet remain at rest 'T is true in this case it goes not with Spirits as with Bodies those cannot feel a Pleasure but they must be in motion because God who only makes and preserves them for himself drives them perpetually on towards good But that does not prove that the pleasure of the Soul is the same thing as its Motion For two things though differing from each other may yet be always found inseparably together I answer lastly that although pleasure were not different from the Love or Motion of the Soul yet that which the first Man felt in the use of the goods of the Body did not incline him to the Loving Bodies 'T is true Pleasure carries the Soul towards the object that causes it in her But it is not the Fruit that we eat with Pleasure which causes the Pleasure in us Not Bodies but God only can act upon the Soul and in any manner make it happy And we are in an Error to think that Bodies have in them what we feel occasionally from their presence Adam before his Sin being not so stupid as to imagine that Bodies were the causes of his Pleasures was not carry'd to the love of them by the motions that accompany'd his Pleasures If pleasure contributed to the fall of the first Man it was not by working in him what at present it does in us But only by filling up or dividing his capacity of Thought it effac'd or diminish'd in his Mind the presence of his true good and of his Duty OBJECTION against the sixth Article What likelyhood is there that the immutable Will of God had a dependance on the will of Man and that on Adam's behalf there were exceptions made to the general Law of the Communication of Motions ANSWER At least it is not evident but such exception might be made now it is evident that immutable order requires the subjection of the Body to the Mind and 't is a contradiction for God not to love and will order for God necessarily loves his Son Therefore it was necessary before the Sin of the first Man that exceptions should be made in his favour to the general Law of the Communication of Motions This seems it may be of a too abstracted nature Here then is somewhat of a more sensible kind Man though a Sinner has the power of moving and stopping his Arm when he pleases Therefore according to the different Volitions of Man the Animal Spirits are determin'd to the raising or stopping some Motions in his Body which certainly cannot be perform'd by the general Law of the Communication of Motions If then the will of God be still submitted to our own why might it not be submitted to the will of Adam If for the good of the Body and of civil Society God stops the communication of motions in Sinners why would he not do the like in favour of a Righteous Man for the good of his Soul and for the preservation of the Union and Society with his God for whom only he was made As God will have no Society with Sinners so after the Sin he depriv'd them of the power they had to sequester themselves as it were from the Body to unite themselves with him But he has left them the Power of stopping or changing the communication of Motions with reference to the preservation of Life and of Civil Society Because he was not willing to destroy his Work having before the construction of it decreed according to St. Paul to re-establish and renew it in Jesus Christ. OBJECTION against the Seventh Article Man in his present state conveys his Body all manner of ways he moves at pleasure all the parts of it which are necessary to be mov'd for the prosecution and shunning of sensible good and evil and consequently he stops or changes every moment the natural communication of motions not only for trifles and things of little importance but also for things useless to Life and civil Society and even for Crimes which violate Society shorten Life and dishonour God all manner of ways God wills order it is true But will order have the laws of motions violated for the sake of Evil and kept inviolable on the account of Good Why must Man lose the power of stopping the motions which sensible objects produce in his Body since these Motions keep him from doing good from repairing to God and returning to his duty and yet retain the power of doing so much evil by his Tongue and his Arm and other parts of his Body whose motions depend upon his will ANSWER To the answering this Objection it must be consider'd that Man having sin'd ought to have return'd to his Original nothing For being no longer in Order nor able to retrieve it he ought to cease to Exist God loves only order the Sinner is not in order and therefore not in the Love of God The Sinner therefore cannot subsist since the subsistence of Creatures depends on the will of the Creator but he wills not that they should exist if he does not love them The Sinner cannot by himself regain lost order because he cannot justifie himself and all that he can suffer cannot atone for his offence He must then be reduc'd to nothing But as it is unreasonable to think that God makes a Work to annihilate it or to let it fall into a state worse than annihilation 't is evident that God would not have made Man nor permitted his Sin which he foresaw unless he had had in view the Incarnation of his Son in whom all things subsist and by whom the Universe receives a Beauty a Perfection
their Operation So likewise in point of free Causes I believe that God incessantly gives the Mind an Impression towards Good in General and that he moreover determines this Impression towards particular Goods by the Idea's or Sensations that he gives us as I have explain'd in the first Illustration which is the same with what the Divines intend by affirming That God moves and prevents our Wills Thus the Force which puts our Minds in Motion is the Will of God which Animates us and inclines us towards Good For God Creates not Beings to constitute the moving force of Minds for the same Reason that he Creates none to be the moving force of Bodies The Wills of God being of themselves Efficacious He need but Will to do And we ought not to multiply Beings without necessity Besides whatever is real in the determinations of our Motions proceeds likewise from the Action of God in us as appears from the first Illustration But all we Act or produce is by our Wills that is by the Impression of the Will of God which is our moving force For our Wills are Efficacious no farther than they are of God as mov'd Bodies impel not others but in as much as they have a moving force that translates them which is no other than the Will of God which Creates or preserves them successively in different places Therefore we Act no otherwise than by the Concourse of God and our Action consider'd as Efficacious and capable of producing any Effect differs not from his but is as say most Divines the self same Action eadem numero actio Now all the Changes which arrive in the World have no other Natural Cause than the Motions of Bodies and Volitions of Minds For First by the General Laws of the Communications of Motions the invisible Bodies which surround the visible produce by their various Motions all these divers Changes whose Cause is not apparent And Secondly by the Laws of Union of our Soul and Body when circumambient Bodies Act upon our own they produce in our Soul a multiplicity of Sensations Idea's and Passions Thirdly Our Mind by its Volitions produces in it self infinite different Idea's for they are our Volitions which as Natural Causes intend and Modifie our Mind Their Efficacy nevertheless proceeds from the Laws which God has establish'd And Lastly when our Soul acts upon our Body she produces several Changes in it by vertue of the Laws of her Union with it and by means of our Body she effects in those about it abundance of Changes by vertue of the Laws of Communication of Motions So that the Motions of Bodies and the Volitions of Minds are the only Natural or Occasional Causes of Natural Effects which no Man will deny who uses any Attention supposing only he be not prepossest by those who understand not what they say who fancy perpetually to themselves such Beings as they have no clear Idea's of and who offer to explain things which they do not understand by others absolutely incomprehensible Thus having shown that God by his Concourse or rather by his Efficacious Will performs whatever is done by the Motions of Bodies and the Wills of Minds as Natural or Occasional Causes it appears that God does every thing by the same Action of the Creature Not that the Creatures have of themselves any Efficacious Action but that the Power of God is in a manner Communicated to them by the Natural Laws which God has establish'd on their account This then is all that I can do to reconcile my Thoughts to the Opinion of those Divines who defend the necessity of immediate Concourse and hold that God does All in all things by an Action no ways differing from the Creatures For as to the rest of the Divines I think their Opinions utterly indefensible and especially that of Durandus together with the Sentiments of some of the Ancients refuted by St. Austin who absolutely deniâd the necessity of God's Concurrence pretending that Second Causes did all things by the Power which God in their Creation gave them For though this Opinion be less intricate and perplex'd than that of other Divines yet to me it seems so repugnant to Scripture and so suitable to Prejudices to say no worse of it that I think it altogether unwarrantable I confess that the School-Men who make God's immediate concourse to be the same Action with that of the Creatures do not perfectly agree with my Explication and all those that I have read except Biel and Cardinal d' Ailly are of Opinion That the Efficacy which produces Effects proceeds from the Second Cause as well as the First But as I make it indispensable for me to speak nothing but what I clearly conceive and always to take the side that best comports with Religion I think I am not liable to blame for deserting an Opinion which to many Men seems still more inconceiveable as they strive more to comprehend it and for establishing another which agrees perfectly not only with Reason but also with the Sacredness of our Religion and Christian Morality which is a Truth already prov'd in the Chapter that 's the Subject of these Reflexions However 't is not inconvenient to say something to it that I may fully verifie what I have said upon the present Question Both Reason and Religion evince That God will be Lov'd and rever'd by his Creatures Lov'd as Good and Rever'd as Power Which is such a Truth as it would be Impiety and Madness to doubt of To love God as he requires and deserves we must according to the First Commandment both of the Law and Gospel and by Reason it self as I have somewhere shown Love Him with all our Strength or with the whole extent of our Loving Capacity 'T is not sufficient to prefer Him before all things unless we moreover Love Him in all things For otherwise our Love is not so perfect as it ought to be and we return not to God all the Love that he gives us and gives us only for Himself in whom every one of His Actions Center So to render to God all the Reverence that is due to Him 't is not enough to adore Him as the Supreme Power and fear Him more than His Creatures we must likewise fear and adore Him in all His Creatures all our respects must perpetually tend towards Him to whom alone Honour and Glory are to be ascrib'd Which is what God Commands us in these Words Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy Strength And in these Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve Thus the Philosophy that convinces us that the Efficacy of Second Causes is a Fiction of the Mind that the Nature of Aristotle and some other Philosophers is a Chimera that none but God is Strong and Powerful enough not only to Act on our Soul but even to give the
least Motion to Matter This Philosophy I say perfectly Accommodates with Religion whose end is to Unite us to God in the strictest Bonds 'T is Customary with us to Love only those things which are capable of doing us some Good This Philosophy therefore Authorises only the Love of God and Condemns the Love of every thing else We ought to fear nothing but what is able to do us some Evil. Therefore this Philosophy approves the fear of God and absolutely Condemns all other Thus it justifies all the just and Reasonable Motions of our Soul and Condemns all those that are contrary to Reason and Religion For we can never justifie the Love of Riches the desire of Greatness the Extravagance of Debauchery by this Philosophy by the Principles whereof the Love for Bodies is absurd and ridiculous 'T is an indisputable Truth 't is a Natural Opinion 't is even a Common Notion that we ought to Love the cause of our Pleasure and to Love it proportionably to the Felicity it either Actually does or is able to possess us with 'T is not only just but as it were necessary that the cause of our happiness should be the Object of our Love Therefore this Philosophy will teach us to Love God only as being the only Cause of our Felicity That surrounding Bodies cannot Act upon that we Animate and consequently much less upon our Mind That 't is not the Sun which enlightens us and gives us Life and Motion Nor that fills the Earth with Fruits and Beautifies it with Flowers and supplies us with Food and Nourishment This Philosophy seconding the Scripture teaches that 't is God alone who gives us Rain and Regulates the Seasons that fills our Bodies with Food and our hearts with Joy that he alone is able to do us good and thereby has given a perpetual Testimony of what he is though in the ages passed he suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways According to the Language of this Philosophy we must not say that 't is Nature that fills us with good nor that it is God and Nature together But that it is God alone speaking thus without Ambiguity for fear of deceiving the Ignorant For we must distinctly acknowledge one cause of our happiness if we we make it the only Object of our Love 'T is likewise an undeniable Truth That we ought to fear things that are able to harm us and to fear them in Proportion to the Evil they can do us But this Philosophy teaches us that God only can do us evil that 't is he as says Isaiah who forms the Light and creates Darkness who makes Peace and creates Evil and there is no Evil but what he does as says the Prophet Amos. Therefore it is he only that is to be fear'd We must not fear either Plague or War or Famine or our Enemies or even Devils themselves But God alone We ought to shun the Sword when we see a Blow a coming we are to fly the Fire and avoid a ruinous House that 's ready to crush us but we must not fear these things We may fly from those Bodies which are the Occasional or Natural Causes of Evil but we must fear God as the true Cause of all the misfortunes of Sinners and hate only Sin which necessarily provokes the cause of our Happiness to become the Cause of our Misery In a Word all the Motions of our Mind must center upon God since he alone 's above it and the Motions of our Body may relate to the Bodies round it This is what we learn from that Philosophy that admits not the Efficacy of Second Causes But this Efficacy being suppos'd I cannot see but we have reason to fear and Love Bodies and that to regulate our Love by Reason we need but prefer God before all things the First and Vniversal to every Second and Particular Cause We can see no need of Loving him with all our Strength Ex totâ mente ex toto corde ex totâ animâ ex totis viribus as says the Scripture Yet when a Man contents himself in preferring God to all things and adoring him with a Worship and a Love of Preference without making a continual Effort to Love and Honour him in all things It often fortunes that he deceives himself that his Charity vanishes and is lost And that he is more taken up with sensible than the supream Good For should it be demanded of the greatest Sinners and even Idolaters whether they preferr'd the universal to particular Causes they would make no scruple to answer amidst their Debauches Errours and Extravagance that they are not wanting to their essential Duty and that they are very sensible of what they owe to God 'T is acknowledg'd that they are deceiv'd But take away the Efficacy of Second Causes and they have no probable Pretext left to justifie their Conduct and Behaviour whilst if it be granted them they will think and Discourse with themselves in the following manner when blinded by their Passions and attentive to the Testimony of their Senses I am made for Happiness Neitheir can I nor indeed ought I to supersede my Love and Respect for whatever can be the Cause of my Felicity Why then must not I Love and respect sensible Objects if they be the true Causes of the Happiness I find in their Enjoyment I acknowledge the Sovereign Being as only worthy of Sovereign Worship and I prefer Him before all the World But since I see not that He requires any thing from me I enjoy the Goods he affords by Means of Second Causes to which he has subjected me And I pay not my Gratitude to him which perhaps would be to his Dishonour As he gives me no Blessing immediately and by himself or at least without the Assistance of his Creatures 't is a Sign he requires not the immediate Application of my Mind and Heart at least that he desires the Creatures should partake with him in the Acknowledgments and Resentments of my Heart and Mind Seeing he has communicated Part of his Power and Glory to the Sun has environ'd him with Splendour and Majesty and has given him the Supremacy in all his Works and seeing from the Influence of this great Luminary we receive all the necessary Blessings of Life Why should we not employ a part of this indebted Life in rejoicing in his Light and testifying the Sense we have of his Greatness and his Benefits Wou'd it not be the most shameful Ingratitude to receive from that excellent Creature abundance of all things and yet to shew no Sense of Gratitude to him for them And should we not be unspeakably blind and stupid to be unmov'd with Fear and Veneration in Respect of him whose Absence freezes us to Death and whose too near Approach can burn and destroy us I say it again that God is preferable to all things and infinitely more estimable than his Creatures But we are to fear and Love
his Creatures also For hereby we pay Legitimate Honour to their Creatour Merit his good Graces and oblige him to shower new Benefits upon us 'T is manifest he approves of the Honour that is given to his Creatures since they partake of his Power and all Power deserves to be honour'd But because Honour ought to be Proportion'd to Power and that the Power of the Sun and all other sensible Objects is such as derives to us all sorts of Goods 't is reasonable we should Honour them with all our Strength and next to God Consecrate to them all our Being These are the Natural Reasonings a Man would fall into that should ground upon the Prejudice of the Efficacy of Second Causes and probably such was the Arguing of the first Founders of Idolatry Take here his Sense of it who passes for the most Learned of all the Jews He Prefaces a a Treatise he wrote about Idolatry with these Words In the days of Enos Men fell into strange Illusions and the Wise Men of that Age quite lost their Sense and Reason Enos himself was one of those deluded Persons whose Errours were these Since God said they has created the Heavens and Stars to govern the World has constituted them on âigh and invested them with Glory and Lustre and employs them in executing his Commands 't is just that we should honour them and pay them our Deference and Homage 'T is the Will of our God that Honour should be given to those whom he has exalted and enthron'd in Glory as a Prince requires that his Ministers should be âonour'd in his Presence because the Honour which is given to them redounds to himself When once this Notion had entred their Head they fell to building Temples in Honour of the Stars gave them Sacrifice and Praises and even prostrated themselves before them thereby imagining to purchase the favour of Him that created them And this was the Original of Idolatry It is so Natural and just to have grateful Resentments in Proportion to the Goods we receive that almost all Nations have ador'd the Sun because they all concluded him the Cause of the Blessings they enjoy'd And if the Aegyptians ador'd not only the Sun and Moon and River Nile because its overflowing caus'd the Fertility of their Country but even the vilest of Animals 'T was as Cicero relates from the Emolument they receiv'd from them Therefore as we cannot and indeed ought not to Extirpate from Men's Minds their Natural Inclination for the true Causes of their Happiness 't is evident there is at least some danger in ascribing Efficacy to Second Causes though we conjoyn the necessity of an immediate Concourse which has methinks I know not what of incomprehensible purport and which strikes in as an after-game to justifie our imbib'd Prejudices and Aristotle's Philosophy But there 's no danger in speaking only what we see and of Attributing only to God Efficacy and Power since we see nothing but His Wills which have an absolutely necessary and indispensible connexion with Natural Effects I own that now adays Men are Wise enough to avoid those gross Errors of Heathens and Idolaters but I fear not to say our Mind is still dispos'd or rather our Heart is often bent like that of the Heathens and that there will ever be in the World some kind of Idolatry until the Day in which JESUS CHRIST shall restore up His Kingdom to God his Father having first destroy'd all Empire Dominion and Power that God may be All in all For is it not a kind of Idolatry to make a God of ones Belly as speaks S. Paul Is not he an Idolater to the God of Riches who labours Night and Day to acquire them Is this to render to God the Worship we owe Him Is this to adore Him in Spirit and in Truth to have our Hearts fill'd with some sensible Beauty and our Mind struck and dazled with the Lustre of some imaginary Grandeur Men fancying to themselves that Circumambient Bodies afford the pleasures they enjoy in the use of them Unite to them with all the Powers of their Soul and thus the Principle of their Corruption lies in the sensible Conviction of the Efficacy of Second Causes 'T is only Reason that assures them none but God Acts in them But besides that this Reason speaks so low that it is scarce Audible and that the Contradicting Senses cry so loud that their Clamour Stunns and Stupefies them they are yet farther confirm'd in their Prejudice by Reasons and Arguments that are so much dangerous as they have more External Characters and sensible marks of Truth The Philosophers but especially the Christian Philosophers ought to wage an uninterrupted War with Prejudices or the Judgements of their Senses and particularly those of so dangerous importance as that of the Efficacy of Second Causes And yet there are Men whom I extremely honour as I have just Reason who from I know not what Principle endeavour to confirm this Prejudice and to make so holy so pure and solid a Doctrine as this which owns no other true Cause than God pass for Superstitious and Extravagant Opinion They will not have us to Love and Fear God in all things but to Love and Fear all things with reference to God We ought say they to Love the Creatures since they are good to Love and respect our Father to give Honour to our Prince and Superiours since God Commands it Nor do I deny it but I deny that we are to Love the Creatures as our Goods though they be good or perfect in themselves I deny that we are to pay service and respect to Men as to our Masters Or to explain my self more clearly I say we must not serve our Master obey our Father or Prince with any other design than to serve and obey God S. Paul who became all things to all Men and was complaisant in all things for the Salvation of those he Preach'd to speaks thus Servants be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in singleness of your Heart as unto CHRIST not with Eye-Service as Men pleasers but as the Servants of Christ doing the Will of God from the Heart with good Will doing Service AS TO THE LORD AND NOT TO MEN. And in another Epistle Not with Eye-Service as to MEN but in singleness of Heart fearing GOD. And whatever ye do do it Heartily AS TO THE LORD and NOT VNTO MEN. We must therefore obey our Father serve our Prince and Honour our Superiours AS UNTO GOD AND NOT UNTO MEN. This is manifest and can have no Evil consequences For hereby Superiours would always be more honour'd and better serv'd But I think it may be said That a Master who would be honour'd and serv'd as having in himself another Power than that of God would be a Devil and that those who serv'd him under that apprehension would be
The Soul of a Beast is a Substance distinct from its Body This Soul is Annihilated and therefore Substances may naturally be Annihilated Therefore though the Soul of Man be a Substance distinct from his Body it may be Annihilated when the Body is destroyed And thus the Immortality of the Humane Soul cannot be Demonstrated by Reason But if it be own'd to be most certain That no Substance can be naturally reduc'd to nothing the Soul of Beasts will subsist after Death and since they have no reward to hope for and are made for Bodies they must at least pass out of one to another that they may not remain useless in Nature Which seems to be the most reasonable Inference Now 't is Matter of Faith That God is just and Wise That he Loves not Disorder That Nature is corrupted That the Soul of Man is Immortal and that That of Beasts is Mortal Because indeed it is not a distinct Substance from their Body nor consequently capable of Knowledge and Love or of any Passions and Sensations like ours Therefore in the Stile of Monsieur de la Ville who condemns Men upon Consequences that he draws from their Principles the Cartesians may justly charge him with a Crime and all Mindkind besides for believing Beasts have Souls What would Monsieur de la Ville say if in his way of proceeding we should tax him of Impiety for entertaining Opinions from whence it might be concluded That God is not Just Wise or Powerful Opinions that overthrow Religion that are opposite to Original Sin that take away the only Demonstration Reason can give of the Immortality of the Soul What would he say if we should charge him with Injustice and Cruelty for making innocent Souls to suffer and even for Annihilating them to feed upon the Bodies which they Animate He is a Sinner but they are Innocent and yet for the Nourishment of his Body he kills Animals and Annihilates their Souls which are of greater Worth than his Body Yet if his Body could not subsist without the Flesh of Animals or if the Annihilation of a Soul should render his Body for ever Immortal this Cruelty as unjust as it is might perhaps be excusable But with what Pretence can he Annihilate Substances altogether innocent to sustain but a few days a Body justly condemn'd to Death because of Sin Would he be so little a Philosopher as to excuse himself upon the Custom of the Place he lives in But what if his Zeal should carry him into the Indies where the Inhabitants found Hospitals for Beasts and the Philosophers and the better and more gentile Part of them are so charitable to to the smallest Flies that for fear of killing them by Breathing and Walking they wear a fine Cloath before their Mouths and fan the Ways through which they pass Would he then fear to make innocent Souls to suffer or to Annihilate them for the Preservation of a Sinner's Body Would he not rather chuse to subscribe to their Opinion who give not Beasts a Soul more Noble than their Body or distinct from it and by publishing this Opinion acquit himself of the Crimes of Cruelty and Injustice which these People would charge upon him if having the same Principles he follow'd not their Custom This Example may suffice to shew that we are not permitted to treat Men as Hereticks and dangerous Persons because of Irreligious Consequences that may be deduc'd from their Principles when these Consequences are disown'd by them For though I think it would be an infinitely harder Task to answer the aforesaid Difficulties than those of M. de la Ville's yet the Cartesians would be very Ridiculous if they should accuse Monsieur de la Ville and others that were not of their Opinion of Impiety and Heresie 'T is only the Authority of the Church that may decide about Matters of Faith and the Church has not oblig'd us and probably whatever Consequence may be drawn from common Principles never will oblige us to believe that Dogs have not a Soul more Noble than their Body that they know not their Masters that they neither fear nor desire nor suffer any thing because it is not necessary that Christians should be instructed in these Truths ARGUMENT II. Almost all Men are perswaded That sensible Objects are the true Causes of Pleasure and Pain which we feel upon their Presence They believe that the Fire sends forth that agreeable Heat which rejoyces us and that our Aliments Act in us and give us the Welcome Sensations of Tasts They doubt not but 't is the Sun which makes the Fruits necessary for Life to thrive and that all sensible Objects have a peculiar Vertue by which they can do us a great deal of Good and Evil. Let us see if from these Principles we cannot draw Consequences contrary to Religion and Points of Faith A Consequence opposite to the first Principle of Morality which obliges us to love God with all our Strength and to fear none but Him 'T is a common Notion by which all Men Order their Behaviour That we ought to love and fear what has Power to do us Good and Harm to make us feel Pleasure and Pain to render us happy or miserable and that this Cause is to be lov'd or fear'd proportionably to its Power of Acting on us But the Fire the Sun the Objects of our Senses can truly Act on us and make us in some manner happy or miserable This is the Principle suppos'd we may therefore Love and Fear them This is the Conclusion which every one naturally makes and is the general Principle of the corruption of Manners 'T is evident by Reason and by the First of God's Commandments That all the motions of our Soul of Love or Fear Desire or Joy ought to tend to God and that all the Motions of our Body may be Regulated and Determin'd by encompassing Objects By the Motion of our Body we may approach a Fruit avoid a Blow fly a Beast that 's ready to devour us But we ought to Love and Fear none but God all the Motions of our Soul ought to tend to Him only we are to Love Him with all our strength this is an indispensible Law We can neither Love or Fear what is below us without disorder and corruption Freely to fear a Beast ready to devour us or to fear the Devil is to give them some honour to Love a Fruit to desire Riches to rejoyce in the light of the Sun as if he were the true cause of it to Love even our Father our Protector our Friend as if they were capable of doing us good is to pay them an Honour which is due to none but God in which sense it is lawful to Love none But we may and ought to Love our Neighbour by wisâing and procuring him as Natural or Occasional Cause all that may make him happy and no otherwise For we to Love our Brothers not as if able to do
hears the Prayers of the Humble he will comfort them justfie them and save them he will fill them with Blessings and will debase the high Mind of the Proud Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven but woe to the Rich âor they have their Consolation in this World How hard is it says our Saviour for those that have much Wealth to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven 'T is harder for a Camel to pass through the Eye of a Needle which cannot be done without a Miracle As for those who like David humble their Souls with Fasting change their Garments for Sack-cloth in a word afflict themselves upon sight of their Sins and the Holiness of God they are the worthy Objects of the Compassion of Jesus For God despises not a broken and contrite Heart We constantly disarm the Anger of God when we take his Part against our selves and revenge his Quarrel The Will of Jesus Christ being entirely conformable to Order whereof all Men have naturally some Idea we might still discover by Reason that he has more Thoughts and Desires in regard to some Persons than others For Order requires that more Graces should be shed on those for Example who are call'd to Holy Orders than on others whose Employment necessarily engages them in Worldly Commerce in a word On those who constitute the Principal Parts of the Church Militant than on such as have no regard to any body or that meddle in the Ecclesiastical State or raise themselves above others out of Ambition or Interest For though it be requisite that Jesus Christ should give them Graces in relation to their Charge they merit not the Gift of that Grace which may sanctifie them in the Station they have chosen out of Self-love They may have the Gift of Prophecy whilst they may want Charity as we are taught by Scripture XXVI But though we may discover by the Light of Reason and the Authority of Holy Writ something of the diverse Wills of the Soul of Jesus yet that Order and Process of Desires which accomplish the Predestination of the Saints and which tend only to the honouring God in the Establishment of his Church is an unfathomable Abyss to the Mind of Man For if St. Paul had not taught us that God would that all Men should be included in Unbelief that he might exercise his Mercy towards them should we ever have thought that the Jews were to fall into a wilful Blindness not only that the multitude of the Nations might enter into the Church but that they themselves might receive Mercy at the Accomplishment of Ages The future World being to be a Work of pure Mercy and to have infinite Ornaments whereof we have no Idea since the Substance of Spirits is unknown to us it is plain we can discover very little in the different Desires of the Soul of Jesus these Desires being related to Designs we are ignorant of Thus in the Distribution God makes of his Graces we ought to cry out with St. Paul O the depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his Judgments and his Ways past finding out XXVII We have prov'd that the diverse Designs of the Soul of Jesus are the Occasional Causes of Grace and we have endeavour'd to discover something of these Desires Let us now see of what sort of Grace they are the Occasional Causes For though Jesus Christ be the meritorious Cause of all Graces it is not necessary he should be the Occasional Cause of the Graces of Light and of certain external Graces which are Preparatory to the Conversion of the Heart and which do not opperate For Jesus Christ is always the Occasional or Necessary Cause according to the Establish'd Order of God in point of all those Graces which opperate Salvation XXVIII In order to our distinct understanding what this Grace is which Jesus Christ as Head of the Church diffuses in his Members we ought to know what is that Concupiscence which the First Man has communicated to all his Posterity For the Second Adam came to remedy the Disorders which the First Adam was the Cause of And there is such an Affinity between the Sinful and Earthly and the Innocent and Heavenly Adam that St. Paul looks upon the former communicating Sin to his Children by his Disobedience as the Type and Figure of the latter infusing Justice and Holiness into Christians by his Obedience XXIX Order requires that the Mind should have the Supremacy over the Body and not be divided against its Will by all those Sensations and Motions which apply it to sensible Objects Therefore the First Man before his Sin was so absolute over his Senses and Passions that they were mute and silent as soon as he desir'd it nothing could give him an involuntary Diversion from his Duty and all the Pleasures which at present precede Reason did only respectfully caution him in a ready and easie manner of what ought to be done for the Preservation of his Life But after his Sin he lost on a sudden that Power over his Body So that not being able to stop the Motions nor obliterate the Traces which sensible Objects produc'd in the principal Part of his Braiâ his Soul by the Order of Nature and in Punishment of his Disobedience found her self miserably enslav'd to the Law of Concupiscence to that Carnal Law which constantly wars against the Mind inspiring it with the Love of sensible Goods and so ruling it by strong and lively and at once soft and agreeable Passions that it cannot and indeed will not make the necessary Struggles for its breaking the captivating Bonds For the Contagion of Sin is spread through the Children of Adam by an unavoidable Consequence of the Order of Nature as I have explain'd in another place XXX The Heart of Man is the constant Slave of Pleasure and when Reason teaches us that 't is not convenient to enjoy it we put it off but with Design of finding it more delicate and solid We willingly sacrifice little Pleasures to the greater but the invincible Impression we are under for Happiness will not permit us to deny our selves all our Life the Satisfaction we enjoy when we give our selves up to follow our Passions XXXI 'T is certain that Pleasure makes happy the Possessour at least whilst he enjoys it Therefore Men being made to be Happy Pleasure always gives the Will the first shock and puts it constantly in Motion towards the Good that causes or seems to cause it The contrary is to be said of Pain Now Concupiscence consisting only in a continual train of Sensations and Motions antecedent to Reason and not subject to it of Pleasures which seeming to flow from surrounding Objects inspire into us the Love of them and of Pains which rendring the Exercise of Vertue rough and painful make us hate it The Second Adam to remedy the Disorders of the First ought to
produce in us contrary Pleasures and Aversions to those of Concupiscence Pleasures for the True and Aversions or Dislikes for sensible Goods Thus the Grace whereof Jesus Christ is the Occasional Cause and which he incessantly sheds on us as Head of the Church is not a Grace of Light though he has merited that Grace likewise for us and sometimes may communicate it as I shall say by and by But 't is a Grace of Sensation 't is the preventing Delectation which begets and nurses Charity in our Hearts For Pleasure naturally produces and cherishes the Love of those Objects which cause or seem to cause it 'T is likewise the Disgust which sometimes sensible Objects give us which create an Aversion to them and capacitate us to guide the Motions of our Love by Light or Knowledge XXXII We must oppose the Grace of Sensation to Concupiscence Pleasure to Pleasure Dislike to Dislike that the Influence of Jesus Christ may be directly opposite to the Influence of the First Man The Remedy must be contrary to the Disease that it may cure it For illuminating Grace cannot heat an Heart that is wounded by Pleasure this Pleasure must cease or another succeed it Pleasure is the Weight of the Soul and naturally bears it along with it and sensible Pleasures weigh it down to Earth In order to her determining her self these Pleasures must vanish or delectable Grace must raise her up towards Heaven and instate her well-nigh in Equilibrio Thus it is the New Man may war against the Old the Influence of our Head may resist that of our Progenitor and Jesus Christ may conquer in us all our Domestick Enemies The First Man being free from Concupiscence before his Sin needed not to be invited to the Love of the True Good by preventing Delectation He knew clearly that God was his Good and there was no Necessity he should have the Sense of it 'T was not fit he should be allur'd by Pleasure to the Love of him since nothing withstood this Love and he knew him perfectly deserving it But after the Sin the Grace of Delectation was necessary to counterpoize the continual Struggle of Concupiscence Therefore Light is the Grace of the Creator Delectation is that of the Restorer Light is communicated by Jesus Christ as Eternal Wisdom Delectation is given by him as Wisdom Incarnate Light in its Original was mere Nature Delectation has ever been Pure Grace Light after the Sin was granted us only for the Merits of Jesus Christ. Delectation is granted both for the Merits and by the Efficacy of the same Jesus Lastly Light is shed into our Souls according to our own several Volitions and various Applications as I shall explain by and by But the Delectation of Grace is infus'd into our Hearts according to the diverse Desires of the Soul of Jesus Christ. XXXIII 'T is true Pleasure produces Light because the Soul is more attentive to Objects that give her Pleasure Since most Men despise or neglect the Truths of Religion because abstract or unaffecting it may be said that the Delectation of Grace instructs them For that rendring these Truths more sensible they more easily learn them by the Attention they afford And for this Reason St. John says That the Unction we receive from Jesus Christ teaches all things and that those who have receiv'd it have need of no Instructor XXXIV Yet it must be observ'd That this Unction does not produce Light immediately and by its self it only excites our Attention which is the Natural or Occasional Cause of our Knowledge So we see that Men of the greatest Charity are not always the most Understanding All Men being not equally capable of Attention all the Receivers of the same Unction are not equally instructed by it Therefore though Light may be shed on the Soul by a supernatural Infusion and Charity often produces it yet we are always to look upon this kind of Grace but as a Natural Effect For ordinarily Charity produces not Light in the Mind save in proportion to the Inducement it gives the Soul to desire the Knowledge of what she loves For in fine the diverse Desires of the Soul are the Natural or Occasional Causes of the Discoveries we make on any Subject whatsoever But these things we must explain more at large in the Second Part of this Discourse PART II. Of the Grace of the CREATOR XXXV I Know but two Principles that directly and of themselves determine the Motion of our Love Light and Pleasure Light to discover our several Goods and Pleasure to make us tast them But there is a great difference betwixt Light and Pleasure the former leaves us absolutely to our selves and makes no Intrenchment on our Liberty It does not efficaciously carry us to Love nor produce in us Natural or Necessary Love but only induces us to carry our selves to the loving with a Love of choice the Objects it discovers or which is the same thing only causes us to determine to particular Goods the general Impression of Love God constantly gives us for the General But Pleasure effectually determines our Will and as it were conveys us to the Object which causes or seems to cause it It produces in us a Natural and Necessary Love weakens our Liberty divides our Reason and leaves us not perfectly to our own Conduct An indifferent Attention to the Sense we have of our internal Motions will convince us of these Differences Thus Man before the Sin being perfectly free and having no Concupiscence to hinder him from prosecuting his Light in the Motions of his Love and knowing clearly that God was infinitely amiable ought not to be determin'd by preventing Delight as I have already said or by any other Graces of Sensation which might have lessen'd his Merit and induc'd him to love by Instinct the Good which should only be lov'd by Reason But after he had sinned he besides the Grace of Light had need of that of Sensation to resist the Motions of Concupiscence For Man having an invincible Desire for Happiness cannot possibly sacrifice his Pleasure to his Light his Pleasure which makes him actually Happy and subsists in him in spight of his Resistance to his Light which subsists but by a painful Application of Thought and dies at the presence of the least actual Pleasure and lastly which promises no solid Happiness till after Death which to the Imagination seems a perfect Annihilation Light therefore is due to Man to conduct him in the quest of Happiness and belongs to Natural Order and supposes neither Corruption nor Reparation in Nature But Pleasure which relates to the true Good is pure Grace For naturally the true Good ought not to be belov'd otherwise than by Reason Therefore the Occasional Causes of the Graces of Sensation ought to be found in Jesus Christ because he is the Author of this Grace But the Occasional Causes of Light ought to be ordinarily found in the Order of Nature because Light is
they had committed in murthering our Saviour it was fit that Jesus Christ should come into the World about the Reign of Herod supposing that People by the necessary Consequence of the Order of Nature was to be divided about that time that Civil Wars and perpetual Seditions were to weaken them and that lastly the Romans were to ruine and disperse them with the total Destruction of their City and Temple 'T is true there seems to be something extraordinary in the Desolation of the Jews But as it shews greater Wisdom in God to produce so surprizing Effects by the most simple and general Laws of Nature than by particular Wills which are always Miracles I question whether on that Occasion we are to fly unto a Miracle But for my part I dispute it not here since 't is a Fact that we cannot easily nor need we explain our selves upon And I produce this Instance only to make some Application of my Principles and to make them more easily intelligible to others I have I think said enough of Nature and Grace to satisfie all equitable and moderate Persons about an infinite Number of Difficulties which disturb only their Minds who must needs judge of God by themselves For if Men would consult the Idea of an Infinitely Perfect Being of a General Cause of an Infinite Wisdom and if they would consent to the Principles I have establish'd conformable to that Idea I believe they would neither be surpriz'd nor offended at the Conduct of GOD and that they would change their Murmurs and Censures into Wonder and Adoration CONCERNING Nature and Grace DISCOURSE III. Of the Manner of GRACE's acting in us PART I. Concerning Liberty I. THERE is nothing more rude and unform'd than the Substance of Spirits if we separate it from God For what 's a Mind void of Understanding and Reason destitute of Motion and Love Yet it is the Word and Wisdom of God which is the universal Reason of Minds and 't is the Love whereby God loves himself that gives the Soul the Motion she has towards Good If the Mind knows Truth 't is by its Natural and Necessary Union with Truth it self If it is reasonable 't is so through supreme Reason Lastly If it be a Spirit or Intelligence 't is in one sense because its Substance is enlightned penetrated and perfected by the Light of God himself These Truths I have explain'd in another Place So likewise the Substance of the Soul is not capable of loving Good save by its Natural and Necessary Union with the Eternal and Substantial Love of the Supreme Good it advances not towards Good any farther than convey'd by God it is volent only from the Motion it continually receives from him it lives only through Charity and wills merely through the Love of Good which God makes it participate though it abuses it For in fine God making and preserving Minds only for himself inclines them towards him as long as he preserves their Being and communicates the Love of Good to them whilst they are capable of receiving it Now that natural and continual Motion of the Soul towards Good in general towards Good indefinite towards God is what I here call Will Since 't is that Motion which capacitates the Substance of the Soul to love different Goods II. This Natural Motion of the Soul towards Good in general is invincible for 't is not in our Power not to will to be happy We necessarily love what we clearly know and lively feel to be our Good All Minds love God by the Necessity of their Nature and if they love any thing else by a Free Choice of their Will 't is not because they seek not God or the Cause of their Felicity but because they are deceiv'd 'T is because perceiving by a confus'd Sensation that surrounding Bodies make them happy they consider them as good and by an Ordinary and Natural Consequence love them and unite to them III. But the Love of all these particular Goods is not naturally invincible Man consider'd in his Original State might supersede loving those Goods that fill'd not the whole Capacity of his Affection There being but one Good which includes all others he might sacrifice every other Love to the Love of this For God having made Minds only for himself cannot invincibly carry them to the loving any thing besides him or without relation to him Lastly our own inward Consciousness informs us that we can reject a Fruit though we are inclin'd to take it Now that Power of loving or not loving particular Goods the Non-invincibility which is found in the Motion which carries Minds to the loving what does not seem every way inclusive of all Goods That Power or Non-invincibility is what I call Liberty Thus placing the Definition instead of the thing defin'd that Expression our Will is free signifies that the Natural Motion of the Soul towards Good in general is not invincible in point of Good in particular To the Word Free the Idea of Voluâtary is commonly annex'd but in the Sequel of this Discourse I shall take the Word in the Sense I have observ'd as being the most Natural and Ordinary IV. The Word Good is equivocal and may signifie either Pleasure which makes formally happy or the true or seeming Cause of Pleasure In this Discourse I shall constantly take the Word Good in the second Sense because indeed Pleasure is imprinted on the Soul that she may love the Cause that makes her happy that she may advance towards it by the Motion of her Love and may strictly unite to it to be perpetually happy When the Soul loves nothing but her own Pleasure she in effect loves nothing distinct from her self For Pleasure is only a Condition or Modification of the Soul which renders her actually happy and content But whilst the Soul cannot be the Cause of her own Pleasure she 's unjust ungrateful and blind if she loves her Pleasure and forgets to pay the Love and Devotion which is due to the true Cause that produces it in her As none but God can act immediately and by himself on the Soul and make her sensible of Pleasure by the actual Efficacy of his all-potent Will so he alone is truly Good However I term the Creatures Good which are the seeming Causes of the Pleasures we feel occasionally from them For I am unwilling to deviate from the customary way of Speaking any farther than is necessary to explain my self clearly All Creatures though Good in themselves or Perfect with reference to the Designs of God are not Good with reference to us They are not our Good nor the true Cause of our Pleasure or Felicity V. The natural Motion which God constantly imprints on the Soul to carry it to love him or to make use of a Term which is the Abridgement of several Ideas and can be no longer equivocal or confus'd after the Definition I have given of it the Will is determin'd towards particular Goods either
by a clear and evident Knowledge or by a confus'd Sensation which points these Goods out to us Whilst the Mind perceives or tasts not any particular Good the Motion of the Soul remains as it were undetermin'd it tends towards Good in general But this Motion receives a particular Determination as soon as the Mind has the Idea or Sensation of some particular Good For the Soul being continually bent towards Good undetermin'd ought to move when the Good appears VI. But when the Good which is present to the Mind and Senses fils not these two Faculties when it 's discover'd under the Idea of a particular Good of a Good that comprehends not all Goods and when it is tasted by a Sensation that takes not up the whole Capacity of the Soul she may still desire the Perception and Fruition of some other Good she may suspend the Judgment of her Love She may refuse to acquiesce in the actual Enjoyment and by her Desires seek out some novel Object And as her Desires are the Occasional Causes of her Light and Knowledge she may by the natural and necessary Union of all Minds with him who includes the Ideas of all Goods discover the True Good and in the True many other particular Goods different from that she perceiv'd and enjoy'd before Therefore having some Knowledge of the Emptiness and Vanity of sensible Goods and attending to the secret Reproaches of her Reason to the Remorses of her Conscience to the Complaints and Menaces of the True Good who will not that she should sacrifice to seeming and imaginary Goods may by the Motion which God continually imprints on her for Good in general Sovereign Good that is for himself check her self in her Course towards any particular Good She may resist the sensible Allurements search and find out other Objects compare them together and with the indelible Idea of the Supreme Good and love none of them with a determinate Love And if the Sovereign Good comes to be somewhat relish'd she may prefer it to all particular Goods though the Pleasure and Satisfaction they seem to infuse into the Soul be extremely great and very agreeable But these Truths require a larger Explication VII The Soul is constantly driven towards Good in general she desires the Possession of all Goods and will never limit her Love there being no Good that appears such that she refuses to love Therefore when she actually enjoys a particular Good she has a Tendency to proceed farther she still desires something more by the natural and invincible Impression which God gives her and to change or divide her Love it suffices to present her another Good besides that of her present Enjoyment and to give her a Tast of the Pleasure it affords Now the Soul may ordinarily seek and discover new Goods She may likewise approach and enjoy them For in fine her Desires are the Natural or Occasional Causes of her Knowledge and Objects appear and draw towards her in proportion to her Earnestness to know them A Man of Ambition who considers the Lustre of a Dignity may likewise think on the Slavery Constraint and the true Evils that accompany Humane Grandeur he may summ up the Account weigh and compare all together if his Passion does not blind him For I confess there are Moments in which Passion takes away all Liberty from the Mind and that it always lessens it Thus as a Dignity however great it appears cannot be taken by a perfectly free and rational Man for universal and infinite Good whilst the Will extends to all Goods This perfectly free and perfectly rational Man may enquire after and find out others in as much as he can desire them it being his Desires which discover and present them to him He may then examine them and compare them with that which he enjoys But whereas he can find only particular Goods on Earth he may and ought whilst he lives here below to examine them and perpetually seek and never acquiesce Or rather that he may not be constantly following a fresh Chase he ought in general to neglect all transitory Goods and desire only such as are Immutable and Eternal VIII But whereas we love not to seek but to enjoy and that the Labour of Examination is at present very painful but Repose and Enjoyment always very agreeable the Soul commonly rests when she has found any Good she stops at it to enjoy it she deceives her self because by her mistaking and judging she has found what she looks for her Desire is chang'd into Pleasure and Pleasure makes her happier than Desire But her Happiness cannot last long Her Pleasure being ill-grounded unjust and deceitful immediately disquiets and molests her because she desires to be solidly and truly happy Thus the natural Love of Good quickens her and produces in her new Desires These confus'd Desires represent new Objects The Love of Pleasure puts her on the Pursuit of those which afford or seem to afford it and the Love of her Repose fastens her upon them She does not immediately examine the Defects of the present Good when prepossess'd with its Sweetness but rather contemplates it on its best side applies to that which charms her and thinks only of enjoying it But the more she enjoys the more she loves it and the closer she approaches the more curiously she considers it But the more she considers it the more Imperfections she spies in it and since she desires to be truly happy she cannot for ever be mistaken When she is thirsty and hungry and weary with seeking she presently inebriates and fills her self with the first Good she finds but she is presently disgusted with a Nourishment which was not made for Man Thus the Love of the True Good excites in her new Desires for fresh Goods and whilst she constantly changes her Pursuit all her Life and her whole Happiness on Earth consists in a continual Circulation of Thoughts Desires and Pleasures Such is the Soul which makes no use of her Liberty but leaves her self to the Conduct of Chance to be guided by the obtaining Motion and the fortuitous Concourse of determining Objects But this is the State of a Man whose Understanding is so weak as daily to mistake the false for the true Good and whose Heart is so corrupt as to betray and sell it self to every thing it is touch'd with to the Good which gives it an actual Sense of the most sweet and agreeable Pleasures IX But a Man perfectly free such as we conceive Adam immediately after his Creation knows clearly that none but God is his Good or the true Cause of the Pleasures he enjoys Though he feels Satisfaction upon the approach of circumambient Bodies he loves them not God only he loves and if God forbid him to unite to Bodies he is ready to forsake them what Pleasure soever he finds in them He resolves to fix only in the Enjoyment of the supreme Good and to sacrifice all others to
it and though never so desirous of Happiness or the Enjoyment of Pleasures no Pleasure is stronger than his Light Not but that Pleasures can blind him perturbate his Reason and fill up his thinking Capacity For the Mind being finite all Pleasure is capable of dividing and distracting it But that Pleasures being subjected to his Will he is too cautious to be intoxicated by them For the sole invincible Pleasure is that of the Blessed or that which the First Man had found in God if God should have prevented and hindred his Fall not only because this Pleasure fills all the Faculties of the Soul without disturbing her Reason or carrying her to the Love of a pretended Good but also because nothing withstands the Enjoyment of this Pleasure neither the Desire of Perfection nor that of Felicity For when we love God we are perfect when we enjoy him we are happy and when we love him with Pleasure we are happy and perfect all at once Thus the perfectest Liberty is that of Minds which can at all times overcome the greatest Pleasures of Minds to which no Motion towards particular Goods is ever irresistible 'T is that of a Man before the Sin before Concupiscence troubled his Mind and corrupted his Heart And the most imperfect Liberty is that of those to whom no Motion towards a particular Good though never so little but is invincible in all sorts of Circumstances X. Now betwixt these two sorts of Liberty there are more and less Perfect to an Infinity of Degrees which is a thing not sufficiently minded 'T is commonly imagin'd that Liberty is equal in all Men and that 't is an Essential Faculty of the Mind the Nature whereof remains constantly the same though its Action varies according to the diversity of Objects For we regardlesly suppose a perfect Equality in all things wherein no sensible Inequality appears Men indulge their Mind and rid it of all tedious Application by giving things an abstract Form consisting in a sort of indivisible Essence But this is an Errour Liberty being no such Faculty as is imagin'd There are not two Persons equally free in respect of the same Objects Children have less Liberty than Men arriv'd to the perfect Exercise of their Reason Nor are there two Men whose Reason is equally clear constant and certain in regard of the same Objects Those whose Passions are unruly and who have been unaccustom'd to resist them are less free than others who have couragiously impugn'd them and who are naturally Men of Temper and there are not two Men equally moderate equally sensible to the same Objects and who have equally fought for the Preservation of their Liberty Some Persons there are so sold to Sin that they less resist or think of resisting it when awake than pious Men in their Sleep since we are taught by the Word of Truth that he who commits Sin becomes a Slave to it XI ' True it is that by the Institution of Nature all Men are equally free For God does not invincibly determine Men to the Love of any particular Good But Concupiscence corrupts the Moral and Intellectual Part and since Man has lost the Power of obliterating the Tracts of sensible Pleasures and stopping the Motions of Concupiscence That Liberty which had been equal in all Men if they had not sinn'd grows unequal according to their different degrees of Light and as variously work'd on by Concupiscence For Concupiscence it self which is equal in all Men in as much as they have lost their Power over their Body is a thousand ways unequal because of the Diversity that is found in the Construction of the Body in the Multiplicity and Motion of the Spirits and those almost infinite Alliances and Relations obtain'd through the Commerce of the World XII To our distincter understanding the Inequality which is found in the Liberty of different Persons we must observe that every Man perfectly reasonable perfectly free and who would be truly happy may and ought upon the Presence of any Object which gives him the sense of Pleasure suspend his Love and carefully examine whether this Object be the true Good or whether the Motion which carries him towards it exactly comport with that which leads him to the true Good Otherwise he would love by Instinct and not by Reason and if he could not suspend the Judgment of his Love before he had examin'd it he would not be perfectly free But if he clearly discovers that this Object which gives him the Sense of Pleasure is truly good to him and if the Evidence in conjunction with the Sensation be such as will not permit him to suspend his Judgment then though perfectly free he is no longer free in respect of that Good but he invincibly loves it because Pleasure agrees with Evidence But being that God alone can act in us as our Good and the Motion which byasses us towards the Creatures is repugnant to that which carries us towards God every Man perfectly reasonable and entirely free may and must forbear to judge that sensible Objects are his Goods He may and ought to suspend the Judgment which regulates or should regulate his Love For he can never evidently see that sensible Goods are true Goods since that can never be evidently seen which is not XIII This Power of suspending the Judgment which is the actual Rule of Love this Power which is the Principle of our Liberty and by which Pleasures are not always invincible is very much weaken'd since the Sin though not quite destroy'd And that we may have actually this Power when we are tempted by an Object 't is necessary besides the Love of Order to have a thoughtful Mind and to be sensible to the Remorse of Conscience for a Child or a Man asleep have not actually this Power But all Men are not equally enlightned the Mind of Sinners is full of Darkness Consciences are not equally tender the Heart of Sinners is hardned The Love of Order actual Graces are unequal in all Men Therefore they are not equally free nor have equal Power of suspending their Judgment Pleasure determines them and moves some rather than others This Man can suspend his Judgment and wave his Consent when a present Object gives him the Tast of a most quickning and sensible Pleasure and another is of so narrow a Mind and corrupt an Heart that the least Pleasure is irresistible and the least Pain insupportable Being not wont to fight against sensible Allurements he becomes so dispos'd as not even to think of resisting them Thus he has not then the Power of deferring his Consent since he even wants the Power of making a Reflection and in regard to that Object he is like a Man asleep or out of his Wits XIV The more weak is Reason the more sensible grows the Soul and more readily and falsly she judges of sensible Good and Evil. If a Leaf pricks or even tickles a Man when asleep he wakes in a start
the Helps reach'd to them by Jesus Christ but also by natural Forces or ordinary Graces For in brief Nature may be made subservient to Grace in a thousand Instances PART II. Of GRACE XVIII THE Inequality which is found in the Liberty of different Persons being clearly known it will be no hard Matter methinks to discover how Grace works in us if we but affix to the Word Grace distinct and particular Ideas and remember the Difference between the Grace of the Creator and Renovator I said in the preceding Discourse that there is this difference between Light and Pleasure That the former leaves us entirely to our selves whilst the latter incroaches upon our Liberty For Light is something extraneous to us it does not affect and modifie our Soul it does not drive us to the Objects it discovers but only disposes us to move our selves and to consent freely and by Reason to the Impression God gives us towards Good The Knowledge of our Duty the clear Idea of Order separate from all Sensation the Contemplation of naked abstract wholly pure and intelligible Good that is Good without Tast or Fore-tast leaves the Soul to her entire Liberty But Pleasure is an Inmate to the Soul it touches and modifies her And so it diminishes our Liberty makes us love Good rather by a Love of Instinct and Passion than of Choice and Reason And it transports us as I may say to sensible Objects Not that Pleasure is the same thing as Love or the Motion of the Soul towards Good but that it causes this Love or determines this Motion towards the Object that makes us happy But because no Truths are demonstrable save those whereof we have clear Ideas which we have not of our own inward Motions 't is not possible for me to demonstrate what I advance as we demonstrate the Conclusions depending on common Notions Every one therefore must consult his own inward feeling of what passes in his Soul if he would be convinc'd of the difference between Light and Pleasure and must carefully observe that commonly Light is attended with Pleasure which yet he must separate to judge soundly of it But of this I have said enough XIX If then it be true that Pleasure naturally produces Love and is like a Weight which gives the Soul a Propensity to the Good that causes or seems to cause it 't is visible that the Grace of Jesus Christ or the Grace of Sensation is of it self efficacious For though preventing Delectation when but weak works not an entire Conversion in the Heart of those whose Passions are too lively yet it never fails of its Effect in as much as it always inclines them towards God It is in some measure always efficacious but it has not always all possible Effect because of the Resistance of Concupiscence XX. Put for Example in one Scale of a Balance ten pound weight and in the other only six this latter weight shall truly gravitate for adding but so much more weight to this or taking it from the opposite Scale or lastly hanging the Balance nearer the over-weighted and the six pounds shall carry it But though this weight gravitates 't is visible its effect depends still on the resisting weight and the manner of its resisting Thus the Grace of Sensation is always of it self efficacious it constantly weakens the Effort of Concupiscence since Pleasure naturally creates Love for the Cause which produces or seems to produce it But though this Grace be always Self-efficacious yet it depends or rather its Effect depends on the actual Dispositions of the Receiver The weight of Concupiscence resists it and sensible Pleasures which draw us to the Creatures that seem to produce it in us hinder the Pleasures of Grace from uniting us strictly to him who alone can act in us and make us happy XXI But the case is otherwise with the Grace of Light or the Grace of the Creator It is not of it self efficacious It does not move or convey the Soul but leaves her perfectly to her self But though it be not efficacious of it self it nevertheless is persued by many Effects when 't is great and animated by some delectable Grace which gives it Force and Vigour or when it meets with no contrary Pleasure that greatly resists it Such is the difference between the Grace of the Creator and that of the Restorer between Light and Pleasure between the Grace which supposes not Concupiscence and the Grace which is given us to counterpoize the Pleasures of it The one is sufficient to a Man perfectly Free and Fortified with Charity the other is efficacious to a Man Infirm to whom Pleasure is necessary to draw him to the Love of the True Good XXII But the Force and Efficacy of Grace ought always to be compar'd with the Action of Concupiscence with the Light of Reason and especially with the degree of Liberty the Person is endued with And we must not imagine that God bestows it by particular Wills with design to produce certain Effects by it and nothing more For when 't is said that Grace always works in the Heart the Effect for which 't is given we err if we suppose God acts like Men with particular Considerations God diffuses his Grace with a General Design of sanctifying all that receive it or according as the Occasional Cause determines him to refuse it Mean while he knows very well that it will not have so much Effect in some as in others not only because of the Inequality of Force on the part of Grace but also of the Inequality of Resistance on the part of Concupiscence XXIII Since Concupiscence has not utterly destroy'd the Liberty of Man the Grace of Jesus Christ as efficacious as it is is not absolutely irresistible A sensible Pleasure is superable when weak and a Man may suspend the Judgment of his Love when he is not hurried by a too violent Passion And when he stoops to the Lure of an adulterate Pleasure he is culpable through the Abuse of his Liberty So likewise the Delectation of Grace is not ordinarily invincible A Man may decline following the good Motions it inspires which remove us from the false Objects of our Love This Grace fills not the Soul in such a manner as to hurry her to the True Good without Choâce Judgment and Free Consent Thus when we resign up our selves to its Motion and advance farther as I may say than it irresistibly carries us when we sacrifice the Pleasures of Concupiscence which weaken its Efficacy or lastly when we act by Reason or love the true Good as we ought we merit through the good use we make of our Liberty XXIV 'T is true that Delectable Grace consider'd in it self and separate from the Pleasures of Concupiscence which are contrary to it is always invincible Because this holy Pleasure being conformable to the Light of Reason nothing can withstand its Effect in a Man perfectly free When the Mind sees clearly by
the Light of Reason that God is its Good and has a lively Sense of him by the Tast of Pleasure 't is not possible to avoid loving him For the Mind desires Happiness and then nothing hinders it from following the agreeable Motions of its Love It feels no Remorses which oppose its present Felicity nor is it withheld by Pleasures contrary to that which it enjoys The Delight of Grace is then invincible nor is the Love it produces meritorious unless it be greater than its Cause I say that the Love which is merely a Natural or Necessary Effect of the Delectation of Grace has nothing meritorious though it be good in it self For whilst we move no farther than we are driven or rather when we advance no longer than we are paid in hand we have no Claim to any Recompence When we love God but so far as we are attracted or because we are attracted we love him not by Reason but by Instinct we love him not on Earth as he requires and deserves from us But we merit only when we love God by Choice by Reason by the Knowledge we have of his being amiable We merit in proceeding on as I may say towards Good when Pleasure has determin'd the Motion of Love XXV This sole Reason demonstrates either that the first Man was not invited to the Love of God by the blind Instinct of Pleasure or at least that this Pleasure was not so lively as what he felt in reflecting on his own Natural Perfections or in the actual use of sensible Goods For 't is evident such a Pleasure would have made him impeccable it would have put him in a State like that of the Blessed which merit no longer Not because they are out of a Wayfaring State for Merit always follows from meritorious Actions and God being Just must necessarily reward them But they merit not because the Pleasure they find in God is equal to their Love that they are throughly imbued with it and that being freed from all sort of Pain and all Motions of Concupiscence they have nothing left to sacrifice to God XXVI For that which makes us impeccable is not precisely that which incapacitates us to merit Jesus Christ was impeccable and yet he merited his Glory and that of the Church whereof he is the Head Being perfectly free he lov'd his Father not by the Instinct of Pleasure but by Choice and Reason He lov'd him because he intuitively saw how amiable he was For the most perfect Liberty is that of a Mind which has all possible Light and is not determin'd by any Pleasure because all Pleasure preventing or other naturally produces some Love and unless we resist it it efficaciously determines towards the agreeable Object the Natural Motion of the Soul But Light though conceiv'd never so great leaves the Mind perfectly free supposing this Light be consider'd alone and separate from Pleasure XXVII As Jesus Christ is nothing but the Word or Reason Incarnate certainly he ought not to love Good with a blind Love with the Love of Instinct with the Love of Sensation but by Reason He ought not to love an infinitely amiable Good and which he knew perfectly worthy of his Love as we love Goods that are not amiable and which we cannot know as worthy of Love He ought not to love his Father by a Love in any respect like that wherewith we love the vilest Creatures wherewith we love Bodies His Love to be pure at least to be perfectly meritorious ought to be no wise produc'd by preventing Pleasures For Pleasure may and must be the Recompence of a Legitimate Love as in effect it is in the Saints and Jesus Christ himself But it cannot be the Principle of Merit nor ought it to precede Reason unless debilitated But Reason in Jesus Christ was no ways weakned Supreme Reason supported the Created Jesus Christ who was free from the Motions of Concupiscence had no need of preventing Delight to counterbalance sensible Pleasures which surprize us Nay it may be he refus'd to tast the Pleasure of Joy which was a natural Result of the Knowledge he had of his Vertue and Perfections that being deprived of all sorts of Pleasures his Sacrifice might be more holy more pure and more disinteress'd Lastly Beside the Privation of all Pleasures preventing and others 't is likely he inwardly suffer'd unspeakable Droughts not better expressible by Souls fill'd with Charity than by the Dereliction of God according to these Words of our Saviour on the Cross My God my God why hast thou forsaken me But if we will absolutely have it that Jesus Christ was carried by preventing Pleasures to the Love of his Father 't is necessary to say according to the Principles I have laid down either that his Love was more intense than his Pleasure since Natural Love produc'd by the Instinct of Pleasure is no ways meritorious or at least we must say he merited by sensible Pains by the continual Sacrifice which he freely and voluntarily offer'd to his Father For 't was necessary he should suffer to enter in Possession of his Glory as we are taught by Scripture XXVIII Though the Delectation of Grace without relation to any contrary Pleasure infallibly gains the Consent of the Will yet it is not so with the Pleasures of Concupiscence These Pleasures consider'd in themselves without respect to other actual Pleasures are not always insurmountable The Light of Reason condemns them the Remorse of Conscience makes us abhor them and we may commonly suspend our Consent Therefore the Grace of Jesus Christ is stronger than Concupiscence and we may call it Victorious since the former always masters the Heart when equal to the latter For when the Balance of our Heart is perfectly in Equilibrio by the even Weights of contrary Pleasures that which is most solid and reasonable has the Advantage because Light adds some Grains to its efficacy and the Remorses of Conscience withstand the Influence of a counterfeit Pleasure XXIX We must conclude from what we have said that we always merit when we love the true Good by Reason and that we merit not at all when we love it by Instinct We merit always when we love the true Good by Reason because Order will have the true Good lov'd in that manner and that mere Light does not convey us or invincibly determine us to the Good discover'd by it We merit not when we love the true Good by Instinct or as much as we are invincibly mov'd and determin'd by Pleasure Because Order requires that the true Good or the Good of the Mind should be lov'd by Reason by a free Love a Love of Choice and Judgment whilst the Love which is produc'd by Pleasure is a Blind Natural and Necessary Love I own that when we advance farther than Pleasure forces us we merit But that 's because we therein act by Reason and in the way that Order would have us For Love so much as it
exceeds Pleasure is a pure and reasonable Love XXX So likewise we must conclude that we always demerit when we love a false Good by the Instinct of Pleasure provided we love it more than we are invincibly forc'd For when our Liberty is naturally so straitned and our Capacity of Mind so little that we are carried in an irresistible manner then though we are corrupt and our Love be evil and against Order yet we don't demerit To demerit I mean to deserve to be punish'd we must pursue false Goods with more ardency or tend farther than Pleasure irresistibly carries us For we must observe that there is great difference between a Good and a Meritorious Action between a Corrupt and a Demeritoous The Love of the Blessed is Good but it is not Meritorious The Love of a Righteous Person is often deprav'd in his Sleep but it is not Demeritorious Whatever is conformable to Order is good and whatever is contrary to it is naught But there is nothing of Merit or Demerit save in the good or ill use of our Liberty save in that in which we are the Factors But we make a good use of our Liberty when we follow Light when we unconstrain'd and of our selves advance to the true Good or were at first determin'd by preventing Delectation or the Light of Reason when we sacrifice sensible Pleasures to our Duty and surmount Pain by the Love of Order On the contrary we make an ill use of our Liberty when we make Pleasure our Reason when we sacrifice our Duty to our Passions our Perfection to present Felicity the Love of Order to the Love of our selves and all this at a time when we might really have prevented it But I proceed to explain this still more clearly XXXI When two Objects are offer'd to the Mind and it determines it self about them I confess it never fails to take that side where most Reason and Pleasure appears or all things consider'd where most Good is to be found For the Soul not being able to will or love but through the Love of Good since the Will is nothing but the Love of Good or the Natural Motion of the Soul towards it she unavoidably loves what has most conformity with what she loves invincibly But 't is certain that when sensible Pleasure or something of like nature does not perturbate the Mind we may ever suspend the Judgment of our Love and not determine especially in point of false Good For the Soul can have no Evidence that false Goods are the true or that the Love of the former agrees perfectly with the Motion which carries us to the latter Therefore when a Man loves false Goods whilst his Senses and Passions leave his Reason entirely free he demerits Because then he may and ought to suspend the Judgment of his Love For if he stood any time to examine what was speedily to be done the false Good would appear in its own Colours the Pleasure which it seems to infuse into the Soul would vanish the Idea of some other Good would present it self to the Mind the Remorse of Conscience and perhaps the Delectation of Grace would change all the Dispositions of his Mind and Heart For the State of a Traveller has nothing certain A thousand different Objects are continually offer'd to the Mind and the Life of Man on Earth is nothing but a continual train of Thoughts and Desires XXXII At first Sight it seems that in point of the true Good we cannot suspend the Judgment of our Love for we cannot suspend our Judgment save when Evidence is not perfect Now we may see with the clearest Evidence that God is the true Good and that none but he can be good to us We know that he is infinitely more amiable than we can conceive But it is observable that though we cannot suspend the Judgment of Reason in respect of Speculative Truths when the Evidence is entire yet we may suspend the Judgment of our Love in point of Goods whatever Evidence there is in our Ideas For when Sense fights against Reason when Tast opposes Light when that is found sensibly bitter and disagreeable which Reason clearly represents as sweet and delectable we may suspend our Choice and follow either Reason or the Senses We may act and commonly do act against our Light because when we attend to the Sensation Light disappears unless we strive to retain it And because we are ordinarily more attentive to Sensation than to Light because Sensation is always more lively and agreeable than the most evident Knowledge XXXIII 'T is Pleasure which makes Minds actually happy Therefore we ought to enjoy Pleasure when we love the true Good Yet a Mind thinks on God draws nigh him by its Love and tasts no Satisfaction On the contrary God fills it sometimes with Bitterness and Drought he deserts it and repels it as I may say not that it may cease to love him but rather that its Love may be more humble more pure and meritorious Lastly he prescribes it certain things which render it actually miserable But if it approaches Bodies it finds it self happy in proportion to the Strictness of its Union to them Certainly this is perplexing to a Man never so intelligent since we are invincibly passionate for Happiness Therefore we merit much if following our Light we renounce our selves notwithstanding those discomforting Droughts if we sacrifice our actual Happiness to the Love of the true Good if living by Faith and relying on the Promises of God we remain inviolably bent upon our Duty Hence we clearly understand that Jesus Christ might merit his Glory though he knew the true Good in the highest Evidence because having an extreme Love for his Father he was entirely conformable to his Orders without being carried by preventing Pleasures because being steadily guided by his Light he suffer'd most violent Pains and sacrific'd the most lively and sensible Pleasures to his Charity For he took on him a Body like to ours that he might have a Victim to offer to God and that duly receiving through this Body as the Occasional or Natural Cause an abundance of various Sensations he might accomplish a perfect Holocaust to the Honour of the true Good by the enduring Pain and the Privation of sensible Pleasures XXXIV To the end every one may have a most perfect Idea of the Grace of Jesus Christ I think it requisite to add that it consists not in Delectation alone For all Grace of Sensation is the Grace of Jesus Christ. But of this Grace there are many Species and of every Species infinite degrees God sometimes casts Distast and Bitterness on the Objects of our Passions he weakens their sensible Charms or makes us hate or abhor them And this kind of Grace of Sensation makes the same Effect as preventing Delight It restores and fortifies our Liberty reinstates us almost in Equilibrio and thereby puts us in a Capacity of following our Light in the Motion of
our Love For to restore a Balance to an even poize or to change its propension we need not augment the lesser Weight but only retract from the over-loaden Scale Thus there are Graces of Sensation of several sorts and every sort is capable of infinite degrees For there are Pleasures Aversions and Dislikes greater and lesser ad infinitum What I have hitherto said of Delectation may be easily apply'd to other Species of the Grace of Sensation I only made choice of Pleasure or Delectation as a particular Example to explain my self clearly and without Ambiguity If there be any other Principle of our Determinations to Good besides the Grace of Sensation and that of Light I confess I am utterly ignorant of it and therefore I have resolv'd to explain the Effects of Grace necessary to the Conversion of Heart but by these two Principles for fear of incurring the blame of discoursing in general Terms that of themselves excite only confus'd Ideas which thing I avoid with all possible Care But though I have explain'd my self in Terms understood by all Mankind since there is no body but knows that the Knowledge and Sense of Good are Principles of our Determinations yet I presume not to impugn those who sticking not to these clear Ideas say in general that God operates the Conversion of our Souls by a particular Action different it may be from all I have here and elsewhere said that God works in us Experiencing in my self no other Motion than towards Good in general and that determin'd by Knowledge or Sensation I ought to suppose nothing more if by this alone I can account for all that the Scripture and Councils have determin'd about the present Subject In a word I am well assur'd that Light and Sensation are the Principles of our Determinations but I declare that I cannot tell but there may be some other whereof I have no Knowledge XXXV Besides Grace of it self efficacious and that the Effect whereof entirely depends on the good Dispositions of the Mind besides the Grace of Sensation and the Grace of Light the Righteous have moreover an Habitual Grace which makes them agreeable to God and capacitates them to work Actions meritorious of Salvation This Grace is Charity the Love of God or the Love of Order a Love which is not properly Charity unless it be stronger and greater than every other Love As it is commonly Pleasure which produces the Love of the Object that 's the true or apparent Cause of it so 't is the Delectation of Grace which produces the Love of God 'T is the Enjoyment of Sensible Pleasures which heightens Concupiscence and 't is the Grace of Sensation which encreases Charity Concupiscence diminishes by the deprivation of Sensible Pleasures and then Charity is easily preserv'd and nourish'd And whilst Charity faints by the privation of the actual Grace of Jesus Christ Concupiscence speedily thrives and grows upon it For these two Loves Charity and Cupidity constantly war with one another and gather Strength from the Weakness of their Enemy XXXVI Whatever participates of Charity is well-pleasing to God but Charity is not always active in the Just themselves In order to its working 't is necessary at least it be Illuminate For Knowledge is needful to determine the Motion of Love Thus the Grace necessary to every Good Work relating to Salvation is that of Sensation in those who begin their Conversion is that of Light at least or some Motion of Faith or Hope in those who are animated with Charity For though the Righteous may do Good Works without the Grace of Delectation they have always need of some actual Assistance to determine the Motion of their Charity But although Charity without Delectation is sufficient to conquer many Temptations yet the Grace of Sensation is necessary on many Occasions For Men cannot without the continual Help of the Second Adam resist the continual Action of the First They cannot persevere in Righteousness unless frequently assisted with the particular Grace of Jesus Christ which produces augments and maintains Charity against the continual Efforts of Concupiscence XXXVII The Effects of Pleasure and of all the Sensations of the Soul have a thousand several Dependencies on the actual Dispositions of the Mind The very same Weight has not always the same Effects It depends in its Action on the Structure of the Machine by which it is applied to the contrary Weight If a Balance be unequally suspended the force of the Weights being unequally applied the lighter may overweigh the heavier So it fares with the Weight of Pleasures They act one on another and determine the Motion of the Soul according as they are diversly applied Pleasure ought to have a greater Influence on the Person who has already a Love for the Object which causes it than on another who has an Aversion or that loves opposite Goods Pleasure forcibly determines a Person who clearly knows or vividly imagines the Advantages of Good which seems to cause it and acts feebly on the Mind of him who knows this Good but confusedly and is distrustful of it Lastly It acts with its whole Force on him who blindly follows all that gratifies Concupiscence and perhaps will have no Effect on him who has acquir'd some Habit of suspending the Judgment of his Love Now since the different degrees of Light Charity Concupiscence and the different degrees of Liberty are perpetually combining infinite ways with the different degrees of actual Pleasures which Pleasures are operative but according to their relation to the Dispositions of the Mind and Heart 't is manifest that no finite Mind can with any certainty pronounce of the Effect a particular Grace ought to produce in us For besides that there 's an infinite Combination in the things concurring to the Efficacy of Grace or the Production of its Effect this Combination is not like that of moving Springs and Forces which have always infallible and necessary Effects Therefore 't is impossible for any finite Mind to discover what passes in the Heart of Man XXXVIII But whereas God has an infinite Wisdom 't is visible that he clearly knows all the Effects that can result from the Mixture and Combination of all these things and that penetrating the Heart of Man he infallibly discovers even the Effects which depend on an Act or rather on a free Consent of our Wills Nevertheless I confess I cannot conceive how God can discover the Consequences of Actions which derive not their Infallibility from his absolute Decrees But I have no Mind to insist on Metaphysicks at the Expence of Morality and to affirm as undeniable Truths Opinions that are contrary to my own inward Consciousness of my self or in fine to speak to the Ears a certain Language which affords no clear Idea to the Mind I know well that such Objections may be made as would be too hard for me to answer satisfactorily and clearly But it may be these Objections are naturally
only a warning because as I have said elsewhere Adam might whenever he pleased stop the Motion of the Animal Spirits that produce Pain So that if he ever felt pain 't was because he consented to feel it or rather he never felt any because he never had a mind to feel it Heb. iv 12 13. * See Dial. 5. of Chrisâian Conversations about the end Act. 5.41 * Amor sicut nec Odium veritatis Judicium nescit Vis Judicium Veritatis audire Sicut audio Joan. 5.30 sic judico non sicut odi non sicut amo non sicut timeo Est Judicium Odii Joan. 19.7 ut illud Nos Legem habemus secundum legem nostram debet mori Est Timoris Joan. 11.48 ut illud Si dimittimus eum sic venient Romani tollent nostrum locum gentem Judicium verò Amoris ut David de filio parricidâ 2 Sam. 18.5 Parcite inquit puero Absalom S. Bern. de grad humilitatis * Concil Aâgl per Spelman Aâ 1287. * Book 2. Part 2. Chap. 3. * Lest any should mistake what I call here voluntary Motion I desire him to read the first Illustration on the first Chapter It would intricate my Conceptioâs should I say whatever relates to it to satisfie the Nicety of some Persons Joh. 11.47 Joh. 12.11 Act. 4.16 17. Act. 5.28 * Lib. I. â Lib. II. â Lib. III. ⸪ Lib. IV. * Lib. V. * Ego enim ab anima hâc corpus animari non puâo nisi intentione âacientis nec ab isto quicquam illam pati arbitror sed facere de illo in illo tanquam subjecto divinitus dominationi suae l. 6. Muâc c. 5. See also De quantit Anim. c. 34. Amos 3.6 * Psal. 33 9. * Haec est Religio Christiana fratres mei quae praedicatur per universum mundum horrentibus inimicis ubi vincuntur murmurantibus ubi praevalent saevientibus haec est Religio Christiana ut COLATVR VNVS DEVS NON MVLTI DII QVIA NON FACIT ANIMAM BEATAM NISI VNVS DEVS Aug. Tr. 23. in Joan. * By Equator I understand the greatest Crooked Line which the Matter of the Vortex describes * That is are driven towards the Centre of the Earth * Princ. Part. 3. §. 45. * Sup. Ch. 4. * ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã make a Pun in Greek as in English Finis and finished Thus that Philosopher proves that an infinite Line is not perfect because 't is not finished * De Coelo l. 3. c. 3. L. 2. 3. de Gene. Corrup De Gener. Corrupt l. 2. c. 2. See Book I. from ch 11. âo ch 15. * See Illustration X. of Book I. Lib. 4. de Anima ejus Origine Cap. 23. de quantitate Animae alias * M. Des Cartes his Principles Art 55. Part. II. * Art 43. ibid. â Art 63. * Art 33. Part. II. I imagine here only God my self and one Bowl * By a Body in a Vacuum I understand one so separate from others whether hard or liquid as that there is none either to aid or hinder the Communication of Motions * Art 5. * Art 63. Art 55. 43. of the second Part and elsewhere * General Rules of the Commuication of Motions â See M. des Cartes's Rules in the second Part of his Principles See the 6th Chap. of Book 3. and its Illustration See the Ilstration upon Ch. 3. Part 2. Book 6. where I explain my meaning more distinctly * See the 7th Chap. of the 3d Book and the Illustration upon it â Nâmo scit utrum amore vel odio dignus scit Eccl. 4.1 * In some Editions it is thus But we love a particular Good True but Sin consists not precisely in that For all Good is amiable and ought to be loved Our Love is in it self good and even in our loving that particular Good we follow the Impression which God gives us Our Sin precisely consists in our fastening upon that particular Good the Impression which God gives us to love all Good or universal Good at the time when we both might and ought to love it Therefore Sin is nothing and though God does all he does it not Now whilst c. This Illustration relates to the fifth Chapter of the first Book of the Search In the Objection to the Article of the Illustration upon the seventh Chapter of the second Book I explain what I here say in general of the loss of Power Man had over his Body * See the Illustration upon the 6 âh Chapter of Part II. Book III. * Ne omnino taceremus interrogati quid tres cum tres esse fateamur S. Aust. de Trin. lib. 7. cap. 4. And in another place Cum quaeritur quid tres Magna prorsus inopia humanum laborat Eloquium Dictum est tamen tres personae non ut illud diceretur sed ne taceretur Ibid. lib. 5. cap. 9. * Chap. 10. Book I. â See Ch. 7. Book III. and its Illustration Fortissimo quippe dimisit atque permisit facere quod vellet Aug. de Corrupt Grat. cap. 12. See the 5th Dialogue of the Christian Conversations towards the End of the Brussels Edition Chap. 3. Book V. The Mâon when beheld with a Telescope looks much like what is here represented * See Ch. 3. Part II. of Book VI. with the Illustration â See Ch. 6. Part II. of Book III. with its Illustration See the Illustration upon the 7th Chap. of Part II. Book III. See the 5. Dialogue of Christian Conversation Aug. in Jul. lib. 6. cap. 3. See Ch. 7. Part II. of Book II. with its Illustration At every Objection turn to the Article it is made against Answer to the sixth Objection against his Meditations Art 6. Art 8. See the Illustration upon the 6th Chap. of Part II. Book III. And calls them all by their names Ps. 47. Chap. 1.19 See the Illustration upon the 3d Chap. Book V. * In the Illustration about the nature of Ideas I shall more particularly explain what is Order and why God necessarily loves it See the Fifth Dialogue of Christian Conversations Rom. c. 7. As by one Man sin entred into the World c. Rom. 5.12 I was shapen in Iniquity and in sin hath my Mother conceiv'd me Ps. 51.5 Ec. 25.23 Luke 2.48 Gen. c. 3. La Samaritaine upon Pont neuf in Paris Chap. 2. Part 2. * Lib. 1. de Napt Cap. 25 26 27 in Jul. l. 6. c. 19. alibi â Ep 23. lib. de peccator meritis c. 19. alibi â Innocent III. in Decret 3. de Baptismo ejus Effectu Et in Concil Viennensi generali 15. sub Clement V. Invidia postea contumetiis Claricorum Romanae Ecclesiae ad Monrani dogma delapsus in multis libris novae prophetiae Meminit Hieron in Catalogo de Script Eccles. Siambo videmus verum esse
as it is more united to Universal Reason and less sensible to the impression of the Senses and Passions In a word as it is more reasonable But 't is requisite that I explain as clearly as possibly I can the sense I have about Natural or Divine Order and Law For the difficulty that is found to embrace my Opinion proceeds it may be from the want of a distinct conception of my meaning 'T is certain that God comprehends in himself after an intelligible manner the Perfections of all the Beings he has created or can create and that by these intelligible Perfections he knows the Essence of all things as by his own Wills he knows their Existence Which perfections are likewise the immediate Object of the Mind of Man for the Reasons I have given Therefore the intelligible Ideas or the Perfections which are in God which represent to us what is external to him are absolutely necessary and immutable But Truths are nothing but relations of Equality or Inequality that are found between these Intelligible Beings since it is only true that 2 times 2 are 4 or that 2 times 2 are not 5 because there is a Relation of Equality between 2 times 2 and 4 and of Inequality between 2 times 2 and 5. Therefore Truths are as immutable and necessary as Ideas It has ever been a truth that 2 times 2 are 4 and 't is impossible it should ever be false which is visible without any Necessity that God as supream Legislator should have establish'd these Truths so as is said by M. des Cartes in his Answer to the six Objections We easily comprehend then what is Truth but Men find some difficulty to conceive what is this immutable and necessary Order what is this Natural and Divine Law which God necessarily wills and which the Righteous likewise will For a Man's Righteousness consists in his Loving Order and in his conforming his Will in all things to it as that which makes a Sinner in his disliking Order in some things and willing that it should conform to his Desires Yet methinks these things are not so mysterious as is imagin'd and I am perswaded all the difficulty that is found in them proceeds from the trouble the mind is at to aspire to abstract and Metaphysical Thoughts Here then is in part what are my Thoughts of Order 'T is evident that the perfections which are in God representative of created or possible Beings are not all Equal That those for Example which represent Bodies are less noble than others that represent Spirits and that even in those which represent only Bodies or Spirits there are degrees of perfection greater and lesser ad infinitum This is clearly and easily conceiv'd though it be hard to reconcile the simplicity of the Divine Essence with that variety of Intelligible Ideas included in his Wisdom For 't is evident that if all the Ideas of God were equal he could see no difference between his Works since he cannot see his Creatures save in that which is in himself representing them And if the Idea of a Watch which shows the Hour with all the different Motions of the Planets were no perfecter than that of another which only points to the hour or than that of a Circle and a Square a Watch would be no perfecter than a Circle For we can judge of the Perfection of Works only by the Perfection of the Ideas we have of them and if there was no more understanding or sign of Wisdom in a Watch than a Circle it would be as easie to conceive the most complicated Machines as a Square or a Circle If then it be true that God is the Vniversal Being who includes in Himself all Beings in an intelligible manner and that all these intelligible Beings which have in God a necessary Existence are not equally perfect 't is evident there will be between them an Immutable and Necessary Order and that as there are Eternal and necessary Truths because there are Relations of Magnitude between intelligible Beings there must likewise be an immutable and necessary Order by reason of the Relations of Perfection that are between these Beings 'T is therefore an Immutable Order that Spirits should be nobler than Bodies as it is a necessary Truth that 2 times 2 should be 4 or that 2 times 2 should not be 5. But hitherto immutable Order seems rather a Speculative Truth than a necessary Law For if Order be consider'd but as we have just now done we see for Example that it is True that Minds are more noble than Bodies but we do not see that this Truth is at the same time an Order which has the force of a Law and that there is an Obligation of preferring Minds before Bodies It must then be consider'd that God loves himself by a necessary Love and therefore has a greater degree of love for that which in him represents or includes a greater degree of perfection than for that which includes a less So that if we will suppose an Intelligible Mind to be a thousand times perfecter than an Intelligible Body the love wherewith God loves Himself must necessarily be a thousand times greater for the former than for the latter For the Love of God is necessarily proportion'd to the Order which is between the intelligible Beings that he includes Insomuch that the Order which is purely Speculative has the force of a Law in respect of God himself supposing as is certain that God loves himself Necessarily And God cannot love Intelligible Bodies more than Intelligible Minds though he may love created Bodies better than created Minds as I shall show by and by Now that immutable Order which has the force of a Law in regard of God himself has visibly the force of a Law in reference to us For this Order we know and our natural love comports with it when we retire into our selves and our Senses and Passions leave us to our Liberty In a word when our Self-love does not corrupt our Natural Being we are made for God and that 't is impossible for us to be quite separate from him we discern in him this Order and we are naturally invited to love it For 't is His Light which enlightens us and his Love which animates us though our Senses and Passions obscure this Light and determine against Order the Impression we receive to love according to it But in spite of Concupiscence which conceals this Order and hinders us from following it it is still an essential and indispensable Law to us and not only to us but to all created Intilligences and even to the Damn'd For I do not believe they are so utterly estrang'd from God as not to have a faint Idea of Order as not to find still some beauty in it and even to be ready to conform to it in some particular Instances which are not prejudicial to self-Self-Love Corruption of Heart consists in Opposition to Order Therefore Malice or Corruption of