freedom of will is quoad exercitium actus and what Libertas Contradictionis is ib. 3. What the second kind of freedom of will importeth p. 39. 4. That the speculative understanding in the act of speculation is practick ib. 5. That the will is not constrained to will a good thing although present but hath a power of rejecting it ib. 6. That the will willeth evil for an evil end That some men are worse than Devils p. 40. 7. What the will 's freedom is in specifying its acts ib. 8. What free-will is in refference to its faculty ib. 9. Velten rejected for asserting that the will is not indifferent to each contrary That the will is indifferent to each contradictory opposite p. 41. 10. That the will is free to act or not to act p. 42. 11. That the will is free to act upon particular objects whether good or evil The state of the controversie ib 12. That man as he is in a natural and corrupt state hath a free-will of doing a moral good or a moral evil act ib. 13. That man hath not a free-will of doing a theologick good act immediately through him self without an extraordinary concurrence of God with him p. 43. 14. Man hath a free-will of doing a theologick good act with an extraordinary concurrence of God with him That he hath a free-will of election ib. 15. That man as be is in a natural state hath a free-will through himself and without Gods extraordinary concurrence to procure Gods extraordinary concurrence and assistance to him in his actions That our being and conversation in it and all our actions depend from the ordinary concurrence of God Reasons why God did not conferre upon him an absolute power of acting without his ordinary concourse The cause of man's fall That that which is only morally good will prove theologick evil at last ib. 44. 16. Arguments to prove a free-will in man A reconciliation of the Calvinists with the Arminians That man hath a rement of theologick good surving in him The state of the controversie The division of it 45 c. CHAP. X. Of Free-will from Scripture 1. Objections from Scripture against man's free-will p. 48. 2. An Answer to the said Objections p. 49. 3. Objections proving that moral good is evil ib. 4. The first Objection answered p 50. 5. The second Objection removed ib. 6. Some other Texts produced against free-will in man p 51. 7. The first Text reconciled ib. 8. The second Objection removed 52. 9. Arguments deduced from faith An answer to the said Arguments ib. 10. The first Argument drawn from Scripture to prove man's free-will to good and evil p. 53. 11. A second Argument proving the same ib. 12. A third Argument ib. 13. Many other Texts inferring the same p. 54. 14. Texts proving a remnant of good in man ib. 15. Texts proving that a natural man cannot do a theologick good act through himself and being only assisted with the ordinary concurss of God ib. 16. Scriptures inferring that a supernatural man hath no free-will to direct contraries that is to do theologick good and evil An answer to some Texts produced by Bellarmin p. 55 56. 17. Scripture proofs concluding that the means whereby God's extraordinary concurrence is procured is in man and adheres to his free-will p. 57. 18. Whether man's actions performed with God's extraordinary assistance are to be taken for the actions of God or of man ib. 19. A reconciliation of the ninth to the Romans The unfolding of Predistination or of God's eternal Decree p. 58 c. CHAP. XI Of the Command of the Will 1. Whether the will can be forced 64. 2. What elicited and imperated acts are p. 65. 3. What command the will exreciseth over the inferiour faculties What a politick and despotick command is ib. 4. That the irascible and appetitive faculty are under a politick obedience to the will p. 66. 5. That the locomotive faculty is not alwayes under a servile obedience to the will ib. 6. That the will doth not command over the practick understanding ib. CHAP XII Of Voluntary and Involuntary 1. That the Understanding as it is speculative and practick is the internal principle of the ultimate and intermediate actions That God or Angels are improperly said to be external principles That God is the coefficient of man's actions How Angels whether good or evil Wizords and Witches concur to the specification of man's actions p 67. 2. What a humane action is p. 68. 3. That it is absurd to assert man to do a thing ignorantly ib. 4. Whether evils of omission through ignorance are to be termed involuntary ib. 5. How humane actions are divided p. 65 c. CHAP. XIII Of Natural Faith 1. That Faith is the sole means through which we are to attain to our greatest good What Faith is The Definition confirmed by Arguments deduced from reason p. 70. 2. The two-fold object of Faith A proof from reason that God is the Creator of man That God and Nature are one p. 71. 3. An enquiry into the end of man's creation p. 72. 4. That man doth know the summe of God's Law through the light of Nature A summary enumeration of the Law of God as it is imprinted upon every man's heart ib. 73. 5. Moral virtues compared with the moral Law A comprehension of all moral virtues p. 74 75. CHAP. XIV Of Man's Fall and of Atheism 1. A rational enquiry into man's primitive estate The manner of man's fall p. 76 2. Grounds whence a man may rationally collect hopes for his restoration p. 77. 3. That Atheism is the worst of sins and that an Atheist is unable of performing the least good act Wherein the goodness of an action doth consist ib. 78. 4. A character of an Atheist That confirmed Atheism is the onely sin against the holy Ghost A full discovery of an Atheist ib. 79. CHAP. XV. Of the Means and Manner of Man's Escape and Restauration 1. What is requisite for a man to consider in order to his escape and restitution p. 83. 2. How a man may naturally find out a means tending to his restitution ib. 3. The description of God's mercy 84. 4. The explanation of the precedent description p. 85. 5. The act through which God's mercy doth succour a natural soul in her contention ib. CHAP. XVI Of the Light and Darknesse of Man's practick Understanding 1. That Light and Darknesse are analogal to principles of Good and Evil. p. 86. 2. Queries concerning Light and Darknesse ib. 3. The two kinds of Light What the first Light is and how it produceth the second Light ib. 4. What the Habit of Light is That the first Man acted without Habits How a Habit is acquired ib. 5. That the first Man acted through a natural disposition and not through any Habits p 87. CHAP. XVII Containing rational discoveries of Man's primitive and second estate 1. That Man was created most perfect A proof from reason inferring God to be a
of God open to men in quickning the print of it in their hearts which was almost deaded and exing them to examine the course of their lives James 1. 23 24 25. 3. The immediate effect of this search is the conviction of a mans conscience Rom. 1. 20. 2. 1. Rom. 11. 32. 4. This conviction of conscience bringeth them to a desperation of their salvation they finding that â—mpâ—â—nesse and unablenesse in themselves Rom. 7. 9 11 13. 5. This begetteth a humiliation in their hearts grieving for their sins fearing the guilt and dreading the punishment and so they are brought to a confession of their sins Mat. 9. 12. All these effects are produced through the insight of man into his own heart where all men contain the moral Law and may through the light of Nature and God's ordinary Grace or ordinary Call unfold it in the same sense which the quoted Texts do expresse CHAP. XI Of the Command of the Will 1. Whether the Will can be forced 2. What elicited and imperated acts are 3. What command the Will exerciseth over the inferiour facultin What a politick and despotick command is 4. That the irascible and appetitive faculty are under a politick obedience to the Will 5. That the locomotive faculty is not alwayes under a servile obedience to the will 6. That the Will doth not command over the practick understanding I. I Have digressed somewhat beyond my bounds in the last Chapter in alledging Scripture to prove many fundamental assertions of this Treatise the which although I ought to have performed by reason onely neverthelesse to gratifie some whose education teacheth them not to give credit to any reason unlesse confirmed by Scripture I contracted the fore-mentioned quotations in one little space And now to keep on my road There remains one Question more relating to the freedome of will which I shall first endeavour to answer and then go on in adding what is requisite The Question is Whethen the will can be forced This is a strange kind of doubt Whether the will when it doth not will for when it is forced it doth act against its will be a will However this seemeth an absurd query if understood in so many plain words yet supposing that act to be forced or against the will which is willed through the will but with a reluctancy and fore-knowledge of inconvenience thereon ensuing the Question may be conceived in a safe meaning The will is termed forced when it doth will through compulsion or impulsion or through a positive or privative violence as others explain it without which it would not have willed that which otherwayes it willed The Question might rather be proposed thus Whether the will when it is forced is free or acteth freely for no doubt the will of man can be forced in all her acts whatever Authors say to the contrary I prove it Man can be forced in his imperated acts Ergo A man can also be forced in his elicited acts because there is no imperated act but it derives from an elicited act for it is the elicited act which commandeth the other act Here may then be enquired Wherein a forced elicited act differeth from an absolute free act I answer That both these acts proceed from the will with a consent but that which the will acteth with an absolute freedom it acteth without any remorse and with an entire consent That which the will acteth when she is forced she acts with a remorse and partial reluctancy for to avoid a greater inconvenience or evil and were it not for that she would not have acted it The will cannot properly be said to be forced through a privative violence because the will doth not act at all when she is hindred II. The acts of the will according to Moralists are either elicited or imperated An elicited act of the will is when she doth act within her self by proposing the goodnesse of an object and consenteth to the covering or rejecting of it The imperated act of the will is whereby she doth execute that which she had concluded and agreed to by the elicited act in commanding the inferiour faculties III. The command which the will exerciseth over the obeying faculties is politick or controlable The obeying faculties are the internal and external senses the locomotive faculty the irascible and appetible faculty I prove it The internal senses obey the will from a politick obedience for a man willeth oft-times not to think or to remember this or that thing which neverthelesse doth force into his mind Besides the phansie worketh in a dream without being commanded by the will Wherefore the wils command is not despotick but politick The external senses do not obey the will from a despotick obedience because the will frequently cannot per se hinder them in their functions as for instance she cannot at all times hinder the hearing from perceiving a noise or the sent from smelling a bad sent c. IV. The irascible and appetitive faculty obey the will politickly because our natures are ofttimes prone to envy anger or revenge when we would not be so So our natures are as oft propense to covet evil objects which our will doth contradict V. The locomotive faculty doth frequently refuse a servil obedience to the will for in wearinesses and convulsions she is rebellious and unable Besides the locomotive faculty being in some cases more obedient to the sensitive appetite she obeyeth it before she obeyeth the will Lastly The locomotive faculty is oftentimes at work in a dream and at other times when the will doth not command her and thence it is evident that the locomotive faculty doth not obey the will from a despotick obedience VI. It is absurd to affirm That the will commandeth the practick understanding for it is the same thing as if you said That the will commanded her self the will and practick understanding being one and the same CHAP. XII Of Voluntary and Involuntary 1. That the Understanding as it is speculative and practick is the internal principle of the ultimate and intermediate actions That God or Angels are improperly said to be external principles That God is the coefficient of man's actions How Angels whether good or evil Wizards and Witches concur to the specification of man's actions 2. What a humane action is 3. That it is absurd to assert man to do a thing ignorantly 4. Whether evils of omission through ignorance are to be termed involuntary 5. How humane actions are divided I. HItherto we have declared the internal principle of man namely the understanding as it is speculative and practick through which he acteth in order to the attaining the Summum Bonum and arriving to his last and ultimate action the immediate fruits of which is the greatest happinesse Furthermore we are not only to state the understanding to be the internal principle of our last and ultimate action but also of all intermediate actions and of such as are called humane
that good which he willeth the Reason hereof the Apostle doth immediately after expresse in these words I find then a law that when I would do good evil is present with me and a little after But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind c. Which amounts to this that man in a natural state hath a free-will to good and evil yet much more to evil because the will is moved by a two-fold principle 1. By it self when it doth represent a certain object to it self without being moved by the inclination of the body 2. By the inclination of the body which is a strong appetite which men are subjected unto through the forcible propensities of their body's Yea oftentimes this proveth so strong that it easily bendeth the will to its aim Now when the will is moved through it self without being incited by the appetite of the body it doth and can do good and leave it VIII The second Scripture proveth the impossibility of Good in Atheists or in any without the ordinary concurss of God IX There may be farther urged That a natural man naturally hath no faith and consequently cannot do a good act Rom. 10. 17. So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God Wherefore a natural man cannot believe because he doth not hear the word of God I answer That the Apostle speaks of the extraordinary means of faith and not of the ordinary A natural man then believeth naturally or by ordinary means Or thus The word of God is either written or imprinted in men's hearts I say then that in the first sense faith doth come by attending and hearkning to the word of God which is imprinted in all men's hearts except in Atheists in whose hearts the Law of God is quite blotted out Phil. 1. 29. For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ not onely to believe on him c. Ergo Faith is not natural I answer That faith through Christ is given and is supernatural but faith whereby we believe there is a God and that he is mercifull and therefore will find a means to save us is natural Although we cannot actually know or believe the assigned means whereby he will save us Wherefore there is onely a partial faith in natural men and not a compleat and entire faith for they cannot believe naturally in Christ unlesse it be given to them from God as the Text doth evidently expresse Many more are produced as that of Acts 16. 14. Rom. 10. 9. Heb. 12. 2. All which may be easily answered from what hath been explained just now X. It is time that I should prepare to defend my own Positions with the same force as was used by them of the contrary opinion That there is a free-will of doing good and evil in natural men I prove by the 1 Cor. 7. 37. Neverthelesse he that standfast in his heart having no necessity but hath power over his own will and hath decreed so in his heart that he will keep his virgin doth well First the Apostle teacheth that a man doth not act necessarily having no necessity but contingently that is voluntarily Secondly That he hath a free will What is to have a power over his will else but to enjoy a freedom of will and that either in acting or not acting and not only so but in acting good or evil and quoad specificationem actus as expresly in keeping of his virgin which is a good act XI Acts 5. 4. Whiles it remained was it not thine own and after it was sold was it not in thine own power Here is particularly implyed a free-will of doing evil or good Either Ananias might have given the whole price of the possession or part In choosing to give a part under pretext of the whole he chose evil or otherwise he might have chosen to give the whole and so might have chose good for it was in his own power as the Text holds forth XII Deut. 30. 11. For this commandment which I command thee this day is not hidden from thee neither is it farre off It is not in Heaven nor beyond the Seas that thou shouldest say who shall go up for us to Heaven and bring it to us or Who shall go beyond the Seas for us and bring it unto us that we may hear and do it But saith Moses the Word is very nigh unto thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it What is more plain then that hereby is intended a free-will which a man hath of doing good or evil XIII Prov. 6. 5. Deliver thy self as a Roe from the hand of the hunter and as a bird from the hand of a fowler This holds forth that a man can deliver himself from evil yet not without God's concurss Psal. 94. 8. Understand ye brutish among the people and ye fools when will ye be wise Ergo A natural man hath a power of understanding if he will or else may refuse it Or an ignorant man hath a will of being wiser and knowing or of rejecting wisdome and knowledge Matth. 23. 37. How often would I have gathered thy children together even as a Hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not Ergo Man had a will of coming to God for other wayes God would have called upon them in vain which is impossible The same may be inferred from Prov. 1. 24. Isa. 1. 19. If ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the Land but if ye refuse and rebell c. Ergo Man can will and refuse Rev. 3 20. Isa. 65. 12. Eccles. 15. 14. Zech. 1 c. XIV The next thing I come to prove is that man hath a spark or remnant of good in him Rom. 2. 14. For when the Gentiles which have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law to themselves Which sheweth the work of the Law written in their hearts their conscience bearing witnesse c. What is here meant by doing by nature the things contained in the Law but that a man naturally hath a remnant of Good in him for how could he other wayes do the things of the written Law through which he may know the Law and doth what the Law commands and hath a conscience bearing witnesse This Text makes good my distinction that there is a two-fold Law one expressed or written and the other impressed in mens hearts or the Law of nature The same we have also in Ezek. 18. 21. Luc. 13. 5. Rom. 1. 19 20 21. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them What can be more clear XV. I do farther prove That a natural man cannot do a Theologick good act through himself and being onely assisted with the ordinary concurss of God A theologick good act is which doth fully and entirely satisfie and please God There
moral or voluntary actions We need not augment the number of internal principles by adding Habits to them these being supposed to alter the forestated principles accidentally only and not essentially How Habits ' are acquired and how intended remitted and corrupted we have set down elswhere Neither are God or Angels properly said to be external principles since all principles strictly are required to be internal But God may be justly termed the coefficient of the actions of man since God worketh in us to will and to do Angels whether good or evil Wizards and Witches cannot concur efficiently to the effecting of humane actions to which an infinite power is onely sufficient whereas they consisting of a limited power are therefore render'd uncapable They may concurre to the specification of an act as persuasive causes in bending man's will to this or that act by changing the phansie in stirring up the humours and spirits of the brain whereby it may represent objects otherwise than they are or by presenting objects through a false image or representation or by changing the external sensories Whence we may observe that it is not in the Devils power to make or force us to doe a thing against our wils but that we may discover resist and refuse his deceitfull motions or otherwise we might be justly thought excusable wherefore if we do at any time commit evil through the perswasion of an evil spirit we must not onely accuse the wicked spirit but our selves also After our discourse upon the will there remains alone to appose a word or two touching humane actions II. Humane actions otherwise called moral and voluntary are such as are effected by man as farre as he is a man or are produced by his will or practick understanding Wherefore whatever man acteth with the fore-knowledge and fore-command of his practick understanding is humane and voluntary A voluntary action may be purely voluntary and free or mixt out of a Voluntas and Noluntas that is willed with a reluctancy The first acception of Voluntary Aristotle terms voluntary strictly so called the latter he denominates involuntary but improperly III. It is absurd to assert man to do a thing ignorantly since it is impossible for a man to do any thing which he doth not fore-know Wherefore it must be an errour in the Peripateticks to affirm that man can act an involuntarium quiddam ex ignorantia because he acteth nothing but what is consented unto partially or totally by his will which cannot will any thing as the Peripatetick definition holds forth without the foreknowledge of the understanding Hence I conclude that nothing is to be termed involuntary or mixtly voluntary unlesse a man is forced to it violently or by a cause acting from without IV. Here may be demanded Whether evils of omission of duties required by a Law committed by man when he is ignorant of the said Law are to be termed involuntary No certainly for they are voluntary in that the omission of an act is as much an act of the will as the effection of it But whether such omissions or commissions which a man doth will are to be termed evil in regard he willed them through ignorance which had he not been ignorant of he would not have willed is to be decided from the circumstances of such actions and not from the imputing such actions not to be the actions of man or not to be voluntary Moreover I answer That no kind of ignorance doth make an action neutral that is neither good or evil and excusable but an invincible ignorance What invincible ignorance and other kinds of ignorances are I do wittingly omit the inserting since they are vulgarly enough known As for such circumstances which are required to render humane actions good or evil I have set down in the latter end of this Book V. The action of the will is accidentally divided in fruition and intention Fruition is the continuated coveting and willing of an object already before coveted and now enjoyed Intention is a mediate coveting of means whereby to covet an object immediately or to arrive to the fruition of it Intention contains in it three inferiour actions 1. Election whereby the practick understanding doth by a preceding deliberation covet one or more objects for a means out of many 2. Consent which is a further coveting of that or them objects which it hath elected so as to be confirmed and pleased in that election 3. Usus or Usance otherwise called execution which is the application of the means now elected and consented unto to a further action CHAP. XIII Of Natural Faith 1. That Faith is the sole means through which we are to attain to our greatest good What Faith is The Definition confirmed by Arguments deduced from reason 2. The two-fold object of Faith A proof from reason that God is the Creator of man That God and Nature are one 3. An enquiry into the end of man's creation 4. That man doth know the summe of God's Law through the light of Nature A summary enumeration of the Law of God as it is imprinted upon every man's heart 5. Moral virtues compared with the moral Law A comprehension of all moral virtues I Have just now finisht my Discourse upon the subject of this Tract that which fals next under our consideration is the means through which we are to attain to our greatest Good and happinesse The sole means is Faith Faith is a certain knowledge of God and the Law and an assurance in and of God's mercy and goodnesse The genus proximum and differentia proxima are signals that their Definitum or thing defined is not an historical or temporary faith or saith of miracles onely but a justifying and glorifying faith necessarily comprehending in it self the three other kinds as degrees by which the soul doth gradually ascend to an exalting faith Among other School-Divines it goeth under the name of an explicite Faith Fides the same with the Definitum deriveth its denomination from fidere a word not in use among the later Latinists whose signification the verb confidere hath since supplied which is to rest contented and fully satisfied Wherefore assurance implying a certain practical knowledge freed from all doubts and causing this rest and satisfaction doth justly and properly deserve the place of the Genus in this Definition The certainty which Faith doth bring with it depends upon the certainty and necessity of its premises which being necessary and certain infers a certain and necessary conclusion If God is mercifull he will save them that beg mercy But God is mercifull and I do beg mercy Therefore God will save me This Conclusion as depending upon unchangeable and certain premises holds forth that Faith is an undoubted assurance of God's mercy and that he will save a zealous believer No wonder then if Faith doth create this quietnesse rest and satisfaction Austin de Civit. Dei lib. 19. cap. 18. tels us no lesse To the Acadamicks all things are
that they should really divide the Will from the understanding or Mind which of its own nature is formally indivisible So that the forementioned Objection doth not conclude any thing against my Assertion since it infers not the will and understanding to be distinguished formally but to differ only in matter from which our division is prescinded V. Practick Knowledge is divided in Logick Moral Philosophy and the Art of Nature whereby she is helped and may otherwise be called the Art of Physick in a large sence These tripartited Parts being less universal and less mediate are drawn from a triple end or effect of Philosophy determined by a triple Object 1. The Soul 2. The Body 3. The Manners The end of Philosophy upon the Soul is to help it in its Defect consisting in its subjection to Errours which constitutes Logick The effect of Philosophy upon the Body is to relieve its Defects consisting in nakedness want of Conveniences and subjection to Diseases To this the Art of Physick prescribes Remedies and Helps 3. The Effect of Philosophy upon the Manners which are actions produced by Soul and Body joyned in unity is to regulate them in their Extravagancies and Depravations which specifieth Moral Philosophy Note that Logick and Moral Philosophy are here taken in their largest signification Theoretick Knowledge is divided according to the universal formality I mean Formality in respect to one another of the subdivided Members and not to Philosophy it self to which these are only material Subdivisions of the speculative Object which is threefold 1. A Material Object inherent in material Essences which limits it to Natural Philosophy 2. An Immaterial Object depending from immaterial Beings which determines it to Pneumatology 3. An Object communicable to both or abstracted from each which is a Being in general as it is communicable to material and immaterial Objects which constitutes the Subject of Metaphysicks VI. All inferiour and less universal Knowledges must be comprehended in some one of the divided Members of Philosophy otherwise it would be an erroneous Distribution wherefore some of the Liberal Arts as Arithmetick Grammar Rhetorick are reduced to the Art of Logick as it is taken in a large sense implying a Habit of guiding Reason being defective in its Judgment and in Elocution or Utterance The Arts of Musick Geometry Astrology are comprehended in the Art of Nature as also the Art of Physick strictly so called and the servile Arts as the Art of Husbandry of Weaving of Warring c. Likewise are Oeconomicks and Politicks referred to Moral Philosophy Astronomy to Natural Philosophy VII The most universal parts of Philosophy namely Theoretick and Practick are treated of inclusively as far as their Inferior Parts do contain them So that thereby Authors save the labour of discoursing of them separately and of repeating the same Matters in vain Nevertheless was that Partition necessary because through it Philosophy is contracted to its less universal Parts VIII The common quadripartited distribution of Philosophy is too strict the subjected Members exceeding its extention for example to what part of Philosophy will you reduce the Art of Medicine possibly you may refer it to Natural Philosophy which may not be because the one is practick and the other speculative The like Question may be demanded concerning all the Servile and Liberal Arts Wherefore it was requisite to add the Art of Nature to the practick Knowledges Pneumatology hath been abusively treated of in Metaphysicks because its Object namely Spirits is more contracted then a Being in general If you answer that it is a part dividing a Being in general and therefore it ought to be reduced to its whole then by vertue of that Argument Natural Philosophy ought to be referred to the same Science because that is the other opposite dividing part for a Being in Metaphysicks is treated of as it is abstracted from a Material and Immaterial Substance CHAP. V. 1. What Method is requisite in the Ordering of the particular Treatises of the several Parts of Philosophy 2. What Order is observed in the Placing of the General Parts of Philosophy I. THe Method requisite in the Ordering of the particular Treatises of the several Parts of Philosophy is not indifferent most preferring a Synthetick in Theoretick and an Analytick Method in Practick Knowledges all excluding an Arbitrary Method in matters necessary and such are Philosophick II. The Order observed in the placing of the General Parts of Philosophy is drawn from their Dignity or primality of Existence If from their Dignity Pneumatology is the first because of its most excellent Object The next Metaphysicks because of its most general Object Moral Philosophy is the first in respect of time because our Will is the first Faculty we exercise next after our Production whose first act is to incline a Child to suck which being subject to be immoderate in it is learned by use and direction of its Nurse to be better regulated in its appetite and to know the Rule of Temperance Hence it is an universal saying Disciplinae fuerunt prius in usu quam in arte Disciplines were in use before they were in art The Will being the first which required the help of Prudence and Moral Philosophy was the only cause which moved Socrates to teach Morals first and not because the Science of Physicks were or seemed to be obscure and hard to be known for even in them he was more skilful and learned than any ever was among the Heathens The first in Nature and respect to Knowledge is Metaphysicks comprehending all the others in it self The first quoad nos is Logick which doth dispose our understanding for the Discipline of the other parts Each of these Parts obtain a distinct consideration Metaphysicks are considered as abstracted and Immaterial that is most remote from Singulars not properly immaterial as a Spirit but as inherent in its less universals and by contraction may be material Physicks are considered as a less universal and nearest to Singulars which by their common habit and Representation exhibit a common unity which constitutes a less universal wherefore whatever cannot be proved by experience that is by our Senses to be existent in Singulars makes an Opinion or Errour in the universals So that the proof of Pneumatology as well as of Natural Philosophy depends from our Senses and experience in Singulars Wherefore every Philosopher ought to make probation of all Assertions in whatever part of Philosophy it be by Arguments drawn either mediately or immediately from Singulars and especially in Natural Philosophy which way of Arguing produceth a Certainty and Evidence or Demonstration Metaphysicks The Second Book CHAP. I. Of the Nature of Metaphysicks 1. Of the Etymology and Synonima's of Metaphysicks 2. The Authors Definition of Metaphysicks That a Being is univocal to an objective and a real Being 3. The true formal and adequate Object of Metaphysicks 4. Wherein Metaphysicks differs from Philosophy IT will be needless to propound any thing
therefore it is distinct This is Idem per Idem a positive being is signified negatively therefore it is a Negative or is distinct Oviedo himself reaches somewhat nearer to the truth of the Matter He saith that for a being not to be another being doth imply a positive concept and so it doth But how or in what manner he omits It is by moving the Intellect as I have proved before in a sundry manner or by several Modes But to return to the Resolution of the Distinction proposed Wherein Peter is distinct from a Horse Oviedo imagineth that Peter is distinct from a Horse through his Unity which doth distinguish him from another in that it doth represent that it is not that unity This is a Mistake for Peters single unity doth only make him distinct from a non ens and not distinct from another being unless that being moves the Intellect about the same time one after another wherefore two unities are compared in the Intellect which being different in their Idea cause a distinction between themselves For how can I deny that one unity is not another unless both conceived and compared to another VIII That which is a Real distinction a parte objecti externi or Rei is named a formal distinction a parte actus It is named formal because the Intellect conceiveth a distinct form of each being from another and thereby formes the Definition of it which is nothing else but the explication of the form of a being IX The same which is denominated an objective distinction a parte objecti interni is signified a parte actus by a distinctio rationis distinction of the mind whereby the mind doth distinguish internal Objects otherwise then they do exist really or without or otherwise then they move from without Here I may seem to contradict my self although I do not in saying here that the Intellect doth or may understand Objects from within different from them which move from without and in another preceding place of this Book I concluded that the understanding could not understand or conceive any being from within but what was like to beings from without To reconcile these two places you are to observe that an Objective Being may be like to a Real Being either in some of its Modes or in all If in all then the being from within is like to the whole essence of the being from without but if in some then them some are unlike to the whole in the same manner as a part is unlike to the whole Wherefore in this the understanding may perceive an Object from within distinctly from an Object from without 2. The understanding cannot perceive any being but what is like to an entire being or one or more Modes of a being from without 3. The understanding may also conceive some modes of one being and some of another which modes both united cause a distinct objective being in that union to what they were from without in disjunction 4. In this example the understanding cannot perceive but what is like to Externals for each of them modes are like to some one mode or other of beings from without although here they are disunited yet are united in the understanding How modes or Objects are or may be united in the understanding I have shewed in the 7th Chapter of this Book As for other divisions of Distinction may be easily collected from what is contained in the foregoing Chapter CHAP. XX. Of Subsistence 1. What Subsistence is What it is to be through it self from it self and in it self 2. That a Nature cannot be conservated by God without Subsistence That the Transubstantiation of Christs Body and Bloud into Bread and Wine according to the supposition of the Papists is impossible Oviedo's Argument against this Position answered 3. The kinds of Subsistences 4. What Termination is 5. What Perfection is 1. SUbsistence is an Attribute of a Being whereby it is through it self There are many Locutions of this Nature which although they seem to be the same yet are much different as to be from it self through it self and in it self To be from it self denotes a non-dependance from any pre-existent cause and according to this sense God is only subsistent that is is a Being from himself In this Acception did Cartesius very well deny that a Substance could not be an univocal Genus to God and his Creatures To be through it self expresseth a being consisting of its own parts and not of anothers parts and in this sense are all beings subsistent or Substances To be in it self signifieth a singleness of Existence which is to consist only of a single unity and of no parts so is God said to be in himself Did a being consist of parts then it must be said to exist in its parts for it would be very improper to say that a compound being did exist in it self But a being consisting of no divisible parts we are compelled to say that it is in it self II. A Nature cannot be conservated by God without Subsistence It is contradictory For take away the Subsistence of a being you take away its parts for Subsistence is nothing else but the essence of a being through or in its Parts This is a very necessary Tenent for to defend this Assertion viz. That the Subsistence of the Bread cannot be the corporal Subsistence of Christ and therefore it implieth a Contradiction that Christ should be really and essentially changed in the Subsistence of Bread and the essence of both remain The Lutherans have stated a more probable Opinion that Christ's Substance was united to the Substance of Bread which is something less erroneous than the other Oviedo strives to prove the contrary in Contr. 6. P. 6. His Argument is this Nature is before Subsistence in respect of causality Therefore Nature is understood to be existent before Subsistence is understood I deny the Antecedence which is palpably false for take away the Subsistence of a thing and you destroy the being of it and state a Subsistence and you must necessarily state a being III. Subsistence is divisible as all other Attributes of a Being in a first Subsistence and in a second Subsistence The first is proper to Individuals and Singulars the Second to Universals IV. Termination is a Property of a Being whereby it is terminated Termination is in all beings in Spiritual and Natural beings in God and in his Creatures Gods Termination is not to be termined and therefore he is Infinite A Non Ens hath no Termination wherefore Authors say very improperly that a Non Ens is infinite All other beings are termined and therefore are finite V. Perfection is a Property of a being whereby it is compleated with all or in all belonging to the Constituion of its Essence CHAP. XXI Of remaining modes of a Being 1. What Quantity is 2. What the Kinds of Quantity are 3. What Quality is 4. What Relation is 5. What Action is 6. What Passion is 7. What
Situation is 8. What Duration is I. QUantity is an Attribute of a Being whereby it hath Extension of Parts II. Quantity is either Formal and Immaterial which is the extension of the Form beyond which it is not and within which it acteth or Material which is the Extension of a material Being III. Quality is whereby a being doth act as from a Cause IV. Relation is whereby one being is referred to another V. Action is whereby one being acteth upon another as through a meanes VI. Passion is whereby one being receiveth an Act from another VII Situation is whereby a being is seated in a place A Place is which doth contain a Being VIII Duration is whereby a being continueth in its Essence CHAP. XXII Of Causes 1. What a Cause is That the Dectrine of Causes belongeth to Metaphysicks 2. Wherein a Cause and Principle differ 3. What an internal Cause is What Matter is 4. What a Form is and how it is divided 5. What an external cause is I. A Cause is whereby a Being is produced It doth appertain to Metaphysicks to treat of Causes for else it would be no Science which requires the unfolding of a being by its Causes Ramus did much mistake himself in denying a place to the Doctrine of Causes in this Science and referring it altogether to Logick 'T is true that the Doctrine of Causes may conveniently be handled in Logick as Arguments by which Proofes are inferred yet as they are real and move the understanding from without they may not for Logick is conversant in Notions only and not in Realities II. A Cause differeth from a Principle or is Synonimous to it according to its various acception In Physicks it is taken for that whose presence doth constitute a Being and in that sense it is the same with an internal cause to which a Cause in its late extent is a Genus and consequently is of a larger signification A Principle sometimes denotes that whence a being hath its Essence or Production or whence it is known In this sense did Aristotle take it in the 5th Book of his Met. Chapt. 1. Whereby he did intimate a threefold Principle to wit a Principle of Constitution Generation and of Knowledge or of being known A Principle as it is received in the forementioned sense is of a larger signification then a Cause It is usually taken for a word Synonimous to a Cause In this Acception is God said to be the Principle that is the Cause of all Beings III. A Cause is either Internal or External An Internal Cause is that which doth constitute a Being by its own Presence An Internal Cause is twofold 1. Matter 2. Form Matter is an internal cause out of which a being is constituted So earth is the Matter of man because a man is constituted out of Earth Matter is remote and mediate which is out of which the nearest and immediate matter was produced or constituted or nearest and immediate out of which a being is immediately constituted For example The nearest matter of Glass is Ashes the remote is Wood which was the Matter of Ashes But this Distinction doth more properly belong to Logick IV. A Form is a Cause from which a being hath its Essence A Form is remote or nearest A remote form is from which a being consisting of remote Matter had its Form The nearest Form is from which the nearest Matter hath its Essence The remote matter is either first or second The first is out of which the first being had its Essence The Second is out of which all other beings had their essence A Form is divisible into the same kinds The first Form was from which the first being had its essence The second from which all other beings have their essence These Divisions are rather Logical then Metaphysical V. An external Cause is by whose force or vertue a being is produced The force whereby a being is produced is from without for a being hath no force of it self before it is produced therefore that force whereby a being is produced is necessarily from without This Cause is only an efficient Cause Other Divisions of Causes I do wittingly omit because some are disagreeing with the Subject of this Treatise and belong to another Part of Philosophy as to treat of the first cause belongeth to Pneumatology of final Causes to Morals Others are very suspicious CHAP. XXIII Of the Kinds of Causes 1. The Number of real Causes That a final cause is no real Cause The Causality of Matter and Form 2. The Division of an Efficient 3. That an Efficient is erroneously divided in a procreating and conservating Cause 4. That the Division of a Cause into Social and Solitary is illegal 5. That the Division of an efficient Cause into Internal and External is absurd 6. That all Forms are Material 7. That there are no assistent Forms I. THere are only three real Causes of a Being a Material Formal and Efficient Cause Wherefore a Final cause is no real Cause I prove it A real Cause is which doth really effect or produce a Being But these are only three Ergo. 2. A Final Cause doth not cause any effect concurring to the constitution of a being as each of them three forementioned do for matter causeth an effect by giving her self out of which a being may be constituted A Form doth produce an effect by giving through her presence unity distinction from all others to Matter An efficient Cause effecteth by educing a Form out of the matter and uniting it to the Matter Which three causalities are only requisite to the production of a compleat being and they constituted in actu constitute a being at the same instant If so what effect doth a final Cause then produce Certainly not any contributing to the essential constitution of a being These three being only necessary any other would be frustaneous Possibly you will object that the final Cause moveth the efficient Suppose I grant that it doth not infer that it concurs to the real and essential production of a being The causality which it exerciseth is in contributing per accidens to the constitution of a being which if only so it doth not appertain to this place neither can it be equally treated of with Causes which do act per se. II. An End moveth the efficient An efficient is either Natural or Moral Natural efficients are moved necessarily or act e necessitate Naturae Hence we say a Cause being in actu to wit a Natural Cause its effect is likewise necessarily constituted in actu It is not so with a final Cause for that may exist without producing an effect All Natural Causes move for an end per accidens in that they answer the Ordination of the Creator who hath created all things for an end which accordingly act for the same out of Necessity of Nature Moral Efficients are moved by an end Yet it is not the end which produceth the effect but the efficient it self You
is in no manner of a Physical but of a pure Metaphysical Consideration Metaphysical here I understand in the same Meaning as it was intended in by Aristotle The same Philosopher defines Heat Cold Moysture and Dryness by first qualities not first Powers because according to his doctrine they were actually inherent in the Elements at the instant of their Production for power with him presupposeth a non existence of the act thence flowing Wherefore it is apparent that powers in the concrete are not distinguisht from their Substance either really formally or by any other Operation of the mind but if by any at all it is ratione rationante quae absque ullo fit fundamento Powers in the abstract are distinguisht from powers in the Concrete in that they offer a common Mode and manner of qualifying and accidentally specifying their Subject in the Concrete to the Understanding which occasioneth a Modal Distinction Philosophers not daring to desert the Principles of Arist. and yet finding that Natural Substances act through themselves and not through powers really distinct from them are constrained to assert that a Substance acteth and is either through or in actu signato which had they rendred it otherwise to wit that a Substance is and acts through a power it would have been a Contradiction for to act and to be in actu signato are opposite to being in potentia and to act through a potentia or in actu exercito IX Powers are remitted and intended by subduction and addition of parts of the same nature as it is evident in Canary wine which is hotter then Rhenish because it containes more dense and united fiery Spirits One fire is hotter then another because its similar parts are augmented by Access of Parts of the same Nature That Powers are facilitated and slowed through Habits and Defects of them is demonstrated elsewhere X. One similar Substance acts but one Formal Act per se through it self and per accidens by accident that is through meanes of extrinsick Causes many The first part of this Theorem is proved by this Maxim Una numero efficiens producit unum tantum numero effectum One and the same Efficient can produce but one and the same Effect at one and the same time and in one and the same manner But a similar substance is but one Efficient Ergo it can produce but one and the same Effect c. The Major is undeniable I confirm the Assumtion A substance is effective through its form which being but one must also determinate its Efficiency to one 2. Fire is a substance but fire hath but one power per se Ergo I prove the Minor That whereby the fire doth act is its penetrable lightness but that is single in fire Ergo. You may Object That its heating burning and locomotive powers are more then one To this I Answer That the similar parts of fire exercises but one power naturally and in its natural place but if extrinsecally that is by an Efficient from without united and condensed it becomes of a burning Nature Pray take the paines to peruse my Positions of fire in my Natural Phil. They are satisfactory to all Objections As for its locomotive Faculty it is the same with its rare lightness A Second Objection may be Mercury is a similar substance but Mercury hath several powers of heating cooling fluxing killing the Worms c. 'T is true the Effects are various nevertheless the power from whence they descend is but one which unity seems to be multiplied materially that is through the variety of its Objects Mercury cooles in laxe and weak bodies because through its thickness and density it expels the loose heat of the said laxe bodies It heats in hot strong close bodies because it is retained in such bodies and being retained its parts are opened by the strong heat of the said bodies whereby the fiery hot spirits break forth and unite themselves with the heat of such bodies and so it becomes hotter In like manner Fluxing and its other Effects are wrought all through one power their difference hapning from the difference of the Object Obj. 3. If every similar substance obtaines one power of acting then in every dissimilar or mixt body there should be four powers because it consisteth of four similar substances I Answer That the Elements when mixed limit their power within one temperament and one formal power The latter part of this Theorem is That a substance obtaineth many powers per accidens h. e. in statu violento eâdem quidem a principio formali sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agente nec non a causa efficienti ab extra impulsa plane quod rei naturae contrariatur by accident that is when a substance is seated in a violent state and although acting from its formal Principle yet it is against its first Nature as being opposed by an External Efficient XI An Organical and dissimilar substance exerciseth naturally as many formal powers as it containes similar substances in it self really different from one another and but one formal power so far as these similar substances tend to the constituting of one formal substance All similar substances contained within the Sphere of an Organical substance tend naturally e naturae quadam necessitate and from a certain necessity of Nature for they could not exist separately because then they would be imperfect to its Constitution A hand is an Organical substance In a hand are comprehended 1. A Locomotive power 2. A sensitive power 3. A Nutritive Faculty These various powers depend from the variety of similar scilicet ad sensum parts to wit the first from Nerves the second the Membranes the third from the vital heat notwithstanding all of them constitute but one formal locomotive sensitive and vegetative power Actus and Potentia in the Concrete are really identificated for Potentia denotes an actual virtue and power in a substance This may be called actus activus and so Anima is defined Actus by Arist 2. It imports Action 3. It sometime implies an Effect otherwise called Actus passivus It is an Actus because it doth act through a power which it had from its first act a different Effect It is Passivus because it receives its power from that first Actus Wherefore you must take notice that it is not termed Actus passivus secundum Idem ad Idem for that would imply a Contradiction XII From this Discourse we may easily be resolved in these Doubts 1. Whether it be not repugnant that any Accidental or Substantial Power should be superadded to its Subject Aff. 2. Whether the volitive power in the Concrete be really and formally identificated with the Soul Aff. 3. Whether the Soul acteth immediately through her self and not through super added powers Aff. 4. Whether the augmentative power be really and formally distinct from the Nutritive power and the Nutritive from the Generative Power There is a modal distinction or a parte rei
we should not do and not doing that which we should do if we should do a thing it supposeth we can do it otherwise it would seem absurd No dispute but we do and can will evil as evil and consequently the Definition is erroneous 2. The second Solution doth not clear the point in supposing that the evil which we do will we will it not as evil but as apparent good This is futil for what is apparent good but a real evil A thing must either be formally evil or formally good betwixt these there can be no Medium The third is grounded upon a false distinction because good as it is good doth not imply formally honesty usefulnesse or pleasure neither is it universally coveted by all bodies as it is affected with any of these accidents but as it doth perfect them So that a pleasant good is frequently not coveted as a pleasant good but as a pleasant evil and we do know that same pleasant evil to be so before we do will it The same may be said concerning good as it is usefull Neverthelesse may good be also coveted sometime as it is pleasant or usefull or honest but these are only accidental to good III. Diogenes the Stoick defines Good to be that which is perfect in its own nature Herein he confounds perfection with good which are formally different one from the other as I have shewed in my Metaphysicks Besides Good is here considered as it is relative or related to another Being although in Metaphysicks it is treated of as absolute to a Being IV. Good is whose end is to perfect that which doth bend to it all Beings bend to each other because they perfect one another By perfection understand the further constitution and conservation of a Being for all Beings are further constituted and conserved by other Beings This end may prove frustraneous to many bodies but that is not through the default of Good but of that Body to which it proveth frustraneous although bent to it Note that it doth not follow that all which a Being is bent unto is good for it although it followeth that all which doth perfect a Being is good All Beings are essentially bent to what is good but accidentally they bend also to what is evil A depravate will is accidental to man and therefore man doth accidentally covet evil This evil although it is coveted accidentally by man yet by his will it is desired formally and per se. IV. There are several degrees of good which do not differessentially from one another but have a resemblance and proportion one to the other so that one can become the other or change into the nature of the other According to this good is gradually distinguisht into Moral Good and Theologick Good V. Moral Good is whose end is to perfectionate man as he is in a natural state Moral Evil is whose end is to corrupt man as he is in a natural state VI. Theologick Good is which doth perfectionate a man in a supernatural state Theologick Evil is which doth corrupt a man as he is in a preternatural state Of these I purpose to treat of distinctly in the next ensuing Chapter CHAP. IV. Of Moral Good and Moral Evil. 1. An Explanation of the Definition of Moral Good What is understood by a Natural State The ambiguity of the word Natural 2. What Moral Good it is which doth respect the Body What Moral Good it is which respecteth the Soul 3. An Explanation of the Definition of Moral Evil. That God doth not properly bend to his creatures 4. The Distinction between these two predicates to be Good and to do Good 5. How Moral Good turns to Moral Evil. 6. That Man as he is in a neutral state is in a middle state between supernatural and preternatural FIrst It is requisite to unfold the ambiguities of the terms contained in the Definition of Moral Good What it is to perfectionate I have already declared It remains to amplifie how man is understood to be in a Natural State A Natural Being is frequently taken for a Being which is in the same state wherein it was created or produced A man then is said to be Natural when he is in the same state wherein he was created There is a two-fold Creation 1. There is an immediate Creation of man whom God did create immediately through himself no other mediate effect being interposed 2. A mediate Creation of man is whereby he is mediately through his Parents created by God Man being created by an immediate creation as long as he continued in that nature and state wherein he was created was natural but having corrupted that state through his appetite after Evil he became counter-natural in respect to his former state A Natural Being is also understood for that which continueth in the same state wherein it is as it is produced by a mediate creation and in this sense we are to apprehend it here Here may be offered an Objection That a Being cannot be said to be created by a mediate Creation and yet be counter-natural Pray observe me well here in this place I say that man who is created by a mediate Creation is counter-natural but I do not say that God who created him did create him counter-natural for he created him Natural Of this more at large elswhere And to return to my purpose Man as he is natural according to the latter acception doth perfectionate himself by that Moral Good which he doth bend unto and that same moral Good doth conservate and further constitute a man in that nature wherein he was created by a mediate Creation Man is sometimes taken disjunctly for his body and soul or else joyntly and integrally as he doth consist of both united II. According to the first distinction there is moral Good which chiefly concerns the Body of man as meat drink and cloaths There is also a moral Good chiefly respecting the soul as speculative and practick objects are morally good to the soul. You may demand how practick and speculative objects do perfectionate the soul I answer That they by their objectivenesse do conservate the souls action in its goodnesse for had the soul no moral good object to act upon it would be without a moral good action which is repugnant to that Maxim Omne quod est est propter operationem All which is is for to operate In like manner do food and cloaths conservate the Body of man in its natural state III. Moral Evil doth corrupt a man as he is in a Natural state and makâ—â— him counter-natural that is worse than he is in a Natural state I am required here to illustrate two obscurities 1. How Moral Good can be said to be good 2. How Moral Good turneth to Moral Evil. In reference to the first we are to call to mind the definition of Good which is whose end is to perfect that which doth bend to it If then Moral Good obtains a virtue to perfect
of the organ and of the contrary habit of darknesse But I shall explain my meaning more amply The first man in the state of his integrity had no habit in him whence his acts proceeded but were effected through a natural disposition and principle of good which God through his bounty had conferred upon him This natural disposition produced its first acts as perfect or with the same facility as it did the following acts for otherwise man could not be supposed to have been created perfect V. Hence it appears that man at his first creation had no habit for a habit according to Philosophers is Habitus est qualitas adventitia ad operandum cum facilitate an acquired quality through which a substance is inclined to act with ease Observe then 1. It is an acquired quality that is not natural 2. That through a habit we do operate with ease which supposeth there was a difficulty of working before we had acquired this habit But wherein lay the difficulty either in the power of acting or in the instrument or in the object upon which it acted There could be no difficulty in the power for that inhering in the substantial form is unalterable Ergo in the instrument and object Now then the difficulty in the instrument and object is removed by often fitting the organ to the object and the object to the organ and so you see a habit is acquired through many repeated acts Wherefore the first man in his entire state needed no habit he acting all things naturally and with ease His organs were all perfect and had no resistance in them against the power or no unfitnesse to the object so likewise the objects were all fitted to their several organs CHAP. XVII Containing rational discoveries of Mans primitive and second estate 1. That Man was created most perfect A proof from reason inferring God to be a most rational spirit 2. That Man by means of his first and second light understood all beings perfectly in their proper natures as they were 3. That the first man did not sleep during his incorrupt estate 4. That the first man did eat and drink 5. That the first man would have generated in the same manner and through the same parts as he did afterwards but without that shame and sinfull lust That there were no co-Adamites The absurdity of that blasphemous opinion touching prae-Adamites 6. That the first man was beyond danger of erring in any action proceeding from his soul. 7. A rational inquiry into the first sinne and knowledg of the first Commandment 8. The manner of man's fall proved by reason His punishment for the breach of the first Commandment 9. A further collection of man's punishment for his first sinne That a present unavoidable temporal death was part of mans punishment and not a present unavoidable eternal death 10. That man after his fall was not become utterly evil 11. An enumeration of the relicts of Good in man TO tell you how darknesse first ceased on man it will be necessary to examine and dive into his first creation the state and manner of it and hence by way of consequence to deduct the casualties and accidents to which he was exposed First Beyond all arguments Man was created most perfect in his essence and operations because whatever is immediatly created by God must be perfect the reason is in that God is a most perfect cause and therefore his immediate effects and acts cannot but be most perfect and man above all he being created according to God's own image You may demand how I come to know that I answer that man may easily apprehend that God is a spirit because his substance is immediatly imperceptible through any of the external senses were he material his body would be perceptible through its trinal dimension of parts neverthelesse his acts upon material objects are but mediately every minute perceived by us through the said intermediate actions upon material objects Secondly We know that he is most rational and understanding because Right Reason cannot but judg all his acts to be most Rational on the other part the soul knoweth her self to be a spirit because her essence is also immediately imperceptible by any of the external senses That she is rational needs no proof Wherefore hence it is apparent enough that man was created after God's image II. The first light then being most perfect produced also its second light in no lesse perfection particularly that which is instrumentall to its Reasoning which made man capable of understanding all things in the world in their own nature Besides there was no resistence or obscurity in any of the objects because they being all created for the service of man had their natures as it were writ upon their breast so that herein they were at the command of the understanding not only so but his will exercised a free and despotick command over all God's creatures whether inanimated or animated which latter and particularly beasts were all of a meek and obedient nature otherwise they could not have fitted man's occasions III. Whether man in this state naturally slept or not is dubious yet it is more probable that he did not because sleep ariseth from an imperfection of the Body and wearinesse of the animal spirits which is not to be supposed in so perfect a creature Besides sleep would have detracted part of his happinesse because an intermission from joy is a kind of misery and a total abolishment of joy is a total misery IV. Man did eat and drink for otherwise many parts of his body as his stomack gutts liver spleen kidnies bladder c. would have been formed in vain V. Man had he continued in his primitive state would have generated and in the same manner through the same parts as he did since although without that sinfull lust and shame The reason is Because the sparmatick parts or genitals would else be supposed to be superadded for no end It is probable that Adam did not generate in his incorrupt state for if he had he would have begot children since that through his entire perfection he could misse of no end in any of his actions who not participating of original sinne would in like manner have continued their race to this day and have remained in Paradice but finding that no such Paradice can at present be discovered upon earth and that all the best parts of the earth are known we may justly inferre the probability of the fore-stated conclusion Possibly you may object That Paradise is in another material world as supposing every Star to be a world I answer That your objection is absurd and hath no apparent foundation as I have proved in my Physicks The same reasons do also shew the absurdity of that blasphemous opinion touching Pra-Adamites and co-Adamites VI. There was no action or pleasure if immediately proceeding from the soul wherein man could erre because the soul having a resemblance to the Divine Nature had
observe that nature is the Seal and Impression of Gods Will and Omnipotence upon every being through which they are that which they are Hence Nature is called the Hand of God Hence it is also called the Order and universal Government among all natural beings through which one being doth depend upon the other and is useful and necessary to the other This is evident in many moving living Creatures as most Cattel whose dependance and Preservation is from and through Vegetables as from Herbs their 's again is from the juyce of the earth and that from a mixture of all the Elements The same subordinate use and good is also observed among all other beings in the world Hence nature is called the strength and vertue of a being for their strength and vertue is nothing else but an actual disposition and propension in beings In this sense we say the nature of fire is to levitate of earth to gravitate IV. I did rather chuse to say a natural being then a natural body for to avoid an improperty of speech because a body is properly and ordinarily taken for matter and so we usually say that man consisteth of a Soul and body and that a natural being consisteth of a form and body or matter Neither is it a motive rather for to say a natural body then a natural being because a being is of too large an extent for a being is restricted from that Latitude of signification by adding natural V. After the exposition of this Definition of nature it will not be amiss to compare that of Aristotles to it Nature is the Principle of Motion and rest of a being wherein it is existent through it self and not by accident It was the Opinion of Aristotle that nature was a substance and nevertheless here he seemeth to make an Accident of it for that which acteth immediately through it self is not a substance but an Accident because according to his dictates a substance doth not act immediately through it self but through its accidents if then a natural being acteth through its nature that is its Matter and Form then nature must be an accident and consequently matter and form are also accidents which he did in no wise intend 2. Suppose that nature were a substance it would be absurd to assert that a natural being did act through a substance of rest and motion which doth inhere in it self for then there would be a penetration of bodies and an Identification of Subsistencies You may reply That nature is not a substance of motion and rest but a substantial Principle Pray what is a substantial Principle but a substance 3. It is plainly against the Principles of Aristotle to say that a Principle is no substance for Matter and Form are Principles but these he granteth to be substances 4. If again granted that these are substances and not vertues then it must necessarily follow that a Form being an active Principle doth act through it self and thence a Form is called active It must also follow that Matter which is another Principle of motion acteth efficiently withal because motion proceedeth from an Efficient or from a Form and wherefore is Matter then called a passive Principle Your Answer to this will be that Matter is not the Principle of Motion but of Rest. I take your Answer but what kind of rest do you mean Is it a rest from local Motion or a rest from Alteration or Augmentation It must be a rest from some of these three It cannot be a rest from local motion because all beings are not capable of a rest from local motion then it must be a rest from alteration or augmentation Neither can it be a rest from any of these For all beings are constantly and at all times in alteration and consequently are either augmented or diminished What rest can it then be It is no rest from Action for then matter could be no Principle or cause for all causes do act 5. How can Matter and Form which are Principles before their union be substances since that a substance is a perfect being which doth subsist in unity through it self and thereby is distinct from all other beings but matter or form can neither of them subsist through themselves or have any unity or distinction 6. A Form is not a Principle of rest in all natural bodies through it self but by accident for all bodies are through themselves continually in motion as will further appear in its proper place VI. Wherefore for to avoid all these Absurdities Contradictions and Improperties of Speech it is necessary to assert 1. That Nature is a Property of a natural being through which it acteth 2. That a Property is really Identificated with its subject and consequently that Natural is not really differing from a natural body This property denotes a propension or actual disposition through which the said body is rendred active By activeness I understand whereby all is constituted whatever is actually inherent in a being as Existence Subsistence and all its other Properties so that Nature or Natural in Physicks is a Property equivalent to the Modes or Attributes of Truth and Goodness in Metaphysicks VII Nature differeth from Art in that she acteth conformably to the Divine Idea or Intention but Art acteth conformably to the intellectual Idea Wherefore nature is infallibly immutable constant perpetual certain because it dependeth from an infallible immutable constant perpetual and certain Cause but Art is fallible changeable inconstant and uncertain because it dependeth from the humane Intellect which is fallible changeable inconstant and uncertain As man is uncapable of acting without God so is Art incapable of effecting any thing without Nature Nature is infinitely beyond Art What Art is there which can produce the great world or any thing comparable to the little world Whatever excellent piece a man doth practise through Art it is no further excellent then it is like unto Nature neither can he work any thing by Art but what hath nature for its Pattern What is it a Limner can draw worthy of a mans sight if natural beauties are set aside VIII Whatever nature acteth it is for an End and Use It is for an end in respect to God who created all things for an end it is for an use in respect to one another because all beings are useful to one another as I have formerly demonstrated but we cannot properly say that all things act for an end in respect to one another because that which doth act for an end is moved by that end and doth foreknow it but natural beings do not foreknow their ends neither are they moved by them IX Nature is either universal or singular An universal nature may be apprehended in a twofold sense 1. For the Universe or whole world containing all singular natures within it 2. For a nature which is in an universal being and so you are to take it here A Singular nature is which is inherent in every
from the proportion of Crassitude or Tenuity of the body reflecting causes a greenish light and if it be more transparent the splendor appears grayish 4. When fire is intended by addition of new degrees of external fire and so moves more forcibly towards the Circumference its name may aptly be implied by a tendency to Combustion I have formerly asserted that Coction was a tendency to Generation wherefore Order and Method require from me at present that I should illustrate the Nature of Generation and Corruption both which in a strict sense are the termini ad quem and end of Coction and Putrefaction X. Generation in a large sense imports the constitution or Production of a mixt being but since that all generated beings are in a continual motion it is strictly attributed to the middle term or a term of reflection as I may call it where the exceeding quality doth augment its force afterwards insensibly and sensibly decreasing Notwithstanding a mixt body at its first production is an entire mixt body although it is not yet arrived to its full extension of parts An Infant is as much a man as a Giant or is as perfect a mixt body consisting of matter and form as the same Giant Here I fall into a doubt whether the seed of a Plant or Animal is essentially distinct from a young Sprig or Plant or a new-born Animal Is there any more difference between a Seed and its germined body then between an Infant and a man What is a man but an Infant thrust out into length breadth and depth And so what is a young Plant but its seed protruded into all dimensions We say an Infant is a man because it bears all the Figures and Shape and acts rudely the same actions which a man doth Doth not the Seed within its Pellicle bear all the marks shape figures and exerciseth the same actions rudely that a Plant doth Doth it not attract retain concoct and expel in the same manner as a Plant Is there any substance or new quality advened to it and essentially joyned to its Minims To this Opinion I find Hipp. Lib. de Diat Galen Lib. 1. de Sem. Cap. 7. Argenter Lib. de art par tit de Temper Zabarel de anim fac ult Cap. 11. Picolhomin Lib. 1. Praelect Anat. 1. Prael Jonbert Licet and many others consenting You have this Controversie discussed more at large by that painful Collector of Collections Sennert in his Hypom Phys. Authors assert strongly that nothing can be computed to the number of Efficients of generation unless it be hot where if they do not find a particular hot Efficient they accur to an universal one the Suns efficiency or other Astral Influences Pray let them answer me By what Efficient many mixt bodies as plants Bears and others are generated in the Winter in Greenland which that they are is undoubted to many but supposing them to be generated in the Summer which is colder then our coldest winter they cannot comprehend the Suns heat for an extrinsick Efficient because the cold doth by far exceed the heat in those Countries as appeares by the great Islands of Ice wherefore the efficiency is rather to be imputed to an acute cold which through its acute weight doth divide and spread the included heat into the parts I do not deny but that there is an admitted Efficient in the juyce and food which they do suck in and ingest into their bodies which here as in all other coctions stirs up and diducts the innate heat and being adunited to it strengthens and augments the same But I pass by this to what is more plain Ice and many bodies generated thereon as stones c. are mixt bodies and is it the heat of the Sun that doth effect these Ergo Cold with the other qualities are equally to be stated Efficients XI Before I take my leave of this Subject I must discuss one Controversie more whether the innate heat be not indued with a power of changing extrinsick heat being admitted within the quantity of the containing body into its own nature and to convert it into innate heat On the one side we might judge it impossible that so little heat as is contained within the Seed of a Vegetable should be sufficient to perduce a Tree to that great bigness which many are of and continue so for many years On the other side Authors do unanimously conclude that the innate heat is destitute of such a vertue and that the heat advened to it is an influent and admitted heat essentially differing from it the one being of a celestial origin the other of an elementary Arist. Lib. 2. de Gener. Animal Cap. 3. declares his Judgment upon this matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For in the Seed of all things there is that contained which makes them to be fruitful to wit that which we call heat Neither is it fire nor any such faculty but a Spirit which is contained in the Seed and in the spumous body and the nature which in the spirit is respondent to the Element of the Stars And a little further he repeats his mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is evident that the heat in Animals is neither fire nor any thing arising from fire If then it is according to the mind of Arist. to state the innate heat to be Astral and the influent heat to be elementary there must intercede a quidditative difference between them and consequently being of so distant natures the one cannot beget the other Before I conclude it will not be amiss to enquire what they intend by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Innate heat Galen Lib. advers Ly. writes that the innate heat is a body whence most Authors make a distinction between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 caliditas heat and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hot the former importing a nude quality the latter a body This body is constituted out of a primogeneous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Moysture Celestial heat and insited Spirits according to which Fernel Lib. 4. Physiol Cap. 6. sets down this definition Innate heat calidum innatum is the primogeneous moysture perfused throughout all parts with an insited spirit and heat But why ought this mixture not rather to be denominated a primogeneous moysture from the substance then innate heat from the quality since that a substance is counted to be more noble then an Accident 2. What difference is there between an insited spirit and innate heat Certainly none a spirit consisting of heat and moysture and so doth the other Or if you make a difference between them you are like to fall into an errour for if a spirit be a compleat substance as all Philosophers do grant and that be united to another substance namely a primogeneous Moysture they must constitute a Totuns per Accidens but none will assert the innate heat to be a totuns per Accidens Ergo. 3. I find a variance among them in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 connate
and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 innate some taking them for one others limiting 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to heat that is only proper to living creatures and applying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to heat that is common to all mixt bodies and is subjected to Putrefaction as if connate heat were not subjected to Putrefaction as well as the innate Doth not the connate heat of man suffer putrefaction in a Hectick Feaver You may further read of a fourfold difference of innate heat in Argenter his Treatise of the innate heat 1. I conclude that the connate heat is elementary and not astral I prove it There was connate heat before the Stars were created ergo its Original was not thence The Antecedence is plain from Scripture Gen. 1. for there it appeares that Herbs which questionless were actuated by connate heat were created the third day whereas the Stars were not created before the fourth day 2. Where the effects and operations are alike there the causes cannot be unlike but the effects and operations of Astral heat are no others then of Elementary ergo although I granted it to be Astral it must also be elementary 2. Innate heat is said to be a spirit because its rarest substance is adunited to the least bodies of the other Elements whereby it is fortified and becomes more potent and is constituted a most subtil moveable body The purest and most potent spirits are about the Center they next to them are not so subtil others yet more remote are grosser 3. The connate heat hath a power of converting influent heat into the same nature it self is of I prove it Hippocrates teacheth that the maternal bloud and the sperm are perfused with innate heat if then advenient bloud can be united to primogeneal bloud ergo influent heat may be united to the innate heat and converted into the same nature 2. Flesh contains a part of connate heat in it but cut off a piece of flesh and Nature will restore it again if restore it again then innate heat must be restored with it if so then this innate heat must be generated out of the bloud by the innate heat of the next adjacent parts 4. Childrens teeth are regenerable but teeth contain innate heat in them ergo innate heat is regenerable 5. That which the fore-quoted Opinion stated a putrefactible innate heat is a volatick and moveable heat which not being subtil enough to be united to the fixt or connate heat is protruded to the external parts and is subjected to putrefaction so that in the body of man the food that is daily ingested its subtilest part serveth to be converted into innate heat and to be substituted into the room of the last consumed innate heat The courser parts are converted into moving and external heats By Heats Calida understand hot Particles 6. How is it possible that so little innate heat as is contained within a Dram or two of Sperm should be sufficient to heat the body of a big man XII Corruption is the dissolution of a mixt body into the Elements or into other bodies more resembling the elements then it The Cause of Corruption as I said before is the greatest putrid alteration whereby the innate heat is violently dissolved In Putrefaction the moving heat alone is altered which is reducible but if it continues to a great putrefaction then the innate heat suffers danger and is yet likewise reducible but if the greatest putrefaction seizeth upon a body then the innate heat is strongly putrified and is rendered irreducible because through it the greatest part of the innate heat is corrupted which to expel the remaining innate heat finds it self too impotent But if only a less part be corrupted and the greater abide in power it may overcome the other and reduce it self Hence a reason may be given why many men having been oft seized upon by Feavers yet have been cured and their innate heat is become more vigorous then ever it was yea some live the longer for it The reason is because in most curable Feavers the moving spirits alone are affected neither doth the Alteration reach so deep as greatly to disturb the innate heat but oft times the body being foul and the bloud altered by peregrine humours the body is cleansed and by its fermenting and expelling heat the bloud is freed from these noxious humours after which the primogenious heat is less oppressed and acts more naturally then before through which life is prolonged Here we may answer fundamentally to that so frequently ventilated doubt whether life may be prolonged to an eval duration Paracelsus and many of his Sectators do maintain it affirmatively to whom three hundred years seemed but a slight and short age and in stead of it promising a Life of Nestor to those as would make use of his Arcana Mysterious Medicines yea a life to endure to the Resurrection But these are but Fables and Flashes for since that a man is unequally mixt and that one Element doth overtop the other questionless the predominant element will prove a necessary cause of the dissolution of that Mixtum but was a man tempered ad pondus equally and as Galen hath it tota per tota his Nature would become eval all the Elements being in him composed to an equal strength in an equal proportion If then otherwise the radical heat and moysture do sensibly diminish certainly old age or gray haires cannot be prevented Possibly you may imagine a Medicine the which having a vertue of retarding the motion of the vital heat must of necessity prolong its life in the same manner as I have read in some Author I cannot call to mind which a Candle hath been preserved burning for many years without the adding of Moysture to it by being placed in a close and cold Cave deep under ground Here if true a flame was retarded in its motion by the constringent cold of the earth and thereby the Tallow was saved by being but a very little dissipated through the motion of the fire I say then could the natural heat be retarded by such a constrictive medecine as to catochizate it and hinder its motion life might be protracted to some hundreds of yeares But again then a man could not be suffered to eat or drink in that case because that must necessarily stirre up the heat which excited if it were not then ventilated by the substracting the forementioned constrictive Medecine whereby it might dissipate the acceding moisture must incur into danger of extinction But this prolongation of life pretended by Theophrast Par. is attempted by hot Medecines such as they say do comfort and restore the natural Balsom of man which is so far from retarding old Age that it rather doth accelerate it for if the heat is augmented then certainly it must acquire a stronger force whereby it procures a swifter declination as hath been shewed Besides Experience confirms this to us Many having accustomed themselves to take a Dram
of Magnitude or sometimes of the universal Center 4. None but the whole body of the Elements do tend to or strive for the universal Center but particular or mixt bodies for their own particular Center as you may read further in the Chapter of Local Motions II. The earth is and must necessarily be the Center of the world or of all the other Elements within which it is contained like the Yolk of an Egge within the White and the Shell I prove the Proposition If the nature of Earth be to move conically from the Circumference to its own Center through a contiguous gravity and the nature of Air Fire be to be equally diffused from the center through their levity ergo the earth must needs fall to the midst of them all its parts tending circularly and conically to their Center The earth being arrived to the center it resteth quiet and unmoveable the Reason you shall know by and by Return back to the explanation of the manner of the dissolution of the Chaos which cannot but demonstrate the evidence of this Point to you Nevertheless let us consider that old Phansie of Pythagoras Plato Aristarchus Seleucus Niceta and others upon this Matter revived by Copernicus in the preceding Centenary and weigh its probability 1. He imagineth the fixed Stars and their Region to be the extremity of the world and both to be immoveable 2. That the Figure of that Region doth appear to us to be circular but for what we know our Sense may be deceived 3. That the Sun is the Center of the aspectable world being immoveable as to its ex ernal place notwithstanding since through help of the Telescopium is observed by the discerning of the motion of its Spots to change his face about although still remaining in the same external place its own Axis in 27 daies 4. Between these two immoveables the Planets are said to move and among them viz. between Mars and Venus the Earth is imagined as a Planet to move about the Sun and to absolve her Circuit in twelve Moneths 5. That the Moon is seated between the Earth and Venus and is thought to move through its own particular motion about the earth between that space which there is granted to be between her and Venus and between her and Mars Besides the Moon doth also move with the Earth as if she were her Page about the Sun absolving her course much about the same time In like manner are the four Stars first discovered through a Telescopium by Galilaeus said to follow the motion of Jupiter and to move with it about the Sun in twelve years there being besides another motion adscribed to them whereby they move about the Same Jupiter between the space which is between it and Saturn and between it and Mars the innermost whereof absolves its course about it in a day and a quarter the next in three daies and a half the third in three daies and four houres the last in sixteen daies and eight houres besides these they have found out by the help of the said Telescopium Stars which are Concomitants to each Planet 6. That the space between Saturn and the fixed stars is almost immense That the Region of the fixed stars is immoveable he takes for granted without giving any probable proof for it for which notwithstanding may be urged Omne mobile fit super immobili that all moveables do move upon an immoveable which if granted doth not inferre that therefore the Region of the fixed starres must be immoveable since he hath stated one immoveable already namely the Sunne what need is there then of more Further if we do grant two universal immoveables we must also grant two universal contrary motions whereof the one is moved upon one immoveable the other upon the second but the universal diurnal motion of the stars we see is one and the same ergo but one universal immoveable is necessary Lastly He cannot prove it by any sense only that it must be so because it agrees with his supposition and what proof is that to another The holy words in Eccles. do further disprove his position where it is said that God moved the Heavens about within the compass of his Glory His second Position denotes him no great Naturalist The third Position infers the Sun to be the immoveable Center of the world 1. This doth manifestly contradict Scripture which doth oft make mention of the Suns rising and going down And in Isaiah 38. 8. the Sun is said to have returned ten degrees back And in another place Let not the Sun move against Galbaon 2. The Sun is accounted by most and proved by us to be a fiery body or a flame and therefore is uncapable of attaining to rest in a restless Region which if it did its flame would soon diminish through the continual rushing by of the fiery Element tearing its flames into a thousand parts whose effects would certainly prove destructive to the whole Universe but especially to all living Creatures 3. Were the Sun immoveable and enjoying its rest ergo that rest must either be a violent detention or a natural rest not the first because that could not be durable or what can there be thought potent enough to detain that vast and most powerful body of the Sun for that must also be sensibly demonstrated and cleared otherwise you do nothing Neither can it be the latter for were it natural it must not only have a natural principle of rest but also be contained in a vacuum or else in a Region whose parts have likewise attained to a natural rest through the enjoying of their Center It is a property of a Center to be as a point in comparison to the Circumference but nothing can be contracted to a point but Earth and water as I have shewed above whereas according to their own confession the Sun is a vast great body and its Beams spreading and dilating ergo it must be only Earth and Water Now what sign of predominance of Earth and Water is there apparent in the Sun for were it so the Sun would shew black and give no light The Moon is liker if any to be the Center it consisting by far of more earth then the Sun as her minority in body motion and degree of brightness do testifie Lastly Is it not more probable that our sight should hallucinate or be deceived in judging the Sun not to move then in judging it to move all Astronomical Phaenomena's being so consentaneous to this latter Judgment Besides how is it possible for us to judge whether the Sun doth move or rest since that according to this supposition we are carried about with that swiftness By the same reason we may doubt of the motion of all the other Planets The fourth Position concludes a most rapid motion of the earth What principle of motion can the earth consist of Of none certainly but of fire and air which are admitted into her body in
a bason filled with ashes will scarce contain four fifths of the water that it will do when it is empty As for the water that is imbibed by the ashes it possesses the spaces left by the air contained before between the particles of the said ashes and now thence expelled 2. Warm water stopt close in a bottle doth possess more room than when being set in a cold place it is concreased into an Ice Ergo there must be some void space left within the bottle I answer That the supposed vacuity is filled up with frosty minims whose presence expelling the air and fire from between the Pores of the water doth withall reduce it to a smaller body as being before insufflated with air and fire But when the same frosty minims do return then the air and fire do fill up their vacuities again by insufflating the body of water through their succession 3. An AEolipile being filled up with water and air doth notwithstanding slow as much fire as will cause its wind to blaze a whole hour or longer according to the bigness of it Ergo there must have been a Vacuum contained within the wind bale or else we must admit a penetration of bodies by condensation I answer That neither is necessary for the advenient fire expels so much of the contained air as its presence doth take up diducts the body of the AEolipile somwhat into a larger continent wherein a greater part of fire may be contained than there is air expelled Pecquet in his Exper. Nov. Anat. hath endeavoured to borrow all experiments possible for to divide the Universe with a Vacuum and so to abolish the Natures of the Elements I shall only propose the first which he hath from Monsieur Roberval Professor of the Mathematicks at Paris and is alone performed by a glass blown in the form of a bolts head open below and atop at its capacity where it contains an empty bladder that is usually taken out of a Carpes belly being tied close with a thread as likewise the top of the capacity with a Sows bladder This done it is filled up to the brim of the orifice of the neck with Mercury which being close stopped with ones finger is immitted into a vessel half filled with Mercury and thrust deep into it where the finger is to be withdrawn Hereupon follows the descent of the Mercury as low as half way the Pipe and the bladder is puft up Hence he deduces a Vacuum between the rarefied parts of the air blowing up the bladder contained within the empty capacity What a gross mistake is this First He must know as I shall prove by and by that it is the air that presseth the Mercury down for whatever is moved Locally is moved by an extrinsick agent Secondly He doth against reason and experience state the rarefaction of some air But whence came that air There was none whilst it was filled up with the Mercury ergo it must have pierced through the pores of the Glass If so what needs he admit only a smal quantity which he supposeth to be rarefied after its ingress by an elaterick vertue since a greater may as easily pass and why then a Vacuum Wherefore I say he must necessarily grant some air to pass the pores for to blow up the bladder besides I prove that it is easie for the air to pass through the pores of Glass because we see light doth easily pass the thickest Glass but light is the air illuminated or obtended as I have proved before ergo That Glass is pierced through with subtil pores is evident a little before it beginneth to concrease or indurate after its melting Moreover we see that the liquor it self of Aquà Fort. being poured upon the filing of Brass penetrates through the pores of a thick precipitating Glass The same is observed about the Glass at the â—ffusion of oyl of Vitriol to oyl of Tartar but air is much more subtil than these Liquors Do we not observe the air to press by the spurring of fire through glasses of the greatest thickness For expose a thick glass of water to the fire and you may observe it to be raised into millions of bubbles when it begins to siethe which is nothing else but the air forced through the pores of the Glass by the fire In fine there is nothing that is imperforated by pores except water and air in their absolute state I omit the rest of his borrowed experiments and shall only insert two words touching the conclusion inferred from the pomping of the air out of a large round Glass Receiver in that manner as you have it proposed by Casper Scott which they conclude must afterwards remain void on the contrary it is rather more filled by air attracted from without and impacted so closs that the pores of the glass seem to be filled and insufflated with it as appears by the venting of the Receiver so pomped into a vessel of cold water where it causeth a very great commotion and siething by the air bursting out certainly this is different from pomping the Receiver empty or thus they may pretend a Vacuum because there is more air attracted into the Receiver than it contained before ergo there must either a penetration of bodies be allowed or a Vacuum To this I need propose no other answer for solution than what I gave for the solution of the eruption of air out of an AEolipile How or in what manner air is attracted into the said Receiver by this Magdenburg experiment you shall read in the next Chapter As for other Arguments they being as vacuous as Vacuum it self I shall neglect the mentioning of them IV. But the Jesuitical Philosophers do further propose to themselves whether a Vacuum could not be effected by an Angelical power or if not by Angels whether by the Divine Power This is as like them as if it were spit out of their mouths Those vile Impostors and the devils Saints will name God Almighty and notwithstanding to his face doubt of his power in so mean a thing as a Vacuum is what if God can destroy the Elements intirely cannot he displace them partially Angels I confess cannot effect it naturally and ordinarily although extraordinarily being virtuated with an extraordinary power from God they may V. Next they rommage whether Local Motion be possible in a Vacuum and if it be whether it must not happen in an instant I shall not weary my self to produce their opinions but only appose what reason doth direct me But let us first state the question right The Problem may be understood in a threefold sense 1. Whether a Local Motion be possible in a Vacuum as through a Medium through which a body being locally moved passeth taking its beginning of progress from without the said Vacuum 2. Whether a body can take its beginning of motion outwards from a Vacuum 3. Whether a spiritual substance obtains the power of moving it self locally in a Vacuum
of the Siphon and the internal pussing up of the water within the Siphon do testifie II. Another kind of Attraction not unlike to this is observable in boyes their sucking Leathers being wetted and clapt flat upon a stone and afterwards drawn up with a packthread fastned in it attracts the stone with it The cause is alone the continuous cohesion of the water to the stone defending it self from the disruption of the air the which as soon as breaking through occasions the separation of the Leather from the stone III. Two smooth flat equal Marble stones clapt close one upon the other the uppermost attracts the lowermost if equally lifted up from their Center by a ring fastned to it because of the air through its continuity sticking fast to the lowermost and the undermost stones but if disrupted through an unequal lifting the lowermost stone falls In the same manner doth a plain board cast upon the water attract it into a Rising when lifted up by the central part IV. A Wine-Coopers Pipe attracts Wine out of the bung-hole of a Cask The Pipe is somewhat long and narrower towards the bottom and the top but wider in the middle which thrust open at both ends into a Cask full of Wine through the Bung-hole and afterwards applying one 's Thum close to the hole atop may attract a competent quantity of Wine out of the Vessel which with the opening of the upper hole runs out again But methinks that this and the forementioned attractions might rather be termed cohesions or detensions since that which doth attract is the extrinsick attractor viz. ones arm The cause of its attraction is the immission of the Pipe into the Cask to a certain depth where the air being excluded from it and closed with your Thumb you will find a drawing or sucking to your Thumb which is nothing else but the weight of the Wine pressed downwards and notwithstanding cleaving fast to the continuity of your Thumb which being continuous and obtuse doth sustain the liquor continuated to it whereas were it subtil that it could give way as the free air it would not be contained so But suppose you thrusted a Beaker with the mouth downwards under water and stopt a small hole made on the bottom of it with your Thumb the water would not keep in there because the air would enter underneath through which the parts of the water would be disunited and so desert the supposed cohesion of parts why the Wine descends at the opening of the upper hole is through the impulse of the air entring V. The sucking of water through a Reed by the mouth is effected by causing a flat closs cohesion of your Tongue and lips with the continuous parts of water or air for what is contiguous cannot be suckt unless by means of its inherency in continuous bodies because its parts are unapt to cohere To all these kinds of cohesions or adhesions the closeness of sides of those external bodies that cohere together through the internal cohesion of air doth mainly contribute by keeping off the discontinuating air as the closeness of the sucking leather sticking of the two Marble stones of the sides of the Wine-Coopers Pipe of the Lips in sucking c. VI. A Sucker otherwise called a Siphon being a Pipe consisting of two arms of an unequal length meeting in a curvilineal Angle attracts water out of a Vessel untill it be all run out provided it be set running by sucking the water down to the lowermost part of the longer arm being placed without the said Vessel This instance gives us a plain demonstration that attraction is caused by the means of the cohesion of continuous parts to other continuous ones especially if separated through a close Cane from dividing bodies as the air and by the same cause kept close together for water as I said before will alwaies through its weight and continuity cohere and keep close to its next central parts and never separates unless through a disunion by the air or other bodies Hence it is also that water is easily led to any height if impelled by any force through a close Pipe or by a Sucker But why water contained within the shorter arm should yield to water contained within the longer may justly be doubted The reason is because the water contained within the longer Pipe being more in quantity is heavier than the other and therefore prevails and is more disposed for to be pressed downwards But then you might reply That the water of the shorter Pipe is assisted in weight by the other proportion contained within the capacity of the Vessel I answer That the water of the shorter arm is impelled forward through the pressure of the said water contained within the capacity of the Vessel But not through its own gravity pressing downward towards the Center of the world for every proportion of water as I said before retaining the nature of their universal Element only strives for to maintain its own center and therefore water if enjoying a center within its own Circumference wherever it be doth not press or weigh but strives to maintain its nature in rest But that which doth cause a force upon water downwards in the Vessel is the strong sinking down of the air tending downwards for its Center For otherwise water in a Vessel would contain it self in a round figure which it cannot because it is reduced to a flatness by the sinking air VII Attraction by Filtration is performed by causing one end of a piece of Flannell or other wollen cloath to hang into any Liquor over the brim of the containing Vessel and the other end into an empty one whereby the light parts of the water ascend up the cloath and distill into the other Vessel This is effected by separating the thick parts of water and rarefying it through the labels subtil fibres whence the other heavy parts of the water by descending downwards and being pressed by the air do over-press its subtiler and aerial parts upwards the grosser and heavier remaining behind By this it appears that Filtration and other kinds of Attraction already mentioned are not so much Attractions as violent Expulsions As the water of a Sucker will not run out unless the longer arm exceeds the depth of the water in length so neither will water attracted by a filter distill down into the empty vessel unless the distilling Label be lower than the water contained within the other Vessel for the same reason VIII Attraction effected by Amber or other Bituminous bodies otherwise called Electrical attraction depends on emanations or continuous steams emitted from Amber especially if rubbed consisting of incrassated air and fire being impelled circularly untill where they are gathered by a continuous body which if light do return with those emanations upwards for the said emanations being diducted expansive and light are by the weighty comparativè vapourous air of this lower Region striving to keep their nearness to the center squeezed
Surface VIII Why doth the Herb of the Sun vulgarly called Chrysantemum Peruvianum or Crowfoot of Peru because its Leaves and Flowers resemble those of our Crowfoot turn the faces of its Leaves and Flowers about with the Sun Answ. Because the Sun through its igneous Beames doth rarefie that side of the Leaves and Flowers which is obverted to it whereby he doth expel their continuous streames whose egress doth attract or incline them that way whither they are expelled in the same manner as we have explained the Attraction of the Loadstone IX Why is the Laurel seldom or never struck by Lightning Answ. Because it is circumvested with a thick slimy Moysture which doth easily shove or slide off the Glance of a Lightning CHAP. II. Containing Problemes relating to Water 1. Why is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water 2. Whence is it there fals a kind of small Rain every day at noon under the AEquinoctial Region 3. How Glass is made 4. Whence it is that so great a Mole as a Ship yields to be turned by so small a thing as her Rudder 5. What the cause of a Ships swimming upon the water is 6. Whether all hard waterish bodies are freed from fire I. VVHy is red hot Iron rendered harder by being quencht in cold water Answ. Because the water doth suddenly pierce into the Pores of iron being now open and violently expel the fire and air both which as we have shewed in B. 1. Part 2. are the sole Causes of the softness of a body and being expelled leave the same indurated by the weighty Elements pressing more forcibly and harder to their Center II. Whence is it that there fals a kind of small Rain every day from 11 or 12 of the Clock to 2 or 3 in the Afternoon under the AEquinoctial Region Answ. The Sun at his Rising and Descending doth through his oblique Rayes excite a multitude of small vapours which through the privative coldness of the air in the night are concreased into small clouds but reduced into drops of rain through the Suns rarefaction or fiery minims when he is perpendicularly imminent upon them III. How is Glass made Answ. The matter of ordinary Glass is generally known to be Ashes or Chalck burnt out of stones or both The Venice Glasses differing from others in clearness and transparency are made out of chalck burnt out of stones which they fetch from Pavia by the River Ficinum and the ashes of the weed Kall growing in the deserts of Arabia between Alexandria and Rossetta which the Arabians make use of for fuell In the first Book second Part I have told you how a body was reduced into ashes through the expulsion of its thinner glutinous moisture by the vibrating fiery minims The same fire being intended doth through its greater violence enter mollifie diduct and thence melt and equallize the courser thick remaining glutinous moisture by its own presence together with the air which it imports along with it whereby the Terrestial minims that were before clotted are exactly and equally spread throughout the foresaid thick glutinous moisture The fire and air being only admitted from without not incorporated with the said bodies through want of a matrix because they being in that extream overpowring quantity that they may as easily free themselves from the said body as they entered are expelled again as soon as they are exposed to the cold ambient air and so desert the body leaving it glib smooth continuously hard friable rigid and transparent So that it appears hence that Glass is nothing but water reduced nearer to its absolute nature which we have shewed is hard and clear by freeing it from the thin glutinous moisture or air and fire incorporated with a small proportion of water through barning its first subject into ashes and afterwards by uniting diducting and equallizing its own parts contained in the ashes By the forementioned thick or course glutinous moisture I intend a mixture of much water incorporated with a little earth and least air and fire That Glass is water nearer reduced to its absolute nature I shall prove by its properties 1. That glib smoothness of Glass depends upon the continuity of the parts of water necessarily accompanied by a glib smoothness because it doth not consist of any contiguous rough minims 2. It is continuously hard because water of her absolute nature is continuously hard 3. It is friable because the water is throughout divided by the minims of earth which render it so brittle and rigid whereas were it all water it would be harder than any stone It is transparent because it is but little condensed by earth whose condensation renders all bodies obscure 2. Because it is luminous that is apt to receive the lumen from any lucid body as being throughout porous through which it is rendred capable of harbouring the obtended air Glass is distinguisht from Crystallin hardness and transparency because this latter appropriates more of water in her absolute state and less of earth IV. Whence is it that so great a mole as a Ship yields so readily in turning or winding to so small a thing as a Rudder This Problem will make plain that an impulse is intended by a medium or deferens A Ship swimming in the water and being impelled by the wind or a board-hook raiseth the water into a tumour before at her bowes which is violently impelled what by the air lifted up by the tumour what by her own bent to recover that place behind at the stern whence it was first propelled and where you shall alwaies observe a hollowness in the water proportionable to her rising before and therefore as you may see runs swiftly about both the sides and meeting in both the streams abaft doth propel the Ship forward by a reflection and this you may also perceive in taking notice of that most eager meeting of the streams of water from both sides behind at the Rudder which being removed to either side viz. To Star-boord or Lar-boord side directs the Ship towards the sides because the force of the water in returning doth beat hard against that side of the Rudder which is obverted to her as resisting most and collecting her force is shoved towards the opposite side of the Stern whereby her head comes too to the other side whence we may plainly observe that a Ship doth not begin to turn before but alwaies abaft This I prove A Ship hitting her breech against the ground at Sea usually striketh abaft because she draweth more water there than before now the shoving of the Helm to the other side brings her off immediately and brings her head too which is a certain sign that a Ship is moved from abaft and begins first to turn there If it is so it is beyond doubting that the force of the water is forcible behind beyond imagination and thence adding that intention to the impulse V. What is the cause of the swimming of
most rational spirit p 88. 2. That Man by means of his first and second Light understood all beings perfectly in their proper natures as they were p. 89 3. That the first man did not sleep during his incorrupt estate ib. 4. That the first man did eat and drink ib. 5. That the first man would have generated in the same manner and through the same parts as he did afterwards but without that shame and sinfull lust That there were no co-Adamites The absurdity of that blasphemous opinion touching prae-Adamites ib. 6. That the first man was beyond danger of erring in any action proceeding from his soul. p. 90 7. A rational inquiry into the first sinne and knowledg of the first Commandment ib. 8. The manner of man's fall proved by reason His punishment for the breach of the first Commandment p. 91. 9. A further collection of man's pupunishment for his first sinne That a present unavoidable temporal death was part of man's punishment and not a present unavoidable eternal death ib. 10 That man after his fall was not become utterly evil p. 92. 11. An enumeration of the relicts of Good in man p. 93. CHAP. XVIII Of the manner of the Suppression Extinction Predominance and Triumph of the Habit of Good 1. The repetition of some of the principal principles of this Treatise 94. 2. What it is that hindreth the Habit of Good ib. 3. How the good Habit happens to be deaded and overcome by the evil habit How the good Habit happens to suppresse and vanquish the evil habit ib. 4. That we are apt to incline most to those things that are forbidden p. 95. 5. A proof inferring darkness to proceed from the prevalence of the corporeal appetite ib. 6. Why it is that a man must necessarily die The ground detected upon which the Papists were induced to state a Purgatory Their error rejected p. 96. 7. That the propertion of these two Habits is various in every individual subject ib. CHAP. XIX Of Original Sinne. 1. How it is possible for two contrary Habits to inhere in one subject 97. 2. The absurdities that follow this Assertion viz. That the evil habit inheres in the soul perse ib. 3. In what manner the Habit of good is taken to inhere per se in the soul. p. 98. 4. That God created every man theologically good Several Objections relating to the same assertion answered ib. 5. How the soul partaketh of the guilt of Original Sinne. The opinion of the Synod of Rochel upon this matter p. 99. c. CHAP. XX. Of the manner of Man's Multiplication 1. The state of the controversie 101. 2. That the Rational Soul is not generated or produced by generation That there are three kinds of productions out of nothing ib. 3. That the Soul is not propagated either from the Father or Mother ib. 102. 4. That impious opinion concluding the Rational Soul to be generated tanquam ex traduce confuted 103. 5. An Objection against the Authors opinion answered ib. 6. That the foetus before the advent of the Rational Soul is informated with a form analogal to a sentient form p. 104. 7. That God is the remote cause of man's generation ib. 8. That man doth generate man naturally and perse ib. 9. The opinion of Austin Jerome and others upon this matter p. 105. CHAP. XXI Of Practick Natural Faith 1. What a man is to consider to prevent his downfall p. 207. 2. Man's danger and folly the Devils policy A certain means whereby to be delivered from this imminent danger The whole mystery and summe of man's salvation ib. 108. 3. The main Question of this whole Treatise decided p. 109. 4. Scripture proofs accidentally proposed inferring implicit faith in a natural man to be justifying ib. 5. The general Rules of Practick faith p. 110 6. The occasion of man's fall briefly repeated ib. 7. Fifteen Reasons against all passions p. 111 112. 8. Arguments against all bodily pleasures p. 113. 9. The military discipline of a natural man instructing him to warre against all his enemies that oppose him in his way to his greatest happiness p. 114 115. 10. The greatest and most necessary rule of this military art A scandal taken off from Physicians p. 116. 11. Another great measure of the said Art p. 117. 12. Whence a natural man is to expect assistance in case he is weakned by his enemies p. 118. 13. Whether the soul expiring out of the body is to be an Angel or for ever to abide without office What the office of a separated soul is 119. 14. How long she is to continue in office The consummation and description of the change of the world The resurrection proved by reason The description of the second Paradise concluded by reason ib. 15. To what objects the faculties of men when possest of the second Paradise will extend That they shall remember and know one another That they shall eat and drink that they shall not generate that the same person who redeemed man from his misery shall reign over him in Paradise p. 120 121. CHAP. XXII Comprizing a brief account of the Religion of the Heathen Philosophers 1. Socrates his belief of God p. 122. 2. What God is according to Homer p. 123. 3. What Plato thought God to be ib. 4. Thales his saying of God ib. 5. Instances proving the Heathens to have known Gods Attributes particularly that Thales believed God's Omniscience and God's unchangeable Decrees ib 6. That Socrates asserted God's Omniscience Omnipotence his creating of the world in time his Iustice and Mercy God's Omnipresence ib. 7. The Articles of Plato 's Faith p. 124 125. 8. Aristotle 's Belief p. 126. 9. Virgil's opinion of divine things ib. 10. The divine Song of Orpheus p. 127. 11. Trismegistus upon the Creation of the world ib. 128. Natural Philosophy The SECOND PART The First Book CHAP. I. Of the Nature of Natural Philosophy 1. THe Etymology and Synonima's of Natural Philosophy p. 1. 2. The Definition of Natural Philosophy p. 2. 3. An Explanation of the said Definition ib. 4. What a Natural Being is ib. 5. What a Natural Essence is ib. 6. What Nature is ib. 7. The various Acceptions of Nature ib. CHAP. II. Comprehending an Explanation of the Definition of a Natural Being 1. What is meant by Disposition p. 3. 2. An Objection against the Definition of a Natural Being answered p. 4. 3. What it is to act according to Truth ib. 4. That the Subject of this Science is more properly named a natural Being than a natural Body ib. 5. Aristotles Definition of Nature rejected by several Arguments p. 5. 6. That Nature is a property of a natural Being p. 6. 7. The difference between Nature and Art ib. 8. That Nature in respect to God acteth constantly for an End p. 7. 9. The Division of Nature ib. CHAP. III. Of the Principles of a Natural Being 1. That Privation is no Principle of a Physical Generation or of a Physical Being That
mortalius what is more mortal than a Physitian but half experienced II. The first Schooles of Fame or Universities where Philosophy was publickly and orderly teached were two The Italian and Ionick Schooles The Italian or rather the Calabrian School was most renowned for Mathematicks and Ethicks where Pythagoras was Professor In the Ionian School Natural Philosophy and Astronomy were most professed by Anaximander a Scholar of Thales The Italian University encreased in fame by breeding of Renowned Disciples as Zeno Democritus Epicurus and others Anaximander's School was no less advanced by the Succession of Socrates the Prince of Philosophers and as the Oracle of Pythias stiles him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Socrates of all men the wisest And to give him his due he was the Ocean of all Humane and Divine Learning out of which scattered these four Sects Of Academicks Cynicks Peripateticks and Stoicks of whom may justly be pronounced that whatever Truth they had retained in their Doctrine it was derived from Divine Socrates whatever Falshood they taught was from their own Innovation and depravate Judgment The Academicks so called from their abode at the Academy or University next succeeded the doleful loss of great Socrates whereby they were exposed to the Innovations and erroneous Opinions of Plato an elder Scholar of Socrates Plato having finished his Course of Philosophy by an untimely Death put also a Period to the Sect which his Doctrine had raised and fomented and moved many to withdraw from the University giving their minds to wandring and divulging their Opinions or Dogmatical Dictates in their Travels Among which Aristotle was most taken notice of whose Scholars to wit which he had begot in his wandring were thence called Peripateticks or Wanderers which name his Scholars still retained although most of them received their Learning from him after his settlement in Lyceum a School not far distant from Athens or according to other in Athens The Scholars of greatest Note bred in Lyceum were Theophrastus who succeeded Aristotle and Pyrrhon the first Author of the Scepticks The Cynicks were so called from their Master Cynosarges whose Scholars were Diogenes the Cynick and Zeno whose Disciples afterwards were called Stoicks his Doctrine was for the most part Moral To these may be added two Sects more which these late years have produced to wit the Paracelsians and Cartesians The Bombastin Sect derived their Name from their Master Phil. Aur. Theophrast Paracelsus Bombast born at Bohenheim an obscure place in Germany whose Doctrine treated most of Natural Philosophy innovated by Principles drawn from the Fire hence he and his Followers are called Philosophi per Ignem Philosophers through the Fire 2. The Rotarians or Cartesians a Sect of the latest standing reaped their Discipline from Ren. Des Cartes a Frenchman whose Study was most Mathematical and Physical or rather a Mixture of a Pythagorean and Democritean Philosophy III. The principal Means which each of these Grandees made use of to procure a Repute and Fame to themselves were Invections against their Masters Dictates and phantastical Proposals of their own dasht over with a multitude of apparent Reasons and probable Arguments wherein they did not only shew their Ingratitude and vain Ambition but their Dishonesty to the world by commending Falsehoods under the shape of apparent Truths harnessed by their subtil Fallacies CHAP. IV. Of the Distribution of Philosophy in Parts 1. In what manner Philosophy contains its subjected Parts 2. How Objects move the Understanding by their first and immediate Representation 3. That the Supreme and Immediate Division of Philosophy is in Practick and Theoretick Knowledge 4. An Objection against the Subdivision of Practick and Theoretick Knowledge 5. How Knowledge is subdivided 6. That the Subdivision is adequate to all its Inferiour Parts 7. Why Practick and Theoretick Philosophy are not treated of separately as their Inferior Parts are 8. That the Common Quadripartion of Philosophy is too strict I. PHilosophy hath been defined and considered as a totum universalissimum comprehending all Sciences and Arts as a magis vel potius mexime universale more universal or rather a most universal containeth minus universalia less universals or also as in the manner of an totum Integrale entire integral Being a Countrey consisteth of Cities and Cities of Streets and Streets of singular Houses so is the entire Body of Philosophy constituted by its contained Parts II. The distinct Motion or Habit of an Object sub ratione universali formali to the Understanding specifieth the kinds of Knowledges an Object moves the Understanding ut primum movens through its first Motion in a twofold respect 1. As it is good 2. As it is pleasant and admirable As it is good it excites a desire and appetite to it in the Intellect For the understanding conceiving an Object to be good in that it judgeth the Objects Convenience and sutableness to it self and is naturally carried forth to that Object by which natural motion wrought first upon the animal Spirits in the Phansie it moves the other Spirits lodging in Nerves throughout the Body by drawing of them to that Object which it draweth it self unto To which Attraction the other Spirits are naturally obedient because they are a continuous Body or joyned in continuity and in the strongest coherence unto the first moving Spirits of the Phansie but of this more largely in its proper place This motion of the Mind upon the Phansie is called the Will As it is pleasant and admirable it moves the Understanding to its perserutation and Contemplation in a double manner 1. In a less universal more concrete and material manner in which Representation it constitutes Physicks or Natural Philosophy 2. In a more universal abstracted and immaterial manner which specifieth Metaphysicks III. Whence we may gather the supreme and immediate division of Knowledge as it is most universal and is Philosophy it self to be either Practick or Theoretick because Practick and Theoretick are the first and immediate Habits or Respects of Objects whereby they move the understanding Practick Knowledge is whereby the understanding is determined to Practise Practise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denotech the production either of a fluent or permanent work The production of a fluent work is called by the general name of Practise The production of a permanent work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the making of a work Theoretick Knowledge is whereby the understanding is only moved to Contemplation and is not determined to Practise IV. Against this partition of Knowledge may be Objected that Practise is not the Object of the understanding but of the will which by all Peripateticks is affirmed to be materially distinct from the Understanding Wherefore Knowledge being the Object of the understanding is only speculative and in no wise practick I grant the Premises but deny the Syllogism there being a Fallacia consequentiae hidden in it or particularly there is more contained in the Conclusion then was in the Premises Wherefore I judge it strange