Selected quad for the lemma: nature_n
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A33161
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The five days debate at Cicero's house in Tusculum between master and sophister.; Tusculanae disputationes. English
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Cicero, Marcus Tullius.; Wase, Christopher, 1625?-1690.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing C4307; ESTC R11236
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182,432
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382
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They could not see any thing by the mind but terminated all sight in the Eyes Now it is the part of a noble Wit to call the Mind off from the Senses and take it out of the common Road. Therefore I suppose that in so many Ages some have before done so but of all whose Opinions are Recorded a Pherecydes the Syrese first maintain'd that Humane Souls are immortal An Author of great Antiquity b for he liv'd in the Reign of my Kinsman This opinion his Scholar Pythagoras greatly confirm'd who being come into Italy in the Reign of Tarquin the proud sway'd Greece the Great with honor to his Person multitude of Auditors and Authority of his Doctrine so that for many years after the Pythagorean Name so flour sh'd that none were reputed Scholars who were not of his Sect. a Pherecydes the Syrese From Syres one of the Islands in the Aegean called Cyclades he was the Master of Pythagoras b For he liv'd in the Reign of my Kinsman Tully claime kindred with Servius Tullius the sixth Roman King upon names-sake SECT XVII That it is more likely they ascend BUT I return to the Ancients they were hardly wont to give any reason of their Opinion unless in matters demonstrable by Lines and Numbers Plato is reported to have travelled into Italy that he might be acquainted with the Pythagoreans and when he was there to have had intimacy with Architas and Timaeus so that he became expert in all the Pythogorean Learning and was the first that not only held the same concerning the Immortality of the Soul as Pythagoras did but further brought his reason to prove it which reason unless you otherwise require let us blanch and so abandon this whole hope of Immortality S. Do you offer now you have rais'd my expectations to the heighth to disappoint me had rather I assure you be mistaken with Plato whom I know how much you magnifie and am wont upon your Commendation to admire than to be of their opinion in the right M. Bravely resolv'd for I my self could be contented with so good Company to be in the wrong Do we then question this as many other passages although there be least ground to doubt this Mathematicians perswade us that the Earth situated in the middle of the Universe beareth the proportion of a Point which they call the Center in comparison with the vast Orb of the Starry Heavens and further that such is the nature of the four Elements that their Motions are divided by opposite terms so that terrene and humid Bodies of their own bent and sway tend perpendicularly to the Earth and Sea the two remaining parts the one of Fire the other of Air as the former by their heaviness sink down into the middle of the World so these sore up at right Angles to the heavenly Regions whether it be their own nature to aspire upward c or that the lighter parts are naturally lifted up by the descent of the more heavy These things being on all hands agreed it ought to be alike evident that Souls when they depart the Body whether they be of a spiritous or fiery substance mount towards Heaven but if the Soul be a number which is said with more subtlety than plainness or if it be of that fifth Nature which however nameless is not so very difficult to be understood then are they much more abstract from matter and of greater purity and will consequently ascend to the greatest distance from the Earth Now some of these Natures the Soul must needs be of not to fancy so quick and sprightly an Intelligence lying plung'd in the Heart or Brains or after Empedocles in the Blood c Or that the lighter parts are naturally lifted up by the descent of the heavier The opinion that Gravity and Levity are not positive but comparative thought to be Modern and Cartesian appears to have been ancient SECT VIII Nor vanish AS for Dicaearchus with Aristoxenus his Contemporary and Fellow-Pupil let them pass for great Scholars the one of which seems never to have had compassion or he would have been sensible that he had a Soul the other is so transported with his Tunes that he would forcibly apply them to the Matters in hand Now we can collect Harmony from the distance of sounds the setting of which notes in due proportion produces also variety of Tunes But what Musick the posture of the Limbs and the shape of the Body destitute of a Soul can produce I comprehend not He would do well therefore Scholar as he is to leave these Matters to his Master Aristotle and content himself with teaching to Fiddle For that is good direction which is given in the Greek Proverb Let each man practice th' Art in which he 's skill'd But turn we quite out of doors that casual concourse of smooth and round Bodies which yet Democritus would have to conceive heat and become spiritous that is having Life Now the Soul in this case which if it consists of any of the four Elements whereof all things are said to be compounded hath for its ingredients inflam'd Air to which opinion Panaetius was most inclinable must mount upwards for these two Elements have nothing in them tending downward but alwayes ascend so whether they scatter in the Air it must be far from falling to the Earth or whether they continue and subsist in a separate Estate they must of more necessity mount up to Heaven forcing their passage through this gross and impure Air which is nearest the Earth for the Soul is hotter or rather more fiery than is this Air which I just now call'd gross and impure SECT XIX But ascend the Sky AND that it is so is demonstrable from this that our Bodies compounded of the terrene sort of Principles do yet conceive warmth from the heat of the Soul The probability is further improv'd of our Souls breaking thorough and surmounting this aiery Region with the more ease because nothing is swifter then thought No speed may compare with the speed of the Soul which if it continue entire and like it self must of necessity pass with such a quick motion as to pierce and divide all these lower Regions of Heaven wherein Clouds Rains and Winds are engendred which is moist and dark with Exhalations from the Earth which Atmosphear when the Soul hath transcendéd and finds that she is arriv'd at a nature like her self consisting of a refin'd Air and gentle heat of the Sun she fixeth in the Empirean Orb and stayes her further ascent for having now gotten a lightness and heat agreeable to her self as hanging ballanc'd in an equal counterpoise she moves neither way but this is her natural home when she hath arriv'd at her own likeness where she shall want nothing but be nourish'd and sustain'd with the same Food wherewith the Stars are nourish'd and sustain'd and whereas we are here wont through the Lusts of our flesh to be enflam'd to almost all sorts of
as he calls his Idea we the Species or Kind the Soul after it was locked up in the Body could not come to understand them therefore it brought the knowledge of them with it hither by which means all admiration of our knowing so many things ceases Nor doth the Soul discern them on the sudden after she is remov'd into such a strange and confus'd habitation till she hath recollected and recruited her self for then she recovers those dormant notices by remembrance of them so that Learning is nothing else than a recalling to mind Now I must confess I do after an extraordinary manner admire the memory what is that faculty whereby we remember what is its force or whence its nature I do not demand about such a memory as Simonides is said to have had such as Theodectes such as he who was sent Ambassador from Pyrrhus to the Senate Cynaeas such as Charmidas lately such as in these times the Scepsian Metrodorus such as our Friend Hortensius I speak of the common memory of men and those especially who are train'd up in any considerable Business or Art the compass of whose mind it is hard to estimate so many things do they remember f So that Plato would have it to be the re-calling to mind what was known in a former Life It is a known opinion of Plato the pre-existence of Souls too much favoured by Origen and Arnobius perhaps to salve the Doctrine of original Sin which they thought less reconcileable to the Souls Creation in its Infusion But the truer account of such apprehension seems to be from the common Notions by natural instinct implanted in the rational Soul SECT XXV Corollaries of the former Argument from that of Invention WHither now tends this whole Discourse I think it would be understood what is this force and whence it is Certainly it proceeds not from the Heart nor Blood nor Brains nor Atomes Whether the Soul be Breath or Fire I know not nor am I asham'd as some others are to confess I do not know what I do not But this I can affirm as much as of any thing else that is obscure be the Soul Breath or be it Fire I durst be depos'd it is Divine for I beseech you now can you imagine that so great an ability of memory can be produc'd or compounded of Earth or this gross Region of Air You do not see what is its Nature But what are its Qualities you do see or if you do not that neither what is its quantity to be sure you do see How then do we conceive of it whether do we think there is any concavity into which as into a Fat we turn up the things which we remember that is absurd For what bottom or what such Figure of the Soul can be imagin'd or what Gage of so large a Size Or do we take the Soul to be imprest as Wax and the Memory for the Prints of things set down in the Mind as in a Table-book What Prints can there be of Words what of the things themselves Lastly what Volum so vast as to represent such numerous Nations What think you should that Power be which brings to light useful Secrets which is call'd Invention or Devising or that it can be compounded of this earthly mortal and frail Nature What judge you of him who the first impos'd names on all things which Pythagoras reckons a Work of the highest Wisdom or who drew scatter'd men into Communities and incorporated them for the mutual Support of Life or who couch'd the Sounds of the Voice which seem'd infinite into the marks of a few Letters or who calculated the Courses Progressions Stations of the Planets All of them were great Personages Those of higher Antiquity yet who found out Corn who Cloathing who Houses who the helps of living handsomly who guards against wild Beasts by whom being civiliz'd and reclaim'd we naturally proceeded from the necessary to the more polite Arts for entertainment of the Ears was in great measure found out and temper'd with variety of Notes and Voices We look'd up even to the Stars both those which are fix'd at certain distances and those also which are not so in reality but in name only wandring Stars All the motions and windings of which the Soul that first observ'd gave at the same time proof that it was like him who had fashion'd them in Heaven For when Archimedes lock'd up the motions of Sun Moon and the five other Planets into his Sphear he brought that to pass which the God that in Timaeus built the World that one Revolution should adjust motions most unlike for speed and slowness Which if it cannot be wrought in this World without God neither could Archimedes in his Sphear have imitated the same Motions without a Divine Wit SECT XXVI From further Endowments IN my judgment I must say even these more familiar and illustrious Instances seem not performable without some Divine Power so as I should think that either a Poet pours out a grave and accomplish'd Poem without some heavenly Instinct of the Mind or that any Eloquence without some extraordinary impulse can flow in a mighty Stream of lofty Words and copious Sentences And for Philosophy the Mother of all Arts what is it else but as Plato saith the Gift as I the Invention of the Gods This first train'd us up to their Worship next to Justice towards men which consists in the Preservation of Societies And lastly to Moderation and Courage this also hath dispell'd the darkness from our Souls as from our Eyes that we can behold the Extremities of Nature what is above below first midst last Truly this Power seems to me to be Divine which can work so many and so admirable Effects For what is Memory of things and words What is Invention Certainly such as no greater Perfections can be apprehended to be in God Now I am not of the mind that the Gods take pleasure in Feasting on Nectar and Ambrosia or in a Goddess of everlasting Youth to bear their Cups Nor do I believe Homer who saith that Ganymede was ravish'd by the Gods for his Beauty to fill Jupiter Drink a Cause no way sufficient why such an injury should be offer'd Laomedon This was a meer Fiction of Homer's who made Gods like men I could have wish'd he had rather made men like Gods Wherein like Gods in Activity Wisdom Invention Memory Therefore the Soul which as I say is Divine as Euripides presumes to say is a God truly if God be either Spirit or Fire the same is mans Soul for as that heavenly Nature is free both from Earth and moisture so the humane Soul partakes of neither of them But if it be a fifth Nature first introduc'd by Aristotle the same is common both to the Soul and God Pursuant to which opinion we thus express'd our selves word for word in our Book of Consolation SECT XXVII From its Divine Original ORiginal of Souls none can be found