court her and if as the Sun she enlighten all that come into the World yet self love cannot indure that all men should seek her by one and the same method it debaucheth the minds of its Suitors and begets quarrels amongst them about her nature and though it be not less blind then unjust in its conclusions it permits us not to follow any other advices for the discovery of truth then our own Aristotle had never abandoned his Masters party if he had not been preoccupied by this Passion and all those Philosophers which at this day toil to prove his Doctrin would be silent or would speak but one and the same Language if this monster self love had not invented specious terms to explain his meaning and establish his fond imaginations All those Sects that are daily brooded are but sprouts of that self complaisance and the Gospel which containeth so many Misteries under the plain simplicity of words would at this day have none but Poets for Interpreters if pride had not corrupted some Male-contents and put the Pen into the hand of some I know not what to call them ignorant men to mangle and disguise the sense thereof We delight so much in self opinion that no mans judgment is valuable but ours and truth it self is unpleasant to us even in the mouth of our friends if it be not cloathed after our fashion and obstinated by Passion that blinds us we admire only our own conceipts and will esteem no opinions but our own Few or none are willing to be accompted ignorant every one aspires to the contrary quality we strive rather to be knowing then Vertuous and Socrates that spent his life in observing the different inclinations of Men had some Reason to say that if in a multitude we should only call for the Artists by the Calling they profest none would appear but those of that Profession but that if the judicious and prudent should be summoned to come forth there would be none of the Assembly but would hold up his head Self conceipt is so natural to man that it may be said to be inseparable This quality is the principle of all his actions he always contemplates himself with great delight and if interest oblige him sometimes to reflect on the vertue of his Neighbour with a disguised Admiration we are assured that he considereth his own parts with perfect satisfaction This truth appeareth evidently in the present Subject every one defines the faculties of the Soul according to his fancy All those different Idea's thereof formed in the Writings of modern Authors are no less the proofs of the diversity of their designs then of their opinions and that matter which hath been most examined in the Schools is at this day the most intricate and unknown Some have thought that Passion was not so much the Act of the Soul as of the sensitive appetite that she was partaker with the cause from whence she proceeded that she stirred it not up and that she was not at mans command but so far as the Acts that occasioned it depended upon his will To confirm this their opinion they confounded voluptuousness with the operations of the Angelical matter they say that the one works the other to perfection that pleasure was always the companion of her Labors and that Passions being ever busied in the disturbance of her rest could not properly be comprized under the notion of action Others whom I esteem not more plausible but because they teach a Doctrin more common describe Passion by the effects she produceth They attribute the alterations of countenance in them that are under her subjection to her violent proceedings they will have it that the Soul is not less agitated when she fears and is afflicted then when she loves and hopeth and that men make not a different construction of one and the same thing and one man of another but because they are animated by different affections In fine they conclude Passion to be nothing else but an emotion of the sensitive appetite excited by the apprehension of good or evil which chiefely busieth it self in disturbing the Body contrary to the Laws of nature If this definition be common if all Philosophers allow it and if all Aristotles disciples engage to defend the principles thereof yet methinketh it may be rejected without offence to its authority and it ought not to be thought strange that being of the Roman Philosophers judgment I abandon the Grecians Party to maintain the opinion of the Stoicks For as I hold with them that Passions are not natural to man that sense and opinion are the causes thereof and that their abode is rather in the will then in the imagination I must of necessity forsake his Doctrin and against my humor betray my own sentiments to continue faithful to the most puissant Enemy of that only Philosopher that in other things I honor Passion then in Stoick terms is nothing else but a violent motion of the Soul against Reason caused by the apprehension of good or evil contrary to the inclination of nature I say that it is a motion that violently assaults our Reason for although Passion perform its last act in the will although it have its conception in the reasonable faculty and may in some sort be called by her Mothers name yet for that the principle is corrupted by opinion and this Soveraign seduced by her unfaithful senses the School of the Stoicks have commanded her to forgo that quality and to bear the name of natures Enemy and Reasons Bastard She works a change which is against natures Laws for as this common Mother is constant in all her actions her productions regular and brings forth nothing but what is as perfect as useful to her Children so she abhors all debaucheries she rejects all those motions that War against her inclinations and she cannot endure to have succors assigned her that deprave her workmanship and conspire her disorder or her ruin As this definition is different from that of other Philosophers and as the fidelity that I have vowed to the Stoicks obligeth me to abandon their opinions it must not be wondered if I consent not to them in the cause from whence Passions do arise and if after I have discovered them to be of no use to vertue I consider them as the depravations of the mind and the will For if the residence of Passions as most modern Philosophers will have it be in the meaner part of the Soul and that the imagination only informed by the species she draws from the senses stirs up the sensitive appetite I do not see how a man could afflict himself for the loss of his honors and inrage himself for the ruin of a benefit which the senses perceive not and that before Passion can make a man take resolutions of vengeance his mind must represent the matter to him as infamous and the will abhor it as injurious to his person There is such a
many Maxims as proceeded from the mouth of these Apes of the Diety they judged none more dark then that which commanded them to know themselves these two words run them into despair they saw all their knowledg limited by those few Syllables they readily confest their ignorance since they were Strangers to themselves and that they ceased to be Philosophers whilst they had neglected to Learn how they should become such It 's true that Physick came to succour the Academia and by an undertaking that surpast her strength did endeavour to teach what had been long unknown For as if truth had lain hid in the Entrailes of our Body and to discover its parts were a Sufficient information of its defects and prefections she invented the Diffection of this wonderful Fabrick she found out the Instrument to sound its Sores she opened the veins to draw out the Corruption of the Blood employed the Lance to Scale its Vlcers and to get the Stone from the Reins she thought that by observing our Diseases the Nature of our constitutions would be discovered that the knowledg of the Pains that beset us would be their Cure that Learning would be attained by sight of our Maladies and it would be sufficient to know that the Gout prickt the Nerves Ophtalmy or inflammation fixt it self in the Eyes the Quinsey swelled the Throat the Stone raged in the Bladder the Colick rended the inward parts and the Feaver discharged its fury upon the radical Moisture to discover from so many miseries the State of his Condition But finding these endeavours of none Effect that this was but the unfolding of the meanest part of Man that there was in this House of Flesh a Heavenly Guest undiscovered and that this Body so much considered was but the Instrument of his operations the design of thus knowing our Selves she soon laid aside the diseased whose sickness could be but half discovered was given over and much ashamed that so much had been undertaken she resolved that a knowledg which was dispaired of being found out by Anatomy should be turned over to the Philosophers But these insted of reflecting on our Corporal disorders to study the Traffick held between the Body and the mind to consider that the more Noble part of themselves was clogged with Mire that the Chains by which they were united made their miseries common to both and that contrary to Natures order the Slave did often invade the Soveraignes right They busied themselves in observing the advantages of the Soul they left the Maid to Court the Mistress and wholy dazled with her perfections they made her a Temple and therein placed their chiefest good Hence arose all the Disputations that separated the Philosophers for each one exercised his Reason upon this according to his own apprehension and built a felicity as himself fansied and as they were ignorant of themselves they made War against each other without knowing the ground of the Quarrel they sought for happiness but could not find it They Writ her praises and knew not wherein she consisted and if they did discover that she was grafted in some part within them they knew neither the Name nor the nature of it Epicurus who imagined that his Soul was terrestrial her Nature not different from that of his Body and though her operations were more excellent yet that she proceeded from the same matter sought amongst the Beasts wherewith to render himself happy and making an Idol of his Body placed his Felicity in Voluptuousness Aristotle who is politick in all his Works and so well knew how to Reconcile Philosophy to the humor of the Monarchs of his time did Fancy that mans Felicity was not separable from the goods of the Body and of Fortune that his happiness was unperfect if he were not as healthy as powerful and that Content consisted in Friends to converse with Subjects to command and Children that were as well Heires of our Vertues as of our Estates If it be no School Treachery not to side with so Learned a Master and if a man run not the hazard of being censured by his Schollars for taking Reasons part and pleading Senecas cause I think it may be said such thoughts are too mean to form a Disciple of Christ and that his words are too little generous to make an ordinary Philosopher For who shall imagin that things out of our power should make us happy and that Fortune which is but a Chimera should dispense the favours which are the Recompences of Vertue Wherefore should we build our happiness upon Riches Since our minds are the Magazines of true wealth and why should we expect that from Strangers which we may bestow upon our Selves Nature is too liberal to deny us our Desires She is too Noble to refuse us a gift which she preserves for us in the Cabinet of our Soul and her Guide is too faithful to carry us astray from that good to which we aspire Those that so much cry it down have not known the advantages of it and had they studied to become as reasonable as eloquent they would have confessed with us that she is not less a Teacher of the faithful then a Soverain to the Polititians and the Mistress of Philosophers Vertue is her workmanship born in her bosome and so obedient a Daughter that she followes her Counsels in all her Actions Just men own her for their Mother they pay respect to her Orders when ever she commands and as her Laws are descended from Heaven they fear to offend him that ruleth there by hearkening to other Counsels then hers Morality which boasteth of governing Men in their Actions of aiding them in their Needs of defending them against evil accidents of combating Vice of teaching us Vertue and of making continency and modesty familiar to us Mortals is useless to them that observe Nature all the Precepts of Morality have yet produced but paper Vertues and if they have at any time formed a Philosopher or a Monarch the Success is more to be attributed to their own good inclinations then to the Soundness of those Maximes There are some Nations that avoid Vice and follow Vertue without the help of this Moral Guide who having not instructed them are yet so Wise as to conquer their passions root out Voluptuousness limit desire resist sorrow and despise riches Our Country people may lawfully dispute the Reward of Constancy with the most cloudy browed Philosophers and I know not whether those Disciples of Nature do not inspire those Famous Doctors with the Love of Temperance and Justice They are vertuous without Art they laugh at Fortunes disgraces they look for Death without terror and being perswaded that it is but a passage to Life they receive it contentedly They endure poverty without complaint they Practise Vertue without Violence they bear Sickness with patience and without runing to Morality for advice they become patient just and couragious If their valour be not so splendid
as that of conquerors it is not therefore less real and if their sobriety be less published then that of our strictest Monasticks it produceth not fewer chast and continent persons And even St. Austin though an Enemy to the Vertues of the Heathen attributing with much heat all to Grace and seeming to grant Nature nothing that all might be owned to the assistance of Jesus Christ is astonished that Sin which brought all our Senses into a Cloud of Error darkened our minds depraved our Wills and poured into our Souls the Seeds of all Vice could not choak the inclination we have for that which is good that we should be naturally just after our Fathers Revolt and guilty as we are we should retain a Love for Vertue and a hatred for her Contrary Some of his Disciples doubted his Arguments they could hardly comprehend how that which makes the Fountain of our Crimes should be the Original of our good Deeds and that against those inclinations which he maintains she often brings forth perfections instead of Monsters They admired that the first Men that succeeded in Adams sin should become righteous by conversing with Nature that they should put Laws in Practice which they never read off and by consulting this prudent Mother they should conceive a Reverence for their Creator compassionate care of their Subjects and an affection for their Equals Methinks it is not very hard to clear all these Doubts and without stumbling at the Difficulties they lay down it may Suffice to propose them a Dilemma to shew them the Truth by day light For after Adam's fall it must be that either God forsook his Works or that he knew Nature potent enough to do well without the aid of Written Laws If to augment the guilt of the first Man or diminish the rigor of his punishment you represent God infinitely offended who justly denies his assistance to Adams Descendants be careful that you do not equally question both his providence and his Mercy and remember that you cannot take from him the Care of his Creatures without offending his Bounty But if you believe that Nature is impotent in the Exercises of Vertue without particular Grace That Man in the State of Sin hath more inclination for Vice then Vertue that the one is natural to him and the other a stranger Where are those commandments that brought him back to his Duty Where are the Written Laws that decided his Doubts Where the promises and threats for reward of the Righteous and punishment of the Wicked It must then be concluded that Nature is not so corrupted but that we may draw some advantage from her That though we be guilty there remains something of our innocence and with a little Labour to keep her in Breath we may avoid Vice practice Vertue and triumph over our Passions Discourse III. Continuation of the same Subject and of the Advantages of Reason THough Nature be the common Mistress of Philosophers though the Cynick Sect morose as they are court her as well as the Academia and may boast that Plato was her Lover and the Wise Roman her Slave Nevertheless they that carress her set her out in such Different shapes and the Formes they give her are so disproportionable the one to the other that it may be doubted whether they knew what they describe or whether they do not imitate those jealous Suitors that disguise the perfections of their Beloved to divert their Rivals Some have thought her gentle and easy to be intreated that much Art was not needful to gain her That such as were faithful to her obtained her and that a constancy of Life was the way to possess her They affirm that to keep her Laws we need but an even Temper and that contrary to the humor of vicious men that delight in change it was enough to will and not to will the same thing Some others a little more elevated derive her Original from Heaven they distinguish not her Author and her Self and mistaking the Effect for the Cause perswaded themselves that following her Documents they might become the Children rather then the Slaves of the Gods whom they Worshipped They changed the Name of God into that of Nature adored his power in His shaddow and imagining the World to be Eternal they mixt the Creator with the Creature These were the two Opinions of the Ancients and consequently suspicious to those that esteem their good works but splendid sins and the greatest part of their thoughts matters of Crime Nevertheless they are not very far distant from the Truth and by a little light brought in to unmist them they may easily pass for Articles of our Faith and Maximes of our Religion Saint Ambrose explains the former to be of the number of the Faithful he wills us to have but one Resolution That our Endeavours correspond with our first undertaking and that we learn of the Painters not to varnish without preservation of the first Lineaments The other seemeth so reasonable to them of that Party that they think it needs no Authority to support it and if Clement of Alexandria had not laid forth his Eloquence to render it probable it is sufficient to know that Nature is a Law more ancient then Adam that Men reverence her Decrees that it is she that governs the Universe directs the Inhabitants and that all Creatures found therein own her for their Soveraign to Judg that she merits not a meaner Title then the Daughter of the Diety If the Novelty of these opinions put doubt upon the Truth of them if we could run the hazard of becoming infidels by favouring the sentiments of the Heathen yet should I not be afraid by embracing the Doctrin of Chryssippus to stray from the common consent of Divines or by reserving to Nature her own Benefits think my self injurious to the Religion I profess For placeing the Felicity of Man in his own Nature viz. his Reason I concern my self in the glory of God and the honour of Nature and as I shew her to be so obedient to her Father that she observes all his Laws I make it appear that Reason is so submissive to her Mother that she followes all her Dictates So that it may be said without offence to those grand Doctors That Reason composeth Mans real good that his Felicity consisteth in the use of it and that to live happily a man need but be conformable to the Councels of Reason To apprehend this Learning well we must suppose with Seneca a great difference between the Reason of the wise and the Judgment of other Men For as this is but a bare opinion that ariseth from our Flesh which erects her Empire in the Senses and hath no other Considerations but what proceed from the meanest part of a Man she seeks nothing but sensuality and prefers the desires thereof before those of the Soul and as a grateful Child speaks ever well of the Parent Opinion is a thing
impious perceive her in their debaucheries if their Mouth protect them Reason condemns them if the night favour their Crimes the Sun laies them open and it 's but small comfort to have Companions in Sin when they find every where a Witness to accuse them a Judg to condemn them and the Executioner to punish them Reason is then Man's only benefit he must use it to climbe Heaven he must consult it to govern his Life and if he do but hearken unto her he shall be vertuous and tame the most insolent of his Passions Discourse IV. That a Wise Mans happiness is not built on the Goods of the Body SOme modern Philosophers seem to wonder that the least of all Causes should in our Actions be of the greatest use That the End which subsisteth but in Idaea should be the Motive of all our works and that that which hath so little share in all humane productions should be so necessary a Midwife to bring them forth They build their opinions upon Aristotles discourse and as they Learn of him that that which hath no being must needs be barren and that nothing can be drawn from it but what is imaginary they conclude that seeing the End is nothing in substance and that its being depends on our intelects it can conceive nought but Chymera's and bring forth nothing but conceited apparitions Others somewhat more ingenious do say that its subsistence is not so sensible as that of the matter that its manner of operation is different from that of the Form and efficient Cause and that when this unites the Soul with the Body and maketh them agree in one the End doth but figure out Idaea's and form imaginary Resemblances Nevertheless convinced by the deductions of the first of Philosophers they avow that if the End be not the more Noble of the four principles she is how ever the most necessary and that if she make less shew then her Companions she hath so much the ascendant of them as to make their operations Suitable to her Designs True it is that all our Projects would be monstrous if our intentions prevented not their birth and Nature that is so regular in her Works would commit nothing but Debaucheries if she directed them not to the End appointed by her Maker As Goodness is the most illustrious Object of Morality and all that is there intreated of tends to the acquisition thereof we are not to wonder if all men seek her if the guilty as well as the innocent court her and if she often procure her self real Lovers by the bare appearance of Goodness When a Tyrant oppresseth his people ransacks his Neighbours Countries depriveth the innocent of Liberty and to enlarge his Frontiers intrencheth upon those Bounds where wise Nature had limited his Authority Policy which is always self interessed excuseth all these disorders by Pretext of a greater Good and the advantages she hopeth for by weakning the Subject and ruining the Enemy seem considerable enough to justify such iniquities when a Criminal is accused and brought before the Judg finding himself engaged to shew innocency in the matters layed to his Charge he borroweth a good Countenance to excuse himself and as there is no man so impious as in his Crime purely to intend Evil he throweth his offence upon the sincerity of his intentions Goodness is so Natural to Man that he cannot loose the Love of her and when ignorance hides her Truth from him or that Opinion cheats him in the search of her he forbears not to Scuffle for her and to catch at all her Resemblances The Academia that made profession of understanding her Essence is of this an evident proof for designing to form a Felicity that should surpass all our desires they invented happinesses that have hitherto only bore the Name They would have it to consist in the health of the Body that Pleasure should be its inseparable Companion that Fortitude should have no other employment but to defend and preserve its healthful state and that Beauty which is but the Feminine ornament was part of a Wise Mans Felicity As Experience taught these Disciples that health was a fountain that watered all the parts with her perfections that its Comliness consisted in a good intelligence with the Elements and that all the Favours of Nature lost their Splender in an infirm Body they set up health as the Principle of their Felicity They averred that to live happily it was necessary to have a sound Body and that all our other Faculties were useless to us when the visage had lost its Color and the Members their strength and when the food that was for our nourishment became offensive to the Eyes They compared health to a Calm Sea They would have it that as this favored the Alcyons in laying their Eggs and in bringing forth their young the other assisted the Conqueror in the obtaining of Victories Princes in the Conduct of their Subjects Artificers in their Labours Orators in their Praises of vertue and Philosophers in outbraving their misfortunes That it was health that charmed the disturbances of our Life and that we should be condemned as eternally miserable if this did not sweeten the Travels of our Pilgrimage and change part of our miseries into delights If these Philosophers had well studied the Nature of Man's chief happiness and not ransact the Flesh for matter wherewith to content the mind I perswade my self that in seeking to be happy they would have put some difference between their own felicity and that of brute Beasts and that distinguishing their own condition from that of impious persons they would have learnt that that which entertaineth vice nourisheth all our Passions could not be a Principle of their Felicity For albeit that sin be familiar to us that we bear the seeds thereof in our Souls and that to will the commission of it be sufficient to make us guilty Mean while it is never more dangerous then when it meets with aids to second it then when it causeth our advantages to serve its designs and when by the health of our Body it throws Infection into our Souls There are some Men that know not what Vertue is till they become impotent in Vice Sickness must disable them to cure them of sin and they would never call to mind that Hell may be one day the place of their punishment if the enflaming feaver did not feed upon their Intrails Others there are that owe their innocence to the absence of health their Method of Life would be always criminal if they were not sometimes infirm and if some violent agitations did not overthrow their designs they might be ranckt in the Number of dissolute Persons As health is a benefit as frail as dangerous God bestows it but on few the Men of great action have been ever much concerned those high Enterprizes that have disturbed the whole World have afforded them little rest the violent eruptions of their
spirits weakned the activity of their Bodies and if to be in health were to be happy it might be concluded that Wise Men are miserable the one half of their Lives Beauty is but a result of health and as subject to decay as the principle to alteration Yet have we some Philosophers that love her that present her with praises after vows of affection and by a blindness the more blamable for being voluntary fancy her to be the second part of their Felicity they call her the Mate of Vertue they describe her to be Divinely animated and will have it that she doth not less influence the Souls of Wise men then the imagination of Fools To hear them discourse She is the delight of all our Senses and although she be the most pleasing object of our sight yet is she the ravishment of our Eares in the recital of her perfections If we believe some Heathen the Gods themselves behold nothing here below more glorious then a face on which they have bestowed their favours and men draw not more vanity from any thing what ever then to find themselves inriched with a benefit that appears without difficulty and may be enjoyed without Envy For she exerciseth so absolute a Dominion upon humane conceit that she converts all that behold her into Lovers the persecutors of the innocent are friends to her and more happy then Vertue it self she hath not yet found an Enemy to make War against her nor envious persons to bespatter her perfections Do but see her and you love her when you have once seen her you cannot be her Enemy and her allurements are so potent that she takes us from our selves at her very first appearance to our Eyes But alas who is there that may not easily discern that so fading a perfection cannot make us happy and that a Benefit which hath all its glory from our opinion is too light to satisfy our desires too little Solid to stay our hopes for what can there be shewed us upon Earth more frail then Beauty or what is there more to be slighted then a Face whose Charms are only in the Eyes of them that are taken with it and which oweth the greatest part of its Dazling Flashes to the blindness of its Adorers Those Famous Beauties that have put the most ingenious of the Poets into a Sweat and suck't so many Praises from his Pen in excuse of the disorders which they have caused in the World are not so much the works of Nature as his witty Invenâ—ions and if the Love he bare to Corinna had not disturbed his mind Helena had been at this day without Admirers and Penelope without Gallants To be in love is to have sore Eyes and if Passion did not often cajolle mens Fancies in favour of them they adore it might be said that Love had long since had no buisiness in the World or that if he had made new Conquests the Fools head must have been the Seat of the War Beauty is so frail that she cannot be kept a few Years and what Art soever Women use to preserve her they must resolve to become ugly if they will grow old That Clearness which contributeth to her Splendor advanceth her Ruin the Sun which gives her a dazling quality disfigures her Time who is her Guardian is her mortal Enemy The Body that sustains her puts her to Death and if some times the strength of Constitution prolong her Ruin it is but to reserve the Spoils for the meanest of her Maladies To draw Reason from the Proud Mistresses of Beauty that Tyrannize the Spirits of indiscreet men and to be avenged of of the Evils wherewith they afflict their Martyrs it is not needful to Negotiate with death to cast pale Colors into their Faces to employ the Nails of a she Rival to deface their most curious Features or that some strange accident should carry away the Off-sets which they value more then their Lives 〈◊〉 of an Ague or Feaver hath force enough to overthrow these charming Adversaries their choicest Complexions yeild to disordered Seasons the Rose forsaketh their Cheaks when it feels the Cold and as there is no distemper that is not able to change their Comeliness there is not any Beauty but may become the scorn of her Slaves But if sickness did not attack these Beauties if the seasons were sufficiently constant not to alter their hew and if the injurious air had any respect for their perfections yet time which Periods Empires would not spare them in prolonging their days he would diminish their Beauty and by a strange but ordinary Metamorphosis he would change the proudest of Natures works into Monkees and Baboons The Sun when he sets hath charms that attract the consideration of the curious the pleasant raies which he sheddeth at bidding us good night are our Shepheards delights and Astrologers observe that his withdrawing lights are not less beneficial to us then when he apears again in our Horizon and rides triumphant over our heads The latter season hath her pleasures if she carry in commodities in one hand she brings equal advantages in the other She is the Expectation of the Husband-man and the reward of the Vine keeper and if she drive the people from the hills and open Countrey she fills their Cellars with Wines the Garners with Corn and the Barns with fruits of the Harvest But when Women look towards age when their hairs assume the Colour of Ashes when wrinckles furrow their foreheads when their Eyes betake themselves to the faculty of casting Pearls when their Cheeks incline to their Chin and when those two Milky Mountains become one double bag full of Blood they are no more desired by men then they seem horrible to their Lovers they which courted them before now hate them and as if all those lines in their foreheads were so many marks of their indiscretion they shun the sight of them as of the most frightful Monsters of Nature Also those that understand well the Nature of Beauty consider her as a remote advantage and esteem the fruit more then the possession they are content to see her on the Faces of their beloved and knowing that her quality is too inconstant to make them happy they give her freely up to those soft Ladies that seek only to be beautiful But of all that made so great accompt of the benefits of the Body I meet with none less reasonable then they who joyn them to voluptuousness and who believed that to live happily it was necessary that Pleasure should make the last perfection of their felicity For although health be but an even temper of the Body though the concord which proceedeth from the mixture of the Elements be a pure effect of their good understanding and that the vigor of the Body have its dependance on the heat and Humidity of the Blood yet the good offices which health rendereth unto her Land-Lord are considerable enough to gain some reputation
words of that famous Man Moses she bestows the quality of goodness upon all that the Creators bounty hath made So that according to the fancy of these Philosophers the Earth hath nothing which bears not the Character of perfection in its forehead and if we except sin nature hath nothing how hurtful soever to us but may be accounted good in their sense But the Stoick Philosophy which is as much elevated above that of Aristotle as the Valor of Women is beneath the Courage of the Hero's alloweth nothing to be good but vertue she cannot endure that that which countenanceth the vicious in Sin should be called by that name and that we should serve our selves of that which may be imployed to destroy rather then to promote vertue Most rich men have made themselves guilty by wealth and those famous criminals that at this day are the shame of their Posterity might have passed for innocent persons if Gold had not executed their wicked designs If we believe the most Learned of the Apostles Riches are the root of all evil and the ruin of all our vertues It is mony that hath invented all our crimes taught Children to attempt upon the Life of their Parents and to procure the death of them that brought them into the World It was this that shewed the covetous to oppress the innocent to ruin Families rob the Church and make bare her Alters It was this that tempted friends to break their faith and Subjects to sport with Princes heads It was this that furnisht incontinent persons with matter to gratify thier lusts to deprive Women of their chastity and their Husbands of their Lives in fine Wealth hath over turned Kingdoms confounded Families and ruined private Men. But if Gold were not the cause of all this confusion in the World if innocence were not persecuted by the covetous and if Justice were not corruptible by an insatiable desire of wealth it would still be fatal to Mankind And to oblige us to disesteem so dangerous a Weapon it may suffice to know that it faileth not either to destroy or to wound us Pride and fear are its inseperable companions these Passions which seem rather to be contrary then different become agreed to Plague the Avaricious and teach these terrestrial Souls that they cannot be wealthy without being miserable For if by means of their Treasures they design to make their Houses vie with Kings Palaces if by Gold they procure favor at Court if their Enemies become their Slaves and if they share in all those delights that compose the felicities of the happy men of this World they grow insolent and extracting vanity from the magnificence of their Buildings the luxury of their Aparrel and the number of their attendants they are not less injurious to their inferiors then troublesome to their equals But if a disgrace Surprise them if fortune cease to cajole them and if experience teach them that wealth hath Wings that a Tyrant may seize their Estates and that fortune of whom they were borrowed may demand payment when she pleases they tumble suddenly into fear their lofty humor is changed into dejection they fear the future by the accidents already befallen them and their cares for preservation swallow up all the delights which before filled them with vanity Riches are so dangerous to man that he can hardly possess them without guilt and their use is so seemingly necessary that he cannot easily resolve to quit them for fear of being miserable his rest is incompatible with the possession of mony he ceaseth to be satisfied when once he hath attained wealth and as he knoweth that Ambuscades are laid for that Metle of which he hath formed his Idol he is no less afraid of the familiarity of his friends then the power of Princes and the hatred of those that envy his Prosperity He suspects the embraces of her who is in his bosome the reverend approches of his Children puts him into doubts and knowing that Gold hath caused Children and Wives to betray their Love and Obedience to Husband and Father he feareth and stands upon his Guard to both They then that seek their content in abundance meet with self chastisements and convinced by the distractions that attend it they are constrained to acknowledg with the Stoicks that a forreign advantage having no price but what our own fancy gives it and which cannot be purchased without the loss of our inward peace or our innocence is not capable of making us happy As honor is vain most commonly the recompence of vice and inseparable from wealth it must create no wonder if the effect be as empty as the cause and if she loose that Title so often as she forsaketh vertue to adorn her Enemy The great Pomp of Princes is not an infallible token of their Justice their Actions which would merit punishment in the person of their Subjects are recorded to their praise and if success favor their Enterprizes they never fail of Orators to magnify their wisedom turn their crimes into Vertues call their Murders victories and their usurpations legitimate Conquests The fighting of a single duel deserveth chastisement in a private Gentleman But a King is never more esteemed then when he sacks whole Cities Plunders Provinces depopulates Kingdoms and converteth the most flourishing Realms of the Earth into enhabitable Countries But without busying my self about mans Injustice and to shew that honor is not always the price of good behaviour and that she is oftner the portion of crime then the reward of goodness it is enough to consider that even they which so highly extol her do confess that she is but a forreign commodity which is as little at our service as her companion Wealth and that as the one is a dependant of Fortune the other subsisteth in popular opinion which caused some who had seen the vanity thereof to look out for more solid Principles to build honor upon and finding by Experience that so fickle a Judg would not be long in Love with one and the same thing they searched the Ages past for Pillars to support this light Structure Observing then that envy raked not in the Ashes of their Ancestors that their Reputation was no more the Babe of chance that Fortune bare reverence to their Valor and Men to their memories they boasted of their Birth they thought the Grandeurs of the Progenitors would render their off-spring illustrious and being Heires to their wealth they ought to partake in the glory of their Actions They sought for natural Reasons to justify these conceits they maintained that Gentility had no less power upon its descendants then Yeomandry and that as the one bequeathed their ruddy complexions to their Children and as some diseases were Hereditary to whole Families the other might lay claim to the honors that had made their Predecessors so famous upon Earth But surely these succeeded no better then the former and if the Principles from which they
fetch their Reasons seem to be less weak then the opinion of an interessed Populace the good they contend for is so little related to the felicity of Man that they cannot assign it the least share without being ignorant of Nature For besides that Nobility hath often her Original from the enormity of her Ancestors crimes that those Titles of which the sound carrieth so much awe are most commonly the recompence of homicides or Adulteries and that we find not many men arrived at dignities by law ul ways nor without suffering a thousand affronts in the obtention and that Gold which is the Principle of all Court sins is at this day the Creation of Dukes Marquises Earles and Barons This advantage of being highly descended hath so little stability that it often cometh not to the Heirs and causeth persons of quality to own themselves more obliged to fortune for their Gentility then to them from whom they received Life We find some Parents that cannot reckon any but Plebeans among their Children these Eagles have yet only brought forth Daws and although the root were allied to Kings and Consuls yet do they dispair that ever their Branches will revive the memory of their Grandeur The Laws which establish the Heirs of Families and often force the Father to make his first born Master of his Revenews cannot give them the faculty of conveighing Gentility to his Successors If Nature permit him to love the Son she allows him not the transmission of his Fathers honor this benefit is above the affection as well as out of the Power of the Parent and in vain do some Men pretend to the glory of their Ancestors since it was not in their power to bequeath it them Vertue is the only advantage of the Nobility it is she that puts a difference between them and the Plough-Man and in the judgment of Plato she is the only inheritance which they may purchase to themselves without obligation to Fortune All those Pictures and figures that adorn the Closets and Gallaries of Princes all those Combats they set forth with so much Art all those Generals which are represented at the head of victorious Armies and all the Pomp wherewith their Triumphs are accompanied create no Nobles those great Men did not live for our honor Death that terminated their Conquests hath preserved their praises and it is vertue must make us their Heirs before we lay claim to their Honors what ever hath preceded us is not ours and we cannot lawfully covet a Benefit which is the Fruit of their Valor and not the testimonial of our own deserts Discourse VI. That Vertue alone maketh a Wise Man happy IN my opinion Seneca never shews less of partiality then when he condemneth his Enemies and without transgressing the Law of Nations he becomes judg in his own cause his sentences are so just and his decrees so equitable that no Appeal can lie without violation to Truth For as no man is willing to make the price of his peace the purchase of his happiness and as they who aspire after felicity aim at matters of real content and not at bare appearances that seduce or corrupt us it followeth that corporal advantages are too fickle to stay our desires and that the favors of Fortune are too inconstant or defective to satisfy our minds that Vertue only is the ultimate end that it is she that is able to satiate our hopes and that what ever is not of Intelligence with her is not to be admitted into the composition of a permanent happiness His principles are so manifest and his arguments so solid that they are not to be opposed without offending the Justice of the cause he pleadeth for Every one desires to live happily and makes it his business to arrive at a condition that may fully answer his hopes but as men commonly suffer themselves to be surprized with vulgar Errors and as the maximes of the World become the rules of their actions we must not wonder if they never attain the felicity they erroniously hunt after if for the most part they go astray from the proposed End and if they tumble into calamity when they expected the height of happiness they are always so unfortunate in their choice as to pursue the shadow for the substance they are deceived by the gay things that surround her and more unhappy then the Poet 's Tantalus they stray from the good they seek and fly from the felicity they pursue For whereas the fairest fruit of a happy Life is the tranquillity of the mind and a confidence which the sincerity of our Conscience gives us they aspire after goods that disturb her rest they wish for Honors that streighten their Liberty they desire Riches which torment them and by an inexcusable Error they take the causes of their disquiet to be part of the effects of their greatest happiness They do acknowledg that to be vertuous is sufficient to secure us from misery that this excellent quality which distinguisheth Wise men from Fools is their fortress against the accidents of Fortune and that they need but temperance to be triumphant over voluptuousness and courage to oppose the mischances that assault them yet can they not be perswaded that vertue alone can make them happy they distrust her power as well as her merit and affirm that a quality whose habitation is only in the Soul and hath no trading with the matter can make but the one half of a felicity They will have the Body satisfyed as well as the mind that pleasures shall never be from it that ease maintain its comlyness that it equally share with the Soul in joy and would think themselves ignorant of the nature of their chief good if they brought not into the composition the advantages of Simonides the delights of Epicurus and the Honors of Periander To the Stoicks it is not hard to oppose this opinion and their reply is so rational that to judg of the clearness of their cause and the weakness of their Enemies it is sufficient to hear them speak for as these Excellent men own no good but vertue and set no esteem but upon the operations of Mans more Noble part they prize not the advantages that are forreign to him the Pomp and delights that attend them attract not their admiration as they know that the flesh agrees not with the Spirit they would be ashamed to confer the priviledges of a Soveraign upon a Slave that warreth against her They assert with much reason that it s not possible to be made happy by what we possess not that a Benefit to make a Man happy must be in his power and that felicity depends so much on our Will that we may bestow it upon our selves when we please For how can a Man place his happiness in works which are not his own Magnify himself in Treasures that Fortune may pull from him And draw vanity from Honors which subsist rather in them that
pay then in them to whom they are paid But vertue that 's within him she is the only advantage he possesseth and if we may use the words of Senecas Enemies to confirm this Truth she is the sole benefit that will not forsake him when he hath lost his Children when death hath ravisht his friends when ruin hath defaced his pleasant Seats and when oppression or Tyranny hath seized his revenues What ever belongs not to him is Subject to loss Philosophy allows nothing to be permanent but the possession of this that Fortune which bruiseth Scepters in the hands of Kings spares her Empire and this blind fantastick which takes pleasure in reducing the Gods of the Earth to the condition of the meanest Bondmen hath not yet bin able to make her miserable But as she is the whole felicity of her Lovers she wills that they be satisfyed with her delights only and permits them not by courting of outward appearances to turn those things which may divert her Love into objects of their affections To speak truely all the things which we love with so much Passion have nothing of certainty but the miseries that attend them the toil and labours we undergo to obtain them the fear of their loss after such troublesome acquisition the cares we employ to secure them the grief we resent when they are taken from us are not so much the evidence of our wants as of their own Malignity and it is not less easie to resolve whether poverty with its incommodities be more supportable then abundance with all its inseparable torments But Vertue is a benefit as solid as delightful her favors are above Fortunes reach and although she despise the wealth of the avaricious the Pride of the ambitious and the pastimes of the incontinent she doth nevertheless satisfy the desires of all her real Suitors She is their happiness as well as their glory the excellency of Vertue needs no off-sets and she is so jealous of her Lovers that she will not admit their addresses to any thing else when once they have chosen her for their Mistress For if she alone make not a Wise man happy and if any thing else can be found in Nature to dispute her title and quality who should resolve to love her since a Man must often put himself in great hazard to obtain her who would be faithful to her since she rejects what we esteem and cannot inrich us but by teaching us to be poor Those alliances which are so essential to Governments to preserve them in peace and so useful to Families to maintain their concord would be burthensome to Men if any doubt could be put upon that Principle of Vertue the Shepheards would drive her from their Huts as well as Kings from their Court and remembring that friendships are often contracted by the loss of the goods of the Body and of Fortune they would cast off a Vertue that instead of procuring them Benefits strips them naked strength would be odious to Conquerors she who hath so often trampled upon the subdued world might complain of the want of assistants and though she be powerful enough to attract admirers few would be encouraged to fight Battels or attack the Enemy at the hazard of their Lives and Fortunes Gratitude would be vexatious if we were to exercise it at the loss of our Estates and she who teacheth us that it is more glory to give then to receive would cease to be our delight if opinion could perswade us that that which we return is part of the good deed that we must beggar our selves to make satisfaction to the good offices of a friend and that the same Vertue which raised us that friend is not sufficient to acknowledg his favors But to stay no longer about raising the price of Vertue above the goods of the Body and of Fortune who sees not that Man is too generous a Creature to lodg his felicity in such perishable commodities and which cannot establish him in their possession without making him the most unhappy of all created beings For if he believe that to live contented he must feed himself with delicate Meats and seek wherewith to awaken his dull appetite in the diversity of Messes the Beasts that brouze the Grass of the Field will in nothing give way to him they eat with more delight then he they tast the superfluities of the Earth with more pleasure then do the Gourmandizers of Ragousts and admirable sauces and that hunger which seldom forsakes them makes all they eat delightful If he will imagin that to be happy he must swim in fleshly delights and turn voluptuousness top-side-turvy to find matter wherewith to divert his sensualities the Savage Creatures have the advantage of him and take in pleasure with more delight then he The use they make of it is not seconded with repentance or shame and as their desires are more regular then ours they perform the acts of nature without weakning themselves and beget their like scarce loosing any of their own substance But if man will place his glory in the perfections of his Body and will conclude that the benefit of his senses contributeth to his felicity he will be constrained to acknowledg that the irrational Creatures are therein more excellent then he The sight is more peircing in Eagles the tast more faithful in Monkies the feeling more delicate in Spiders and the smell more certain in the Vulture To make Judgment then of the dignity of a Man the way is not to enquire if he ransack Sea and Land to adorn his Table if his Meats be curioussy Cooked if he be served in Gold and Crystal and if all the Objects that knock at the doors of his senses afford him delight If he can sum up Princes for his kindred and Alliances if he be Commander of divers Countries if he be as potent at Court as powerful in his own House and if his name be no less famous abroad then among his Neighbours But whether he be Vertuous whether the purity of his Conscience be the effect of that chearfullness which appeareth in his countenance and whether he hath not any affections but what are conformable to Nature and Reason These two guides are so faithful that he cannot stray by following them and that Vertue which they lead us to is of her self so rich that the possession of her is alone sufficient to vie advantages with the Nobility Empires with Monarchs Wealth with avaricious persons and pleasures with voluptuous Men. For it is she that draws us towards our Maker that restores us to our Ancient Dignities that leads to the Principle from whence we proceeded and that after we have learned to be his Imitators here upon Earth will make us his Friends in Heaven Discourse VII That the Moral Vertues of the Heathen are not Criminal NOthing is more Natural to man then the desire of knowledg it is the first Passion that Occupies his Soul Fooles are
is before we are taught it and we have an abhorrance of Vice though we never saw its deformities When God Almighty commanded man the observance of his Laws he made use of termes so plainly simple that the Casuists are at their Arts end about the explication thereof it was enough to give us the knowledg of his will without adding the Reason of it he knew it to be a sufficient justification of his decrees against the transgressor to say thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not commit Adultery for the Law of Nature prohibiting impudicity and homicide he employs but few words in the publication of the two most important of his Commandments When Cain had persued the criminal tract of his Fathers offence when he had committed the first murder upon his Brothers person and when passion had armed him with weapons to bereave him of Life whom by the Law of nature he was bound to love and cherish the Scripture observes that he was both witness and Judg against himself that he condemned himself to death before he was accused his crime became both his punishment and tormentor and without having yet received any written Law forbidding Parricide he confesseth that his sin was too great to be pardoned As the Law of Nature is not one thing in those first Men and another in the Heathen As both one and the other are governed by the same principles and as Conscience is a faithful indifferent Judg in both they condemn sin and approve its contrary they are dejected after a crime committed and rejoyce in well doing they know that the one estrangeth them from God and that by the other they draw nigh unto him and without having any other guide then Reason they know by the End proposed to themselves the innocence or guilt of their actions If then all their Vertues were false and if all their good works were real sins I do not see why they should not indifferently afflict themselves in the Commission of Vice and the practising of Vertue why they should not complain that being created free Agents they are constrained to commit offences against their will that they are made guilty for observing the Law of Nature and that they are condemned to everlasting punishments for succouring their Neighbor serving their Country for taking Armes in defence of a good cause and putting their lives in hazard to prevent the ravishing of Women the robbing of the Fatherless and the oppression of the innocent This Doctrin seemeth so rational to them that maintain it that they judg it needless to borrow any arguments from Divines to make out the truth of it and if the Council of Trent had not censured the contrary opinion it were more then sufficient to shew that Jesus Christ delivers it to his Apostles and gives it authority by his Gospel that all Christians might be obliged to imbrace it When he teacheth his Disciples how to walk amongst the Pharisees he exhorts them to follow their instructions though he condemn their practice he directs them to esteem their Doctrin though he forbid them the imitation of their manners and invites them to reverence their precepts though he charge their actions with a thousand reproaches As we commend the Vertue of an Enemy and prefer a publique good above a private hatred he distinguisheth their good works from their sins he approves their Vertues and detests their Vices and putting a difference between the works of God and the practice of vicious Men he commends the words that proceed from their mouth and blames the hidden malice of their hearts and the scandal which they caused unto others This Truth is so constant that to consult the ancient Fathers is sufficient to confirm her adherents in their belief and though St. Austin seem to be of a different sentiment yet in many parts of his Writings he forbeareth not to approve it He ascribes the flourishing of Rome's common Wealth to the Justice of her Laws he asserts that the uprightness of her Subjects had subdued more Enemies then the courage of her Commanders that they possest the most famous Empire of the World as the reward of their Vertues and that though God would not make them the Companions of Angels in Heaven because they were Infidels yet he gave them the command of the whole Earth because they were vertuous When he writes to Marcellus he declares himself openly to be of their Party he delights in representing to him the price of civil Vertues since they attract such glorious rewards he assures us they are not criminal since they may be admitted to Honors in Heaven and that being Christianized by the powerful excellency of Faith they translate their Lovers to the franchisement of that City whose Soveraign is truth whose Law is love and whose duration is Eternity These two places discover his thoughts and who ever shall well examine his words will confess that he mixeth the Vertues of the Romans with their sins because they had no regard to the glory of God and that they proposed ends to themselves which for the most part were faulty and unlawful I know that in his opinion that Act cannot be holy which is not accompanied with Charity that all the good inclinations we have for commendable things cannot make us truely Vertuous if they be not informed by grace and that Nature and Reason must implore the Celestial succours if they will perform works worthy of eternal glory Nevertheless I cannot conceive how that all who walk not in these steps should become guilty that a Man should be accounted disobedient to his Maker without transgressing his Laws and that without being accused by his own Coscience he should justly be condemned to those Torments that are only the portion of Sinners and wicked men If all these Reasons be not prevalent enough to convince a Jansenist he will at least hereby be obliged to acknowledg that it is not so much an Error as an Incivility not to be of his opinion and that that which hath been examined by the most skilful Divines approved by the most famous Academia's of Europe and authorized by a Councel may be written without danger and maintained without fear of being charged as factious THE SECOND TREATISE OF The Nature of Passions in general Discourse I. What the Nature of Passions is and in what Faculty of the Soul they Reside THat self Love which caused so strange a disorder among the Angels in Heaven which separated the first Man from his Creator in the Terrestrial Paradice and which taught his descendants to aspire to the Soveraignty of their fellow Creatures in other parts of the World appeared in nothing more artificial then in the dividing of Philosophers in distinguishing their opinions and wills and that after they had all retained one and the same inclination for truth caused them to betake themselves to divers ways to find her out If truth be a common Mistress if she yeild to all that
runs to meet the evil afflicts it self before it come and Audacity finds its divertisement in peril and dangers They divide all these different qualities and establish their number according to the diversity of their objects For say they when the Soul moves she has generally good or evil for her object and that begets Love or Hatred she either considereth them particularly as absent and that 's Desire or present and that 's Joy or pleasure When the evil she hates makes her already feel his incommodities they commonly call it Dolor or else vexation and when he 's absent and though remote enough yet producing horror they change his name into that of Flight Then if good be her object and she find it uneasie to acquire and that maugre all the difficulties that surround it she promise her self the possession they name it Hope when she sincks under the evils that attack her they give it a contrary title and call it despaire When the mischief she judgeth hard to repulse torments her and when she bustles to overcome it they call it Anger and when it barely threatens and the Soul employs her dexterity to prevent or give it Battel it assumes the name of Fear or Audacity Some others who are indebted to vain glory for their Eloquence or to the affection they bear St. Austin for straying from the common opinion of Philosophers acknowledg but one Passion they assure us that Love only is the disturber of our quiet and that our pleasures our paines our fears and wishes our hopes and despaires are but so many different shapes which love assumes when he feels an evil or swims in content when he pursues what delights him or fears what is contrary to him and when he promiseth himself some felicity or looseth the fancy of obtaining it Although I have a venerable value for the favourers of this opinion and that the Reasons wherewith they lay their foundation be sufficiently solid to command my esteem yet it seemeth to me as if they had not throughly examined the nature of Love when they make him the Author of Despair and Hatred when they imagin that the most generous of our Passions should become the Fountain of the most timorous and violent and that how ever they cannot make Flight and anger bear the name of Love without confounding the cause with its effects For as Love is a disposition of the Soul resideing in the will and as Sorrow and Fear Desire and Hope are Passions of the inferior part of the Soul that immediately or mediately are loves attendants I think according to the rigor of Reasoning we ought not to give them the same name and that it is to injure the most noble of our Passions to bestow his characters upon those wild and savage effects that have no coherence with his nature But without staying to contend this opinion and to shun the uncertainties that arise from Peripatetick divisions and to avoid the incumbrances that enclose the unity of other modern instructors I conclude with St. Hierom that there are but four principal Passions which comprehend all the rest of which some have respect unto good and evil as present to wit Pleasure and Grief and the two other as absent namely Fear and Desire This distinction is not hard for them to prove who place aversion and despair under fears and who for avoyding multiplication in unnecessary matters reduce Hope Audacity and Anger under Desire All the difficulty that can arise from this division is that it seemeth lame that it comprehends not all the motions of the Soul and that by the distribution thereof made by this Doctrin the two fountains Love and Hatred have no share in those great agitations This objection that in Aristotle's judgment hath so much seeming weight concludes nothing in the opinion of Seneca and it may suffice them that hold too violently with Aristotle to know that Love and Hatred are not so much Passions of our Soul as natural inclinations and aversions which we have for good and evil in General These sentiments are so powerfully ingrafted in our Soul that it is not possible to divorce them we are carried to what is good by motion of nature alone and we abhor what is evil without being thrust from it otherwise then by the inclination we naturally have to preserve our selves The will it self as much a Soveraign as she is in her operations works according to nature when she tends to her own perfection she ceaseth to be indifferent when she regards her chiefest good and in the opinion of the witty Doctor when she respects her felicity she is no more at liberty then a heavy Body that runs to its Center or then Beasts that hasten to the springs of Water when they are thirsty It is true that she indeed is absolute in her Dominion she can suspend her motion when the imagination offers her a pleasing object and she can shun or embrace a thing for which the mind hath conceived an aversion But then this good which she seeks must be peculiar and rather her divertisement then her felicity for if her glory consist in it she steers to that by a natural motion she approves it without choice and she loves it without having it in her power to make Election Thus may we exercise Reason upon the Subjects of Love and Hatred and assert that they are not so much Passions of the Soul as impulsions of nature which engage us to pursue that which is good and fly from its contrary Discourse III. That Passions are not Natural to Man PLato who seeks Truth among poetical Fables and draws the strongest of his Arguments from the most wild Fancies of the Ancients doth in my opinion at no time more dexterously oppose the Impiety or Sordidness of that age than when he renders Vertue a Stranger to Mankind engaging Socrates to dispute her Advantages with his Jupiter and proves that she is not so much the Portion of Heaven or of Nature as the Daughter of the Mind and the Will His Discourse is shaped according to the ordinary proceedings of the World and the same Maxims that preserve Kingdoms and States justifie his Reasons and confirm his Doctrine For if Vertue saith he be natural and the Country where we are born or the Climate under which we live be sufficient to make us vertuous Rewards in Common-wealths are idle things the Commendations given to them that deserve them are unjust and all the Laurels and Crowns wherewith the Heads of Conquerours and Kings are adorned will not be so much the Testimonials of their Justice or Valour as the Marks of their Nature and good Fortune From whence he concludes that Vertues are voluntary that they owe their Birth to Practice and that Perseverance which endureth Grief and laughs at Fortune is the chief Principle Though Passions be opposed to Vertues and their humour rather contrary than different though some are insolent and others modest some irregular and
others innocent some contend to subject the Soul to the Body and others to make the Body servant to the Mind yet they proceed from one and the same Spring Vertues and Passions have one common Mother and though they have different Objects when they are agitated their birth is nevertheless from one and the same Faculty of the Soul For to joyn the strengh of Reason to the Authority of this great Philosopher and not to undervalue the ingenuity of his Logick for proof of a moral Conclusion if Passions were born with us and if Nature taught us to desire and fear to grieve and to rejoyce we must of necessity infer that all these motions are good that we may follow them wheresoever they lead us and that we cannot err in treading the steps of a Guide who instructs us no less in particular than in our general Actions Now the Peripateticks confess that they are neither good nor bad that they are capable of good or evil and that they may serve as well to Vice as Vertue it must be then concluded that they are not ingrafted upon our Soul since they violently oppose the Works of Nature since they make war upon her Inclinations and seldom form any enterprise but to corrupt or destroy her Nature is so regular in all her Productions that she brings forth nothing superfluous she abhors Monsters no less than Excesses and when her Prodigies come to light which cause so much astonishment in the minds of men it may be said that she is rather passive than active indeed where shall we find any thing of excess in the Creation this sage Mother is determined in her Operations she produceth nothing but by limitations as just as necessary and if we often find inventions or take up customs to exceed it is when we become tyrannical or rebellious But Passions delight in excess the bounds prescribed us by Reason irritate them foreign aids must be called in to stay their disorders and if Virtue be not employed to vanquish or tame them we should see nothing in the world more monstrous and frightful than a man possessed by those evil spirits As the Juris periti account that Law unjust which is not common that a Prince would offend against Equity if he made not his Edicts universal and that those commands are to be had in jealousie wherein the Legislator doth not indifferently tie all his subjects Philosophers hold that Nature ought to be common that she ought to be equally distributed to all men and that as the reasonable Soul is intire in all the Body and undivided in each part she ought also to communicate her perfections and infirmities to all the Nations upon Earth mean while we find some persons subject to Passions which others know nothing of and of so many men as are contained in a Province or State few shall we see that are agitated by one and the same motions Ambition which tyrannizeth over Conquerours is not the Plague of all mankind if some are found to aspire to Grandeurs we see others that despise them if some hunt after Honours others have them in derision and if some will reign over their fellow creatures others find their content in obedience the Hunger of Wealth is not the Passion of a whole City some Citizens fill their Coffers but there are others that draw vanity from Expence Gain renders not every man avaritious and if some amongst them build all their hopes upon their Treasures we find others of them that take pride in their disdain Envy is not so much a contagion as a peculiar evil if some persons have been observed to make war upon Vertue we have seen whole Nations that have built her Temples and Orators that have presented her with Elogies As powerful as Love is he hath not yet been able to subdue an intire Kingdom the most perfect Beauties have gained but few Lovers and those Faces that have thrown so many flames into the hearts of Generals of Armies were not able to touch the affections of their Souldiers Now if all these perturbations of the Soul were natural they would be found equally in all men the Objects and the Sense would not make a different impression upon their imagination as these two causes are necessarily active they would every where propuce the same effects 'T is then an error saith Seneca to imagine that Passions are born with us and that these Children of opinion proceed from the marriage of the Soul with the Body Nature hath not allyed us to Vice she may boast of having brought us forth vertuous though we were conceived in sin the greatest part of our disorders ow birth to our Education and when Passions seduce our Judgments or deprave our Will it must be said that they follow not so much her inclinations as our evil manners We impute them to Nature because we despair of Cure and fancy them to be necessary in as much as they favour our crimes excuse our errors and authorize our injustice To support all these truths it 's needless to make Pillars of Seneca's Inductions or to draw Maxims from Aristotles Reasons which confirm them it is sufficient only to consider man in himself to judg that Passions are forreigners and to teach us from the generosity of his Nature how great an enemy he is to them For what is there of a more quiet Nature than Man and what more furious than Love This famous Tyrant takes force from all things that oppose his designs difficulties encourage him impossibilities encrease his impatience that modesty which preserves the Chastitity of Women redoubles his strength and that Council or Reason which ought to regulate or allay his fury renders him obstinate in his pursuit Man is a lover of Rest and Audacity finds its Contentment in turbulence the one submits to the conduct of Prudence and the other is governed by Temerity the one seeks to avoid Enmity and the other takes pride in creating of Adversaries and the one delights in things facile to acquire and the other engageth in nothing but matters difficult or impossible to compass Nothing upon earth is more affable than Man and nothing do we observe more savage than Anger it is a fury that breaths nothing but vengeance a plague that throws division among friends and a monster who more cruel than the Tyger and Panther turns his weapons upon himself when he cannot force satisfaction for injuries done him Compassion which seems so sutable to mans disposition is not less troublesom to his rest than Anger she afflicts him with evils that touch him not she makes the Chastisements of the vicious his punishment she looks upon the Suffering and considers not the Crime and more unjust than hatred she would bribe Justice if possible to deliver the guilty person and the murtherer from his Sword In fine Passions are mans domestick enemies and unfaithful souldiers who undertaking to defend him and keep him in
action trouble his Government abolish his Empire corrupt his Reason disorder his Will and throw confusion into all the powers of his Soul It 's true we meet with some men in the world whom Nature seemeth to have produced to give the lye to this opinion and whose inclinations constrain us to believe that Passions are grafted in the Soul for we see some so effeminate that a word puts them into a rage a sincere reprehension irritates them and in what method soever you deal with them their anger or indignation is not to be avoided Some from their youth are sordid they affect Wealth almost before they know what it is and it would be more easie to change the face of a Negro into the colour of his Teeth than to pull out of their hearts the desire of heaping up Riches Others are naturally bashful as often as they speak in publick they blush and what art soever is used to make them confident in company they cannot hinder shamefacedness from altering their Countenance It is not hard to answer these Objections and whoever is at the trouble to examine the Nature of Passions will be constrained to acknowledg that nothing is proved though much be said For to proceed in order Anger is not that first motion that arises at the appearance of an evil and which oweth its original rather to the Infirmity of the Body than to the Strength of the Mind but that fury of the Soul which by Aristotle is stiled rational that motion which hurries us to take vengeance and invites us to contrive the ruine of him that hath offended us All those other emotions that prevent the Judgment cannot properly be called Passions and when they trouble or seize the Soul it may be said that she resents but produceth them not and that she rather suffers than operates Generals of Armies have been seen to swoon at the approach of Battel Commanders to grow pale at the sight of an Enemy Souldiers to tremble in putting on their Armour or their Head-piece and all that Valour wherewith they were animated could not hinder them from beginning their Victories with quaking and their Triumphs with signs that brought their Courage into question The most eloquent of Orators found himself often taken with these surprizes and he was astonisht that his Discourses should chase Fear from the minds of his Auditors and that his Reason should not be strong enough to drive apprehension from the possession of his heart to hinder Fear from bereaving him of his Strength to prevent his hairs from standing on end and to oppose his tongues cleaving to the roof of his mouth when he was to speak But all these sudden changes are but corporal and surprizes which borrow their aids from the temper and constitution of the body If Riches make some men covetous it is after the Judgment is seduced Nature hath produced nothing in the whole universe that is able to stir their desires she hides the Gold in the entrals of the Earth she leaves us nothing but the sight of the Heaven and the Stars and knowing that this mettle might corrupt them if she discovered it in its splendor she caused it to grow among the Sands and the Dirt to the end they might despise it True it is that Bashfulness seemeth more natural to man than Avarice and Anger and that he is become impudent and insolent that altereth not his countenance after the commission of a fault or an incivility But this timorous Passion is only the daughter of the Body the Mind hath no share in her Production and if the novelty of a thing occasion it the cause thereof is the leaping of the blood about the Heart hence old men rarely blush the furrows in their front seldom receive a foreign colour and when heat declines their heart it ceaseth to send into the Face that innocent Vermilion that makes the Countenance of Children so amiable As this motion is a pure effect of the Bodies temperature our Players could never yet get her to appear upon the Stage and the most ingenious of them despair at this day of adorning the Countenance of their Actors with this curious colour They represent us Sadness with all her shagrine humors and as silent as she is they find inventions to counterfeit her follies They shew us Fear upon a pale Face and imitate all her actions so well that they seem to tremble grow wan and fall into a swoon Love is the ordinary subject wherewith they entertain their Spectators and the smallest Apes-face of the Society can act the Gallant the Suitor and the mad Lover but none of them have yet been seen that could act the Shame-faced person and if some few have learned to stoop the Head abase the Voice and to look downwards we hardly observe any that have been able to call for Blushes to testifie that the Applauses given to them or the Reproches thrown at them were unpleasing But as Passions depend on us it must not be wondered if they be counterfeited with so much ease if they can become sad and angry audacious and desperate when they please and that consulting the mind and opinion of which they are formed they represent all those outward signs which Passions discover upon the Bodies of such as are possessed by them Discourse IV. That the Senses and opinion are the two Principles of Passions AMong all the advantages which man disputeth with other Creatures and which beget him so much reverence in them of his own Species Philosophy owneth none more glorious then that of knowledg and although she be interressed when she pleads her cause she believes not that the praises given her are any thing but due debt she stiles her the only felicity of them that possess her she makes her the image of the Diety maintains that it is she that lifteth man into Heaven to contemplate there the perfections of her Author and though she know that her Body have need of health to preserve her she is assured that her Soul wants nothing but knowledg to participate of his Eternity By these mens discourse this quality is as immense as absolute present every where including all differences of time coexistant with all Ages and having regard to the original nature and end of every being she finds nothing in the Univers that can confine her but Eternity and he only that is infinite Man is a lover only of what is good and as free an Agent as he is he suffers evil with violence the senses that seduce his imagination reverence his will they cease to provoke him when the understanding hath shewed him that the thing she seeks is not suitable to him and if sometimes she discover a displeasure it is because she hath suffered her self to be deceived by the senses or disordered by false opinions But nothing escapes mans Curiosity he will not be a stranger to any thing in nature the most hidden things stir him to make diligent
her Nature hath nothing wonderful in the Creation which is not summed up in her Person He resembles those Idols that have eyes and see not he sees notable defects but observes them not and although his sight be continually fixt upon her Face yet can he not discern her spots from her perfections Mans condition were very deplorable if this Passion were without remedy and if the Fountain whence it springs were as necessary as common But as it draws its original from opinion its duration is equal to that which supports it the same cause from which it hath its original stifles it and Lovers most commonly find the Cure of their distemper in the cause that procured it Some have Conquered their Amours by seeing their Mistress in a morning undrest those whom they beheld in the day time as Goddesses seemed Monsters at the escaping from their Beds they could no more consider their aspects without disdain and they began to learn without the consultation of Philosophers that Women owe their glory to the splendor of Ornaments and the greatest proportion of their Beauty to the opinion of their Slaves Others have prevented the love of this Sex by that of Arts and Sciences they have withdrawn their senses from pleasure to employ them in the contemplation of Nature and charmed by the attractions of truth they preferred the study thereof before the possession of the greatest Beauties of the Earth The consideration of the shortness of the Pleasure has made others treacherous to their own affections and they became the Enemies thereof by the remembrance of the Pains which they caused them to suffer they could not resolve any longer to cherrish a Mistress whose conversation furnisht them with nothing but shame and Repentance and who after a moment of divertisement plunged them into a condition equally shameful and unhappy Alexander the Great was cured of this evil disease by Ambition the desire of fame begat him the Title of Continent as his Valor did that of Conqueror of the World and in St. Austins sentiments it 's not easy to decide whether he was prouder when he fought against himself or when he gave Battle to his Enemies But every one sees that Reason is more effectual then these several ways of curing this distemper that she is more absolute in man then Ambition that her Power is beyond that of Curiosity and that she that regulates all his Actions may more easily become the Soveraign of Love then opinion and covetousness For as mans will is free he may cease to love when himself pleaseth he may recover his liberty as often as he looseth it and even as to love a thing he need but will it so to chase away the desire of it it is sufficient not to will it Discourse III. That Learning is vexatious and the Pleasures of Knowledg are mixt with Grief Danger and Vanity PHilosophy owns nothing in Nature more glorious than her self all her Participants take share in her Grandeur and although she suffers not her Suitors to draw vanity from their applications she dares commend her self without fear of offending against the good manners she makes profession to teach them The Delights she promiseth to such as court her seem to her too innocent not to attract their Love and she concludes that a man must be without Courage or without Reason to refuse her his affection when he has discovered her merit She is so noble in her pursuits that she is busied only in the contemplation of the chiefest Good and she is so delightful in her employments that her conversation is never without satisfaction for besides that she is the Companion of Vertue that she shews us the secrets of Nature that she lifts us up into Heaven to inform us of her Wonders and that she anticipates our felicity by the knowledg she gives us of our future happy estate she fills the Soul with content she unites our spirit to the object which it seeks after and opening wide the Gates of Truth and disclosing all her Charms she seemeth to transport us from darkness to light and from Bondage to a glorious Liberty The contentment which man receiveth from the enjoyment of other things is always imperfect the frailty of their nature threatens him with their deprivation the crimes that usually follow it make him doubt their possession and the difficulty he meets with to preserve them leave him but a mixt satisfaction of fear and grief But understanding is a benefit which fortune cannot reach the oppressors that rob him of his Wealth cannot touch it it remains with him when his goods and honors are sled away and a wise man may boast of being happy so long as he preserves it The utility of wisedom gives place in nothing to the contentments she promises and if she have attractions to draw our Love she hath benefits to satisfy the hopes of her Suitors The Prince of Orators is not deceived when he stiles her the Nurse of young men the stay of the aged the succour of the afflicted and the Protector of the vertuous He assures us that Religion would be doubtful if she were not enlightened by knowledg and that necessarily the Spirit must disunite from the senses by understanding to conceive her misteries that their is nothing more dangerous in a state then an Ignoramus who emploies himself in explicating that Doctrin that is above his reach and that a Kingdom looks towards it's ruin when Philosophers cease to command and the people to obey them But though Antiquity make so high an esteem of knowledg and that the honors she bestowed upon the Ancients obliged them to give her such glorious Titles yet the Professors of Divinity make her the most rigorous of their Torments and the most ingenious among them have confest that her pains surpass her pleasures and the labours that must be undergon for her do much exceed the delights she affords us Her greatest business is to entertain us with matters as vain as useless all her instructions are little more then eloquent words invented by subtilty to amuse us and doubtless a man is not much wronged if he be denied that learning which he may be ignorant of to his advantage and which he cannot know without danger Truth is so gentle that she permits all that court her to take her by the hand not to despise her is sufficient to be admitted into her presence and as the Sun imparts his light liberally to all men she comunicates freely to all those that seek her she is obscure only where science hath bemisted her Those Tracts which art hath beaten to come at her have made her inaccessible that which ought to conduct us to her has turned us out of the way and man is assured to miss her so often as he emploies learning to find her Nature had endewed us with more ready helps to become better she hath fixt our felicity to our will as she condemns all those habitudes which