Christ-mass day exercise many cruelties even upon little children and those who in our time confess that they have put on the shapes of Wolves Lyons Dogs and other Animals that they might exercise their cruelty upon Men with impunity For I am not of their mind who think such transformation is made by natural causes To which neither can that be attributed which the Scripture relates of Nebuchadonozor K. of Babylon who became an Ox and ate the grass of the field for the space of nine years and afterwards resum'd his former shape that the rods of the Aegyptian Magicians were turn'd into Serpents as well as that of Moses that Lot's Wife was chang'd into a Statue of Salt no more then the most fabulous metamorphoses of Niobe into stone Lycaon Demarchus and Moeris into Wolves the companions of Vlysses into sundry Animals by the Enchantress Circe those of Diomedes into Birds Apuleius into an Ass that an Aegyptian Lady became a Mare and was restor'd into her former shape by S. Macarius the Hermite as the Historian Vincent reports in his 18. Book Seeing a Rational Soul can not naturally animate the Body of a Wolf The least distemper of our Brain suffices to hinder the Soul from exercising its functions and can it exercise them in that of a Beast 'T is more credible that some evil Spirit supplies the place and acts the part of the Sorcerer who is soundly asleep in his Bed or in some other place apart from the commerce of Men. As it happen'd to the Father of Praestantius mention'd by St. Augustine in his Book De Civitate Dei who awaking out of a long and deep sleep imagin'd himself to have been turn'd into a Horse and carry'd provisions upon his back to Soulders which he obstinately believ'd though his Son assur'd him that he had not stirr'd out of bed Nevertheless the thing was verifi'd by witnesses but it was done by an evil Spirit who on the one side personated him abroad and on the other so strongly impressed those species upon his Phancy that he could not be disswaded from the error For otherwise how should the Sorcerer reduce his Body into so small a volumn as the form of a Rat Mouse Toad and other such Animals into which it sometimes is turn'd Now if it happens that the wound which the Devil receives under that form is found upon the same part of the Sorcerers Body this may be attributed to the action of the same evil Spirit who can easily leave his blow upon such part as he pleases of the Body which he possesses For want of which possession all his designes upon those whom he would injure become ineffectual notwithstanding the imposture of all their waxen Images But if 't is the Sorcerer himself that hath the form of a Wolf either he clothes himself in a Wolf's skin or else the Devil frames a like Body of Vapours and Exhalations and other materials which he knows how to choose and can gather together with which he involves the Sorcerer's Body and fits the same in such manner that the Eye of the Beast answers to that of the Man and so the other parts according to the measure requisite to represent a Wolf Or else that subtile Spirit deludes our Eyes The Second said If the Proverb be true That one Man is oftentimes a Wolf to another we need not recur to extraordinary causes to find Men-wolves Now the word Wolf is here taken for mischievous because the wealth of the first Ages consisting in Cattle they fear'd nothing so much as the Wolf As for the causes of this brutish malady whereby a Man imagines himself a Wolf or is so indeed they are of three sorts the biting of a mad Wolf the atrabilarious humour or the Imagination perverted It seemes at first very strange that a drop of foam entring into the flesh of a Man at an orifice made by the point of a tooth should have the power to convert all the humours into its own nature But seeing the stroke of a Scorpion which is not perceivable to the sight kills the strongest person that admiration ceases at the comparison of a thing no less marvellous For 't is no more wonder that the humour which issues from an Animal imprints its Image other where then that it kills an other When the foam drop'd from a mad Wolf produces its like with its furious spirits it doth nothing but what other animate bodies with other circumstances do Thus the kernel of the Pear or Apple which subverts our Senses call'd therefore malum insanum so well containes in power the Pear or Apple-tree which produc'd it that it reproduces another wholly alike yea the salt of Sage Marjoram Baum and some others being sown produces the like Plants without slip or seed The atrabilarious humour sending up black and glutinous fumes into the brains of melancholy people not onely make them to believe that the species represented thereby to them are as true as what they see indeed but impresse an invincible obstinacy in their Minds which is proof against all reasons to the contrary because Reason finds the Organs no longer rightly dispos'd to receive its dictates And if he who sees a stick bow'd in the water can hardly rectifie that crooked species in his Common Sense by reasons drawn from the Opticks which tell him that the visual ray seemes crooked by reason of the diversity of the medium how can he whose Reason is not free be undeceiv'd and believe that he is not a Wolf according to the species which are in his Phancy But can the Phancy alone do all this He who feign'd and frequently pretended that he was one-ey'd by the power of Imagination became so indeed and many others whom Phancy alone makes sick and the fear of dying kills sufficiently shew its power which causes that these distracted people perswading themselves that they are Wolves do the actions of Wolves tearing Men and Beasts and roaming about chiefly in the night which symbolizes with their Humours Not but that a fourth cause namely evil spirits interposes sometimes with those natural causes and particularly with that gloomy black Humuor which for that reason Saint Jerome calls Satan's bath The Third said That besides those causes the food taken from some parts of Aliments contributes much to hurt the Imagination of Men in such sort that they account themselves really brutes Thus a Maid of Breslaw in Silesia having eaten the brain of a Cat so strongly conceited her self a Cat that she ran after every Mouse that appear'd before her A Spaniard having eaten the brain of a Bear thought himself to be one Another that had very often drunk Goats milk fed upon grass like that Animal Another who had liv'd long upon Swines blood rowl'd himself in the mire as if he had been truly a Hogg And 't is held that especially the arterial blood of Animals as containing the purest of their Spirits produces such an effect But to believe
them by the underminings of the wicked and envious who are the greatest number then obtain new by performing as much good as he will either because they who are able to reward him are not always well inform'd thereof or because they want both the means and the will to do it Therefore although God would have us hope for Paradise yet he requires that we serve him in fear and draw neer to him with trembling So that the thing we most hope for eternal life mixing our hope with fear 't is not credible that any other thing is exempt from it Yet there are some fears without any hope Now the passion which acts powerfully alone is stronger then that which acts onely in the company of another The Second said That if the greatness of causes is to be judg'd by that of their effects that Passion must be strongest which leads us to the greatest attempts And so Hope will carry it above Fear since 't is that which makes a Souldier run up a breach and which hath induc'd so many illustrious men both ancient and modern to generous actions whereas Fear by its coldness chilling the spirits and penning them within renders them incapable of any action For all our actions depending on the dispositions of the spirits the instruments of all motions both Internal and External if these spirits be heated active and nimble as they are render'd by Hope then the Mind is boldly carry'd to the most difficult actions On the contrary if they be cool'd and fix'd by Fear then the soul finding her self enfeebled can do nothing but what is mean and pusillanimous The Third said To examine the power of Hope and Fear aright we must look upon them as two Champions who are to encounter But Fear already shews by the paleness of its Countenance that it wants Heart and yields to Hope which animates it self to the pursuite of the good it aims at by driving away all sort of Fear which would cause apprehension of obstacles and crosses opposing the enjoyment of that good Moreover Fear is contemptible and not found but in abject spirits whereas Hope resides in sublime souls where it produces actions worthy of its grandeur and original which is Heaven towards which men naturally lift their eyes in their adversities as Fear derives its original from below towards which it depresses the bodies and minds of those whom it possesses So that to compare Hope with Fear is to put Heaven in parallel with Earth The Fourth said That both these Passions belong to the Irascible Appetite both of them look to the future and are employ'd to surmount the difficulties which are presented to the Concupiscible Appetite Hope is the expectation of a good hard to be obtain'd yet apprehended possible It is found most frequently in young men because they live onely upon the future and 't is the Anchor of all unfortunate persons none of which are out of Hope of being deliver'd from their miseries 'T is Physick to all our evils never abandoning the most desperately sick so long as they breathe Yea 't is the refuge of all man-kind of what sex age or condition soever herein the more miserable in that being destitute of real good there remains no more for them but imaginary and phantastick Hence the Hebrews denote Hope and Folly by the same word Chesel The truth is as if the evils that oppress us were not numerous enough our souls frame and phancy infinite more through Fear which dreads as well that which is not as that which is being properly the Expectation of an approaching evil which gives horrour to our senses and cannot easily be avoided For men fear not the greatest evils but those which are most contrary to their nature Whence it is that they more apprehend the halter the gallies or infamy then falling into vices or losing the Grace of God For although these be the greatest evils of the world yet men do not acknowledge them such but by a reflection of the Understanding Hence also the wicked fear the wheel more then Hell because Gods punishments of sin are accounted slow and those of men speedy But to judge of the strength of Hope and Fear by their proper essence we must consider that Good being much less delightful to Nature then Evil is painful and sensible because Good onely gives a better being Evil absolutely destroyes being Fear which is the expectation of this Evil is much more powerful then Hope which is the expectation of that Good Which appears further by its effects far more violent then those of Hope for it makes the Hair stand an end and hath sometimes turn'd it white in one night it makes the Countenance pale the whole body quake and tremble the Heart beat and not onely alters the whole habit of it but perverts Reason abolishes Reason and Memory intercepts the use of Speech and of all the Senses so that it hath caus'd sudden death to divers persons But Hope never gave life to any Fear adds wings wherewith to avoid an Evil Hope barely excites to move towards Good In a word Fear needs sometimes the whole strength of all the Virtues to repress its violence and check its disorders CONFERENCE LXV I. Of the Intellect II. Whether the Husband and Wife should be of the same humour I. Of the Intellect THe Intellect is a Faculty of the Soul whereby we understand For of the Faculties some are without knowledge as the natural common to man and inanimate bodies and the vegetative which he hath in common with plants namely the powers of Nutrition Accretion and Generation others are with the knowledge And these again are either exercis'd without the use of Reason as the Internal and External Senses or else stand in need of Reason as the Intellect and the Rational Appetite which is the Will the former to distinguish true from false the latter good from evil Now as the Understanding acquires its notions from the inferior powers so it imitates their manner of perception and as sensible perception is passion so is intellectual and the intelligible species are receiv'd in the Intellect after the same manner that the sensible are in the organs of the outward senses For as their organs must be free from all the qualities whereof they are to judge so must the Understanding which is to judge of every thing be from all intelligible species yea more then the organs of the Senses For the Crystalline humour of the Eye hath tangible qualities the hand visible because the former is not destinated to touch withall nor the latter to see But the Intellect being to understand every thing because every thing is intelligible must be wholly clear of all Anticipations contrary to Plato's opinion who admitting a Transmigration of souls conceiv'd that entring into other bodies they carryed with them the species of things which they had known before but darkn'd and veil'd with the clouds and humidities of the bodies which recloth'd them
and use specially by the hearing whnce people deaf by nature are also dumb yea 't is very peculiare to man Wherefore Speech is improperly figuratively artificially or else miraculously ascrib'd to other things as when The Heavens are said to declare the glory of God one deep to call on another c. When Balaams Ass spoke 't was by Miracle But when Magus's dog spoke to Saint Peter 't was by operation of the Devil as also what is reported of the two Pigeons the Oke at Achilles's Horse the keel of Argo and that Elm of the Gymnosophists mention'd by Philostratus to have saluted Apollonius at his arrival as the River Causus bid Pythagoras good-morrow But Speech properly belongs onely to man other creatures are incapable of it both because they want Reason which is the principle of it and organs which are a tongue a palate teeth and lipps all rightly proportionated for the articulation of voice for man's tongue alone is soft large moveable and loose to which qualities those of Pies and Parrots come nearest The Third said A natural thing is either born with us as sense and motion or comes afterwards of it self as laughter or whereof we are naturally capable and inclin'd to as Arts and Sciences In the first and second signification speech is not natural to man who could not speak without learning whence the two children caus'd by Psammetichus King of Egypt to be nurs'd in a Desart by two dumb Nurses pronounc'd no other word but Bec which they had heard of the Goats But in the last signification 't is peculiar to man who is so inclin'd to it that were children let alone from their Cradle they would in time make some language by signs or words 'T is to be understood too that 't is articulate speech such as may be written that is peculiar to man not inarticulate which though a natural sign of the affections within yet cannot properly be called speech because found also in beasts whose jargon Apollonius and some others are said to have understood for hearing the chattering of a Swallow to her companions he told those that were present that this bird advertis'd the others of a sack of Wheat fallen off an Asse's back neer the City which upon trial was found to be true CONFERENCE LXXIX I. What the Soul is II. Of the apparition of Spirits I. What the Soul is THe difference of inanimate living and dead bodies manifestly evince the existence of a soul. But its essence is so unknown that Philosophers doubt in what degree of Category to put it For 't is of that kind of things which are not known by themselves but only by their effects as local motion and substance which is not perceptible but by its accidents So the outward shape of animated bodies acquaints us with their inward form For the soul shapes all the external parts after the same manner as Plants and Animals of the same species have commonly their leaves and members of the same external figure whereas you scarce find two stones or other inanimate bodies of the same shape The Second said That the soul according to Aristotle is the first act of a natural body organiz'd having life in power or potentially Meaning by act perfection which he expresses by the word Entellechie which signifies to be in its end and form which two are the same in natural things 'T is call'd Form upon account of its beauty and divine from heaven its original and 't is the first of all other second acts which are produc'd by it such as all vital actions are For as in the most imperfect of beings Matter there is a First or remote power as in water to become fire another second or next as in the same water to become air by rarefaction so in the nature of Forms the noblest created Beings there is a First act the source of all vital actions and a Second comprehending the faculties and functions Now this Soul is not a pure act as God and Angels are but an act of the Body on whom it depends either in its being and preservation or else only in operation Hence Sensitive and Vegetable Souls cease to be upon the change of the dispositions which produc'd and supported them The reasonable Soul too in some manner depends upon the Bodies disposition as to its operation not as to its being and preservation being immaterial and immortal 'T is call'd an act of a natural Body to distinguish it from Machines or Engines which move artificial and inanimate Bodies organical because Organs are requisite to its action It must also have life in power that is be able to exercise the vital functions For want of which a carcase though organiz'd yet cannot be said to be animated no more then Egges and Seed for want of Organs although they have life in power The Third said He was of Pythagoras's opinion who call'd it a number there being nothing in the world wherewith it hath more correspondence and proportion 'T is one in its essence it makes the binary which is the first number by its conjunction with the body and division of its Faculties into the Intellect and Will the ternary by its three species of soul Vegetative Sensitive Rational the quaternary by the four qualities constituting the temper requisite to its introduction into the body of which four numbers put together is form'd the number ten whence all others proceed as from simple Apprehension Enuntiation Argumentation and Method which are the four operations of the reasonable soul whence all its notions proceed The Fourth said 'T is not enough to say with the Philosopher that the soul is an act or perfection or that by whose means we live it must be shewn what this act is whether Substance or Accident Pythagoras by calling the soul a number moving it self reduces it under Quantity According to Galen who acknowledges no other Soul but the Temper 't is a Quality as also according to Clearchus who defines it harmony Of those who believ'd the soul a substance some have call'd it the purest part of some Element as Heraclitus of fire Anaximenes of air and Thales of water none of earth in regard of its gross matter Critelaus said 't was a Quintessence Democritus a substance compos'd of round Atoms and therefore easily movable Now the soul is a substance not an accident because it composes a substance making with the body a total by it self Nor is it Quantity because Quantity is not active much less a self-moving number because number is an Entity of Reason and nothing is mov'd of it self but of some other Nor is it any of the four qualities which being indifferent of themselves must be determin'd by some form much less a temper which is found in all mixts of which some are inanimate nor a harmony for this is compos'd of contrarieties but the soul is simple and consequently not susceptible of contraries 'T is therefore an incorporeal substance otherwise were
else but an execess of heat which is a meer Accident as well in its little degrees as in its excesses More and less making no change in the species Our Fire then is an excessive heat which adheres to Things that have some crass and oleaginous humour in them and continues there by a continual efflux and successive Generation without any permanence like the Water of a River which Heat lasts so long till that humour be consumed If it be said that it ascends upwards seeking its own place I answer that 't is the Exhalation that carries it up yea that it descends too as we see in a Candle blown out and still smoaking if it be held beneath another burning one the flame descendeth along the smoak and lighteth it again So that the Fire is indifferent of it self where it goes for it lets it self be govern'd and carry'd by the Exhalation And it appears further That Fire is less subtile then Air for flame is not transparent and it engendreth soot which is very gross The Third added That indeed Fire cannot be a Substance because it hath a Contrary viz. The Water Besides every Substantial Form preserves its own Matter and acts not against it but Fire destroyes its own Moreover a certain degree of some Quality is never necessary to a Substantial Form as the Earth ceaseth not to be Earth though it be less cold or dry and so of the rest But Fire cannot be Fire unless the supreme degree of heat be in it Add hereunto that Fire may be produc'd in a Substance without corrupting it as we see in a Flint or a burning Bullet Now a Substantial Form is not produc'd in a Subject till the preceding be destroy'd the Generation of the one being the corruption of the other Lastly Every substance produceth by way of Generation an indivisible substantial Form But Fire produceth a divisible Quality For that which was cold becometh first warm then hot and by degrees becometh Fire which cannot be with a mixture of cold non consist therewith unless as degrees of qualities The Fourth said That Fire is a most perfect Element hot and dry according to Aristotle of the most perfect form and activity of all the Elements according to Plato the principal instrument of Nature according to Empedocles the Father of Things Whence it was that the Assyrians ador'd it The Persians carry'd it out of Honour before their Kings and at the head of their Armies The Romans made so great account of it that they assign'd it to the care of certain Virgins to be kept immortal Pythagoras believ'd it to be an Animal because it is nourish'd as Animals and for want of Aliment dyes And because a lighted Torch being cast into the Water the Fire extinguishing sendeth forth such a noyse as Animals do at the gasps of Death But he esteemed its natural place to be the Centre of the Subterranean World Whence it is said he that we see so many Volcanoes and other Fires issue out of the entrals of the Earth as those of Monte Vesuvio in the Kingdom of Naples Monte Gibello formerly Aetna in Sicily and Monte Hecla in Iseland and so many other burning Mountains The Fifth said That as the Sea is the Principle from whence all the Waters come and the end whether they return So the Sun is the Element of Fire from whence all other Fires come and whether at length they reascend as to their Source 1. For that all Effects Qualities and Properties of Fire agree particularly to the Sun seeing he heats burnes dryes and is the cause of all the Generations that are made here below 2. Because the Elements stay in their natural places Now the Fire not onely ascendeth from the Subterraneous places where it is detain'd by reason of a sulphureous and bituminous Matter which serves it for food but it passeth also beyond the Heavens of the Moon Mercury and Venus as appears by Comets which are igneous and particularly by that which appear'd in the year 1618. acknowledg'd by all the Astronomers upon the reasons of Opticks to have been above the said places The Sixth denyed That the Sun can be the Element of Fire 1. Because 't is a Coelestial and Incorruptible Body and by consequence not Igneous or Elementary 2. If all Fires come from the Sun it will follow that all his rayes are Igneous Bodies for there cannot be imagin'd other Fires to come from the Sun hither but his beams Now the Sun-beams are neither Bodies nor Igneous Not Bodies since Illumination and Eradiation being made in an instant it will follow that a Body cometh from Heaven to Earth in a Moment Which is absurd because No Motion is made in an instant Besides being those Rayes penetrate Glass and such other solid and diaphanous Bodies there would be a penetration of Dimensions which is impossible Nor are they Igneous seeing Fire being of its own nature light descendeth not but the beams of the Sun descend down hither Moreover Fire is actually hot but the Sun-beams are onely so in power viz. when they are reflected by an opake body as appears in the Middle Region of the Air where it is colder then upon the Earth though its beams are nearer Wherefore it is more reasonable to hold to the common opinion which placeth the Fire immediately under the Heaven of the Moon For there is no fear that that Fire how great soever can burn the World it s hear being allay'd and dull'd by the extreme humidity of the Air its Neighbour and by the great coldness of the same Air which is in the Middle Region and counter-checketh that heat which on one side hath already lost its violence and acrimony by its natural Rarity Nor is there any trouble to be taken for its nourishment for being in its own Centre and Empire it hath no enemies nor contraries and needeth no food for its support as our common Fire doth What if we behold it not 'T is not because there is none but because it is so rare and so pure that it cannot fall within the perception of our Senses As there is such a thing as Air though we see it not How many Colours Odours Sapours and Sounds are there which we never knew And as for what is observ'd in a Candle newly put out it is clear that the Fire descendeth not to it but inflameth the unctuous Matter which it toucheth and this the next even to the Candle from whence that Matter proceedeth II Of the Vniversal Spirit Upon the Second Point it was said That it must First be known what is meant by Universal Spirit 2. Whether there be one 3. What it is As for the First By the word Universal Spirit is understood some universal cause and principle of all the actions and motions which are made in Generation Just as they assign one same First Matter for the Subject of all Formes so they speak of an Vniversal Form which containes all the rest in
it self and causes them to act and move in the Matter rightly dispos'd As for the Second Like as they argue that the world is finite round and corruptible because its parts are so So also it may be said that the world hath a Spirit which enlivens it since all its principal parts have a particular one for their Conservation Action and Motion the parts being of the same Nature with the whole This Universal Spirit is prov'd by the impotency of the Matter which of it self having no activity or principle of Life and Motion needeth some other to animate and quicken it Now particular Forms cannot do that for then they would be principles of that Virtue that is to say principles of themselves which is impossible Wherefore there must be some Superiour Form which is the Universal Spirit the principle of Action and Motion the Uniter of the Matter and the Form the Life of all Nature and the Universal Soul of the World Whence it may confidently be affirm'd that the World is animated but with what Soul or Spirit is the difficulty For if we prove by Local Motion or by that of Generation that a Plant or Animal are animated why may we not say the same of all the World since its more noble and principal parts afford evidence thereof As for the Heaven and the Stars they are in continual Motion which the more â—ober Opinion at this day confesseth to produce from their Internal Form rather then from the Intelligences which some would have fastned to the Spheres as a Potter to his wheel The Sun besides his own Motion which some call in controversie gives Life to all things by his heat and influences The Air Water and Earth afford also instances of this Life in the production and nourishing of Plants and Animals Thus the principal parts being animated this sufficeth for the Denomination of the whole seeing even in Man there are found some parts not animated as the Hair and the Nails As for the Last Point which is to know what this Universal Soul is there are many Opinions The Rabbins and Cabalists say that it is the RVAH ELOHIM that is the Spirit of God which moved upon Waters Trismegistus saith that it is a Corporeal Spirit or a Spiritual Body and elsewhere calleth it the Blessed GreenWood or the Green Lyon which causeth all things to grow Plato affirmeth it to be the Ideas The Peripateticks a certain Quintessence above the Four Elements Heraclitus and after him the Chymists that it is a certain Aethereal Fire For my part I conceive that if by this Spirit they mean a thing which gives Life and Spirit and Motion to all which is found every where and on which all depends there is no doubt but 't is the Spirit of God or rather God himself in whom and through whom we live and move But if we will seek another in created Nature we must not seek it elsewhere then in that corporeal creature which hath most resemblance with the Deity The Sun who more lively represents the same then any other by his Light Heat Figure and Power And therefore the Sun is that Spirit of the World which causeth to move and act here below all that hath Life and Motion The Second said That that Soul is a certain common Form diffus'd through all things which are moved by it as the wind of the Bellows maketh the Organs to play applying them to that whereunto they are proper and according to their natural condition So this Spirit with the Matter of Fire maketh Fire with that of Air maketh Air and so of the rest Some give it the name of Love for that it serves as a link or tye between all Bodies into which it insinuates it self with incredible Subtility which Opinion will not be rejected by the Poets and the Amorous who attribute so great power to it The Third said That the Soul being the First Act of an Organical Body and the word Life being taken onely for Vegetation Sensation and Ratiocination the world cannot be animated since the Heavens the Elements and the greatest part of Mixed Bodies want such a Soul and such Life That the Stoicks never attributed a Soul to this world but onely a Body which by reason of its Subtility is called Spirit and for that it is expanded through all the parts of the world is termed Vniversal which is the cause of all Motions and is the same thing with what the Ancients call'd Nature which they defined the Principle of Motion The reason of the Stoicks for this Universal Spirit is drawn from the Rarefaction and Condensation of Bodies For if Rarefaction be made by the insinuation of an other subtile Body and Condensation by its pressing out it follows that since all the Elements and mixt Bodies are rarifi'd and condens'd there is some Body more subtile then those Elements and mixts which insinuating it self into the parts rarifies them and makes them take up greater space and going forth is the Cause that they close together and take up less Now Rarefaction is alwayes made by the entrance of a more subtile Body and Condensation by its going out This is seen in a very thick Vessel of Iron or Brass which being fill'd with hot Water or heated Air and being well stop'd if you set it into the cold it will condense what is contain'd therein which by that means must fill less space then before Now either there must be a Vacuum in the Vessel which Nature abhorreth or some subtile Body must enter into it which comes out of the Air or the Water which fills that space Which Body also must be more subtile then the Elements which cannot penetrate through the thickness of the Vessel There is also seen an Instance of this in the Sun-beams which penetrate the most solid Bodies if they be never so little diaphanous which yet are impenetrable by any Element how subtile soever And because a great part of the Hour design'd for Inventions was found to have slip'd away during the Reciprocation of other reasons brought for and against this opinion some curiosities were onely mention'd and the examination of them referr'd to the next Conference In which it was determin'd first to treat of the Air and then to debate that Question Whether it is expedient in a State to have Slaves CONFERENCE VII I. Of the Air. II. Whether it be best for a State to have Slaves I. Of the Air. THe First said That he thought fit to step aside a little out of the ordinary way not so much to impugne the Maximes of the School as to clear them and that for this end he propros'd That the Air is not distinguish'd from the Water because they are chang'd one into the other For what else are those Vapours which are drawn up from the Water by the power of the Sun and those which arise in an Alembic or from boyling Water if we do not call them Air Now those Vapours are
in the Tuilleries justifies him Yet Art finds a greater facility in this matter near Lakes Hills and Woods naturally dispos'd for such a re-percussion But which increases the wonder of the Echo is its reduplication which is multiply'd in some places seven times and more the reason whereof seemes to be the same with that of multiplication of Images in Mirrors For as there are Mirrors which not onely receive the species on their surface so plainly as our Eye beholds but cannot see the same in the Air though they are no less there then in the Mirror so there are some that cast forth the species into the Air so that stretching out your arm you see another arm as it were coming out of the Mirror to meet yours In like manner it is with the voice And as a second and a third Mirror rightly situated double and trebble the same species so other Angles and Concavities opposite to the first cause the voice to bound and by their sending it from one to another multiply it as many times as there are several Angles but indeed weaker in the end then in the beginning because all Reaction is less then the First Action CONFERENCE XVI I. How Spirits act upon Bodies II. Whether is more powerful Love or Hatred I. How Spirits act upon Bodies IT is requisite to understand the Nature of ordinary and sensible actions that we may judge of others as in all Sciences a known Term is laid down to serve for a rule to those which are inquir'd So Architects have a Level and a Square whereby to discern perpendicular Lines and Angles Now in Natural Actions between two Bodies there is an Agent a Patient a Contact either Physical or Mathematical or compounded of both a Proportion of Nature and Place and a Reaction Moreover Action is onely between Contraries so that Substances and Bodies having no contraries act not one against the other saving by their qualities Which nevertheless inhering in the subjects which support them cause Philosophers to say that Actions proceed from Supposita Now that which causeth the difficulty in the Question is not that which results from the Agent for the Spirit is not onely a perpetual Agent but also a pure Act nor that which proceedeth from the Patient for Matter which predominates in Bodies is of its own Nature purely Passive But 't is from the want of Contact For it seemeth not possible for a Physical Contact to be between any but two complete substances And if we speak of the Soul which informes the Body it is not complete because it hath an essence ordinated and relative to the Body If we speak of Angels or Daemons there is no proportion of Nature between them and Bodies and much less resemblance as to the manner of being in a place For Angels are in a place onely definitively and Bodies are circumscrib'd with the internal surface of their place How then can they act one upon the other Nor can there be reaction between them For Spirits cannot part from Bodies But on the other side since Action is onely between Contraries and Contraries are under the same next Genus and Substance is divided into Spiritual and Corporeal there ought to be no more true Action then between the Soul and the Body both Contraries not onely according to the acception of Divines who constantly oppose the Body to the Spirit and make them fight one with the other but speaking naturally it is evident that the proprieties of the one being diametrically opposite to those of the other cause a perpetual conflict with them which is the same that we call Action Contact is no more necessary between the Soul and the Body to infer their action then it is between the Iron and the Load-stone which attracts it What Proportion can be found greater then between Act and Power the Form and the Matter the Soul and the Body which are in the same place As for Reaction supposing it to be necessary whereof yet we see no effect in the Sun nor the other Coelestial Bodies which no Man will say suffer any thing from our Eye upon which nevertheless they act making themselves seen by us And Lovers are not wholly without reason when they say a subject makes them suffer remaining it self unmoveable It is certain that our Soul suffers little less then our Body as is seen in griefs and corporal maladies which alter the free functions of the Mind caus'd by the influence of the Soul upon the Body through Anger Fear Hope and the other Passions The Soul then acts upon the Body over which it is accustom'd to exercise Dominion from the time of our Formation in our Mothers womb it governs and inures it to obey in the same manner as a good Rider doth a Horse whom he hath manag'd from his youth and rides upon every day Their common contentment facilitates this obedience the instruments the Soul makes use of are the Spirits which are of a middle nature between it and the Body Not that I fancy them half spiritual and half corporeal as some would suppose but by reason they are of so subtile a Nature that they vanish together with the Soul So that the Arteries Ventricles and other parts which contain them are found wholly empty immediately after death The Second said That if we would judge aright what ways the Soul takes to act upon the Body we need onely seek what the Body takes to act upon the Soul For the lines drawn from the centre to the circumference are equal to those from the circumference to the centre Now the course which it holds towards the Soul is thus The Objects imprint their species in the Organ of the outward Sense this carries the same to the Common Sense and this to the Phancy The Memory at the same time presents to the Judgement the fore-past Experiences which she hath kept in her Treasury The Judgement by comparing them with the knowledge newly arriv'd to it by its Phantasmes together with its natural habit of first principles draws from the same a conclusion which the Will approves as soon as Reason acquiesseth therein According to the same order the Will consignes the Phantasmes in the Memory and the Phancy this to the Common Sense and this to the Organs of the Senses For Example as soon as my Judgement hath approv'd the discourse which I make to you and my Will hath agreed thereunto she consign'd the species to my Memory that it might remember to reduce them into this order according to which my Memory distributed them to my Imagination this to my Common Sense this to the Nerves appointed for the Motion of my Tongue and the other Organs of Speech to recite the same and now into those of my hand to write them down to you The Third said That the clearing of the Question propounded depended upon two others First what link or union there may be between a Spiritual and a Corporeal thing Secondly supposing
that of the six sorts of Motion the Spirits can act onely by the Local how they can touch a Body to remove it locally since there is no Contact but between Bodies To the first I answer that there is no need of union such as that which joynes the Soul to the Body for joyning the Act with its true Power if there be any in us it must be that which we see is necessary for the communion of Action For when Actions cannot be exercis'd but by two parties of different Nature there is found an Union between those different Natures which is very natural and founded upon the necessity of such Action Wherefore I am so far from thinking the union of the Soul with the Body a strange thing that I should wonder more if there were none For the better understanding whereof it is to be observ'd that our Soul hath two sorts of Actions one peculiar to it self as to Will and to understand the other common with the Body as to See Hear Feel c. These latter are as much natural as the former And as if it were in a State in which it could not exercise the former that State would be violent to it and contrary to its Nature so it is equally troublesome to her while she cannot exercise the latter Since therefore it is a part of the Nature of the Soul to be able to exercise its functions it is consequently natural to it to be united to the Body seeing without such union it cannot exercise those functions Now I am no more solicitous to know what this union is then to understand what that is which unites one part of an essence with the other since the Body is in some manner the essence of the Soul making one suppositum and individual with it and the Soul hath not its Nature intire saving when it is united with the Body I pass to the Second and say that supposing two sorts of Contact one of a suppositum the other of Virtue the Spirits touch the Body which they move locally by a Contact of Virtue by impressing the force of their motive faculty upon the Body which they will move as my hand impresseth its motive virtue upon the ball which I fling which virtue though extrinsecal persists in the ball as long as it moves even when it is distant from my hand And although there is some disparity inasmuch as the hand and the ball are both corporeal which a Spirit and a Body are not yet since our Soul applyes its motive virtue to the Body which it animates it is probable there are many qualities common both to Spiritual and Corporeal Substances as is the power of acquiring habits And it is also likely that the power of moving from one place to another which is in a Spirit is not different in specie from that which is in a Horse although their Subjects differ If therefore the motive faculty of Bodies is that of the same species with that of Spirits why should we account it strange that that of a Spirit should be communicated to a Body The Fourth said That the Example of our Lord carried by the Devil to the top of a Mountain and of a pinnacle of a Temple shews sufficiently that Daemons can act upon Bodies and that all natural things falling under the cognisance of Sense are moveable in their activity yet not at once and in gross but one thing after another For an Angel not being an Informing Form ty'd and connected to any particular sensible Nature as the Rational Soul is but an Assisting Form that is an External Agent which moves and agitates it to pleasure it is indifferent and can determine to move what Body it pleases But sensible things are not subject to Spirits saving so far as Local Motion For the Devil acts either upon the Body or upon the Soul as it is in its Organs If upon the Body he either doth it alone or by the intervention of another Agent If the latter then there must be a Local Motion to apply the same to the Body upon which he causeth it to act for the tormenting or moving of it If he doth it by himself immediately and causeth pain in the parts it is either by solution of continuity or by distention of those parts or by compression of them All which is no more but dislocating them and moving them out of their right situation If he causes a Fever it is either by collecting the humours from all the parts For Example Choler which congregated together in too great quantity distempers the Body or else by restraining the perspiration of the fuliginous vapour which is the excrement of the third Concoction and being with-held within causeth the putrefaction of the humours and all this is local motion too By which also he produceth all the diseases which he is able to cause inspiring a putrid Air which like Leven sowers and corrupts the humours If he acts upon the Senses and the Passions he doth it either outwardly by some mutation of the Object or inwardly by some alteration of the Faculty If the former it is because by a Local Motion he formes a Body heaping together uniting and adjusting the materials necessary thereunto as the Air an aqueous vapour a terrene and unctuous exhalation and the heat of the Sun or some other which he employes artificially according to the experience which he hath acquired throughout so many Ages till he make them correspond to the Idea of the Body which he designes to form All the Actions of Men are perform'd in like manner by putting together conjoyning or retrenching or separating things In one word by apposition or separation If he acts internally upon the Faculty 't is either upon the Phancy or the Appetite or the External Sense Upon the Phancy either by compounding one Phantasm of many as it happens in sleeping or else by acting upon a single one to make it appear more handsome or ugly More handsome by the concourse of many pure clear refin'd Spirits which enliven and embellish that Phantasm as we see a thing appear more handsome in the Sun More ugly by the arrival of certain gloomy and dark Spirits which usually arise from the humour of Melancholy In the Appetite if he excites Love there 't is by the motion of dilatation expanding the Spirits and making them take up more room If Hatred or Sadness it is coarcting the same Spirits by compression He can also cause a subtile mutation in the outward Senses internally especially upon the sight As we see those that have a suffusion beginning imagine that they see Pismires and Flyes which others besides themselves behold not Moreover Melancholy persons often terrifi'd with various frightful representations the cause whereof is an humour extravasated between the Tunicles of the Eye under the Cornea before the Crystalline which disturbs the sight with various shapes by reason of its mobility as the Clouds appear to us of several figures
and imperfect and so is a second in Musick Three is the first Male and the first degree of perfection hence a Third is agreeable to the Ear. The Fourth is so likewise because it makes up the Ten. Add 1 2 3 and 4 and you have the grand Number of Ten the Father of all others Also a Fifth pleases the Ear wonderfully because it is an Abridgement of the grand Number and the marriage of the Male and the first Female The other Numbers are useless except the Eighth because Musitians call it Identity or Unity which is a Divine Number or rather no Number nor is the Eighth as delightful as it is accounted by Musitians amongst their Concords The Fourth said That the Reason why some Notes are agreeable and other unpleasing in Musick is because the former move the Faculty of the Soul after a manner sutable to it and the latter do not as we see an Example of it in Ballads and Dances where when the Violin or Minstrel hath sounded a braul which goes well to the cadence not onely the Members of the Dancers comply therewith and follow the same readily but also the Souls seemes to dance with the Bodies so great Sympathy have they with that Harmony But if on the contrary the power of the Soul be otherwise agitated at the same time that Harmony how regular soever will displease us Witness the displeasure taken at cheerful aires by those who are in Mourning to whom doleful notes better agree which on the other side are disagreeable to such as are merrily dispos'd Add hereunto the humour of the Phancy which hath an aversion to some sounds as well as to some smells For as for Discords janglings and other troublesome sounds no other cause of their general inacceptableness ought to be sought then that disproportion and deformity which is sound in things Natural and Artificial the former being more intollerable then the latter because the Eye is not struck with the visible species as the Ear is with sound and can turn away from the Object which displeaseth it which the Ear cannot and is clos'd with much more difficulty CONFERENCE XVIII I. Of the Original of Winds II. Why none are contented with their Condition I. Of the Original of Winds THere is more resemblance then one would imagine between these two poynts The Wind of the Air and that of Ambition to which the discontent of Men with their condition is commonly ascribed As for the First Some have held that all Wind even that which blows upon the Sea comes from the Earth and that the first conjecture which was entertain'd of the Region of the West Indies was taken from the Wind perceiv'd to come from that quarter But the History of Christopher Columbus attributing the discovery to Chance thereof cannot consist with that opinion There is no Meteor whose effects have more of Miracle which is defin'd An Effect whereof no Natural Cause is seen For even the Lightning is seen by the brightness of the fire which accompanies it But the effects of this aim at the highest things which it overthrows and you neither see the Agent nor understand it Yet the Sagacity of Humane Wit is admirable Sins have serv'd to clear Cases of Conscience Arsenick Sublimate and other poysons are converted by Physick into Cauteries and other profitable remedies The Civil Law hath by occasion of evil manners receiv'd addition of good Laws The Winds which drown Ships are so managed by the Art of Navigation which divides them first into four principal North East South West and then into eight by the addition of four half points and hath at length subdivided them into 32. that by their help Men sail upon the main Sea and provide forreign remedies for Physick Sugar and spices for Kitchins and employments for many other professions The Second said That though many causes may agitate the Air yet all of them are not sufficient to raise a Wind but the Air must be agitated by some Fume which is raised either from the Earth and is called an Exhalation or from the Water and is called a Vapour either of which partakes of the Nature of the Element from whence it proceeds A Vapour is moist an Exhalation dry An extrinsecal Heat which predominates in them gives them all their motions and makes them mount on high And because it is the property of Heat alwayes to move and act therefore these Fumes are so long in action as the Heat lasts They arise in company together and are carry'd upwards but are presently separated For the moisture of the Vapour quencheth the Heat which animated it so that the sole absence of the Sun or the occurse of the least Cold depriving the Vapour of the little Heat which was left in it and made it still ascend upwards it becomes more condens'd and falls down in Rain But an Exhalation hath a greater degree of Heat which is render'd more active by the driness and tenacity of the matter Therefore it ascends till it meets with the Air of the Middle Region which is thick and congeal'd by which being hinder'd â—o pass further it seeks a passage on one side or the other Many times when it strives to rise higher it becomes engag'd among Clouds which inclose it on all sides Being thus inclos'd and straitned it becomes united together and thereupon being inflam'd breaks the Clouds and causes Thunder or if it â—ind less resistance towards the Earth it descends with violence to the place from whence it arose and makes Whirl-winds But if such Exhalation have not time enough to mount as far as the Middle Region as it happens most frequently but as soon as it is drawn up be hinder'd and inclos'd by the Vapour turn'd into thick and cold Air in the Lower Region of the Air then Winds are produc'd in this manner This Exhalation being unable to mount upwards because the whole Region is full of thick Air which resists it it must go either on one side or other wherefore it tends that way where it meets least resistance And whereas there are certain seasons wherein the Air is sometimes less thick towards the South others wherein it is so towards the North and the other quarters of Heaven thence it is that the Winds blow there most usually Moreover the reason why the Wind hath a kind of whistling is because the Exhalation clasheth with violence against that thick Air. Hence also it is that Winds are more ordinary in the Night and about Evening because in those times the Vapour looseth its Heat through the Suns absence and so being become a thick Air better incloseth the Exhalation and resisteth the same with more force But as the Air which issueth out of our Lungs is hot yet if it be sent forth with some little violence it becometh cold So though the Exhalation which causeth Wind be never without Heat yet we never feel the Wind hot Not that the Air loseth its Heat by motion
our vicious inclinations other where then within our selves it being deriv'd from the structure and composition of our Bodies For he who hath not what to eat and wherewith to defend himself from cold or who fears distress finds the seeds of theft in his natural inclination of self-preservation The same Fear makes him become covetous When any thing obstructs the accomplishing of his wishes if he be weak he becomes sad thereupon if strong he falls into Choler This Passion leads him to revenge the height of whose violence is Murther If the enjoyment thereof be free to him the pleasure which he takes therein produceth Luxury and debaucheries and thus 't is with all Vices On the contrary poor Virtue meets with nothing in us but opposition The Stomack the Intestines and all the natural parts revolt against Temperance and Continence The Cholerick Humour fights against Clemency Covetousness inciteth to Injustice the Comparison of our condition with that of our betters to Ambition and Envy with that of our Inferiors to Pride and Disdain In brief Virtue finds nothing in us that makes for her interest which seems to me the reason why it is less familiar to us then Vice The Sixth said No person is either vicious or virtuous of his own nature but he becomes so by Instruction and Custome Instruction is so powerful that it makes even Beasts capable of Discipline Custome is of such influence that it is rightly term'd an other nature Wherefore our being rather vicious then virtuons is not from any natural inclination For on the contrary we have the seeds and sparks of Virtue within us and I almost believe with Plato that when Men become vicious it is by force and against their nature But the fault proceeds from our bad Education and corrupt Customes which become yet worse by the conversation of vicious persons who are very numerous The Seventh said Though we consent more easily to Virtue then to Vice yet the number of the good and virtuous being less then that of the wicked and vicious hath caus'd the contrary to be believ'd The reason whereof is not the difficulty of doing well but because Vices are esteem'd and rewarded instead of being punish'd and Virtue instead of Recompence receives nothing but Contempt So the Exorbitancy of Clothes instead of being punish'd causeth him to be honoured who is unworthy to be so Wherefore if there were a State in which Reward and Punishment were duly dispens'd from the Cradle it would be a rarer thing to see a wicked man there then a black Swan because the good which we love and the evil which we hate would be inseparably joyn'd together the one with Virtue and the other with Vice CONFERENCE XXII I. Of Judiciary Astrology II. Which is least blameable Covetousness or Prodigality I. Of Judiciary Astrology THe weakness of our reasoning is a strong argument to abate the presumption of our being able to judge of the power of the Stars For if we are ignorant of the nature of the least Herb we tread upon we must be more so of that of the Celoestial Bodies which are so remote from us and our knowledge that the greatest masters of this Art dispute still whether every Star be a several world whether they are solid or not what qualities they have and which are the true places Besides the local motion of Animals may wholly frustrate the effect of their influences And if Xanthus hindred the Sun from making his head ake when he walk'd abroad and the Moon doth not chill those that are in the house certainly the effects of less active and remoter Stars may be declin'd by the same wayes since Fire the most active thing in nature doth not burn if the hand be mov'd swiftly over it And what more was to be fear'd by Americus Vesputius Ferdinand Magellan and others who sail'd round the Earth one way whil'st the Heaven turn'd the other Why should we seek in Heaven the Causes of Accidents which befall us if we find them on Earth And why should we look so far for what is so near Is it not more fit to refer the cause of Knowledge to study of Riches and Honour to Birth Merit or Favour of Victory to the dexterity and diligence of the General who cast his contrivance well to surprize his Enemy then to attribute these Events to the Planets If experience be alledg'd to manifest the effect of many Predictions I answer that as the Animal which is said to have made a letter by chance with its Hoof in the dust was no Scribe for all that so though amongst a thousand false predictions one by chance proves true yet is not the Art ever the more certain Yea I will urge it against themselves for it is not credible that we should see so many unfortunate Astrologers if they could fore-see their own infelicity or else they must acknowledge themselves fools since they grant that the Wise-man rules over the Stars The Second said That every thing here below suffers mutation and nothing is able to change it self whence it follows that that which is the cause of Alteration must it self be exempt from the same Whence consequently the Heavens which are the sole Body that suffer no change must be the cause of all mutation For the Elements are the material cause thereof and therefore cannot be the Efficient And as the Stars are the thickest and onely visible part of Heaven so they have most light and influence by which assisted with their motions they communicate their qualities to the Air the Air to the Bodies which it toucheth especially to the humours in Man over which it hath such power that its diversity diversifyes all the complexions of Man-kind Now our Humours model our Manners and these our most particular Actions They may talk that the Wise-man over-rules the Stars but Experience shews that the Stars guide the Will not by compelling it but by inclining it in such a manner that it cannot resist because they subminister to it the means determined to the End whereunto they incline it whence it is as hard yea impossible for it to draw back as for a Drunkard to forbear drinking when he is very thirsty and hath the bottle at his command The Impostures which are affirm'd of the Casters of Nativities can no more prejudice or disparage Judiciary Astrology then Mountebanks do Physick Yea though the state of Heaven be never twice the same yet is it not so in the subjects of all other Disciplines Never were two diseases found altogether alike in Physick nor in Law two Cases alike in all their circumstances yet the Precepts of thse Sciences are nevertheless true because it sufficeth that the principal conditions concur as it is also sufficient that the same principal aspects and situations of the Stars be found in Heaven for the making of Rules in Judiciary Astrology The Third said Every Effect followeth the Nature of its Cause and therefore the Actions and
afforded before God had curs'd it and so inseparably connected man's labour with those fruits that now a days to express a hundred acres of Land we commonly say A hundred acres of Labour And as a place ceases to be the Court when the King is no longer in it so the Divine Benediction withdrawn from the Earth it ceas'd to be Paradise Yea Adam having ceas'd to be King of it and by his sin lost the Dominion which he had over all even the fiercest Creatures the Earth became no longer a Paradise to him But if I be requir'd to assign a particular place to this Paradise leaving the description of places which I never saw to the belief of Geographers I find none more fit for it then France Its Climate is temperate especially towards the East and South It hath four Rivers which bring into it Gold and all the other Commodities attributed unto Paradise by the first Historian It so abounds with all sorts of flowers that it hath taken three Lillies for its Arms And with fruits that it hath for it self and its Neighbours yea above any other it produces every Tree fair to look upon and good for food to use the Scripture-words One interpos'd That he should think 't was Normandie so fruitful of goodly Apples were it not that no Vines grow there whose fruit is so pleasant to behold The fourth said As there is no great certainty in the consequences drawn from Allegories so neither are Allegories very successfully drawn from Histories and substituted in their places I know not what History is if that of our first Father be not nor where to stop if people will subtilize upon the first circumstance of his Creation and what he did afterwards But if we find difficulty in according the Geographical Tables of the present time with the truth of that why do not we likewise make Allegories of the Creation and all its sequels which are so many Miracles If we see no Angel that guards the access to it no more did Balaam see that which stood in his way though visible to his Asse And being the space of the Garden of Eden is not determinately set down nothing hinders but that it might be of very vast extent and this takes away the scruple of those who object the distance which is between all those great Rivers Besides being Enoch and Elias were since Adam's fall transported into this Paradise where they must be till the coming of Antichrist 't is a certain Argument of its real subsistence II. Of Embalmings and Mummies Upon the second point it was said That the Ancients were much more careful then we not only to preserve the Images of their Fore-fathers but also to keep their Bodies which they variously embalmed The Grecians wash'd them in Wine mingled with warm Water and then put them them into oyl of Olives Honey or Wax The Aethyopians first salted them and then put them into Vessels of Glass In the Canary Islands they season them in the Sea and afterwards dry them in the Sun The Scythians place them upon Mountains cover'd with snow or in the coolest Caves Indeed every one knows there is a Cave at Tholouze which hath a particular virtue to preserve carkasses from corruption and in which is seen at this day the entire body of the fair Saint Baume and many others dead above 200 years ago The Indians cover'd them with ashes The Aegyptians conceiving that bodies corrupted rose not again and that the Soul was sensible of the Bodies corruption did not yield to any people in curiosity of preserving them they fill'd with Myrrhe Cinamon and other Spices or with Oyl of Cedar then they salted them with Nitre whose aerimony consumes all the superfluous humidities which cause putrifaction 'T is from these bodies that we have that excellent Mummie whose admirable effects I ascribe to sympathy But concerning what is affirm'd that being transported by Sea they cause tempests and strange agitations in the Ship 't is an effect which is to be attributed to a more occult cause The Second said Man is so admirable an Edifice that even his Ruines have their use His Fat is one of the most excellent Anodynes His Skull serves against the Epilepsic This liquor which is drawn from his Tomb hath several vertues and the reasons of the great and admirable effects imputed to it as the healing of inwards Ulcers and Contusions of Blood arriving to such as have fallen from on high seem to me imputable to three Causes a Spiritual a Celestial and an Elementary The first ariseth hence that so perfect a Form as the reasonable Soul having inform'd part of this Compositum which by the mixture of some Ingredients as Myrrhe and Aloes hath been preserv'd from corruption the same thing arrives to it which the Chymists say doth to their white Gold when they have extracted its Sulphur and Tincture For being re-joyn'd to other Gold it easily resumes the same form and is sooner and more inseparably combin'd with it then any other thing as having been of the same species So when you put Mummie into a body of the same species it takes part with the nature whence it proceeded and siding with it incounters the disease and its symptomes like Succour coming to relieve a besieged City with provisions and ammunition The Celestial cause is drawn from the Heavens for that the light and influence of superiour bodies act upon all the sublunary but by the consent of all none is so susceptible of their actions as man and if his soul be not subject thereunto yet his body is undoubtedly to each part of which each part of Heaven not only answers as some hold but the whole to all Whence is seen the diversity of disposition inclinations and manners such and so great that 't is a palpable mistake to attribute the same to the meer mixture of the Elements Now Mummie having receiv'd not only while it was animated but afterwards all the influences whereof the humane body is susceptible it becomes as it were the abstract of all the Celestial powers and better then Talismanical figures communicates the same to him that uses it The last reason drawn from the mixture of the Elements and their qualities might suffice alone without the preceding For Man being the abridgement of the world ought also to contain all the faculties of it and his Mummie being inanimate but having liv'd the life of a plant an animal and a man it contains all these natures eminently The Third said That Man affecting nothing so much as immortality because he fears nothing more then death and being unable to secure himself from it do's all that he can to perpetuate himself in some fashion since he cannot wholly The desire of supporting his Individual person and defending it from all inconveniences which may abridge his life makes him count nothing difficult In Propagation he seeks the eternity of his species And though he is assur'd by Reason of
this reformation was still imperfect Julius Caesar 670 years after him assisted by Sosigenes a great Mathematician corrected the defect adding three moneths to the year in which he made this rectification which was the 708th year of the building of Rome namely two moneths between November and December one of 29 days and the other of 30 and another of 30 days at the end of December to make up the days which were pass'd So that this year Debtors had three moneths respite Then he divided the year into 365 days for this cause call'd from his name the Julian year But because the Sun is neer six hours more in accomplishing his Period he added a day every fourth year after the twenty third of February which they call'd Sexto Calendas and because in counting it twice they said bis sexto Calendas this year truth thence retain'd the name of Bissextile attributed by the vulgar to sinister and unfortunate things And to confirm the moneths to the Lunations he was contented to observe that every nineteenth year the Moon is found in the same place which was the discovery of another Mathematician of Athens nam'd Meton And forasmuch as they mark'd this number of 19 in their Kalendar with a Cypher of gold thence it came to be call'd the Gold Number The Christians took up this Calculation as the best of all But because there wants eleven minutes every fourth year to make the Bissextile or Leap-year intire it was found that from the time of Julius Caesar to Gregory XIII the Lunations and Aequinoxes had anticipated ten days which render'd the Golden Number useless and remov'd Easter and other moveable Feasts out of their true place Therefore this Pope assisted by Doctor Lilio a Physitian retrench'd those ten days throughout all Christendom except in places who are not pleas'd with novelty unless so far as it displeases the Pope Which anticipation will always oblige future Ages to use a like reformation of the Julian year which we begin from the mid-night which precedes the first Sun-rise of the moneth of January But the most sensible knowledge to be had of the duration and beginning of the Solar year is obtain'd by observing the day on which the shadow of the perpendicular needle of a Quadrant is found longest at noon being a certain sign that the Sun is then most depress'd and consequently that we must there set down the end of the preceding year and the beginning of the next which is visible by the exaltation of the Sun whose shadow will not be found equal again till after the revolution of a just year II. Why the Load-stone draws Iron Had Stones life as Cardan held the solution of the second Question would be easie For the Load-stone's drawing Iron would be no more a wonder then an Animal's going to seek its food Now of those things which draw others some do it for eschewing of vacuity so water and other more ponderous bodies ascend air and other light bodies descend either of them against its proper inclination to prevent a vacuum Others do it out of desire to obtain what they need as their nourishment So Plants attract the juice of the earth the Gall-bladder Choler the Splene the Melancholy humour and every part blood Others do it by the mutual resemblance of the spirits issuing out of them such is the first motion of affection arising between two persons of the same humour and inclination But others are mov'd locally with out any manifest and corporeal cause so are the vapours and the dew drawn up by the Sun straw by Amber the womb by good smells the Load-stone by the North-star the Heliotrope and Selenotrope by the Sun and the Moon whose motions they follow Now in attraction it is requisite that the attractive vertue be stronger then the resistance of the body which is attracted The greatest resistance is from the ponderosity of a body the elevation of which without manifest cause is accounted miraculous and attributed by Divines to the Divine Power alone as when our Lord walk'd upon the water And so indeed would be the suspension of the gravity of iron attracted by the Load-stone if it were not ordinary the cause whereof may be ascrib'd to the meeting of spirits streaming out of the Iron and the Load-stone which being viscous and once joyn'd together are somewhat hard to be separated The Second said That as every body diffuses about it visible odorable and sonorous species which appear not to us unless they be reflected by some body proper to unite them the visible species by a Glass odours by heat sound by a hollow body such as makes the Echo In like manner the Load-stone and the Iron emit attractive species round about which are lost unless these of the one light upon those of the other for then their nature is so to conjoyn themselves that their union is indissoluble otherwise then by violence wherein there seems to be no greater marvel then in all other motions of natural bodies which act variously one upon another according to the disposition of the next matter So the fire acts upon combustible matter and not upon other the reason of these affects depending upon the determination of every particular cause the chain whereof is invisible and conceal'd from men The Third said The Superior bodies act upon the inferior and all motions here below proceed from those of the Celestial Bodies which are therefore purposely contiguous That of the Load-stone and Iron proceeds from the polar Stars which act so sensibly upon this Stone that being hung up in aequilibrio it spontaneously turns one part towards the Arctick and the other towards the Antarctick Pole unless in certain places where it varies between five and six degrees because 't is drawn by a stronger magnetick virtue proceeding from the Earth But this Stone draws Iron the more easily because 't is almost of the same nature with it self and the Magnet is easily turn'd into Iron in the Mines by a coction made by the virtue of the same stars For the liker things are the more inclin'd they are to unite together so Flame unites with Flame the drops of water joyn together a great Load-stone draws the less and Steel attracts the filings of steel The Fourth said As there is a civil converse between men for preservation of society so there is a natural one establish'd by God amongst the other creatures for the support of their common being consisting chiefly in their being mov'd one towards another Fire attracts unctuous exhalations and it self tends towards the Etherial fire the Air is drawn by the Lungs the Sea is drawn up by the Moon which causes its ebbing and flowing straw and dust by the Agate Iron by the Load-stone the virtue whereof together with the occult properties of all other bodies I attribute to that universal Spirit which carries every entity to its particular good The Fifth said If we would understand the causes of the
that when he labours he shall infallibly become rich that when he fights he shall have the victory that when he serves he shall be acceptable or that when he loves he shall be lov'd Whereas on the contrary we see many persons enrich'd without labour honour'd without fighting and acceptable without performance of any services and which is more many times hated by those they love and lov'd by those they hate Of all which we must either assign some cause or confess that there is no other cause thereof but hap or mishap which they call Fortune The Fourth said That Dionysius the younger the Tyrant of Syracuse was not of their judgement who disclaim Fortune assigning the cause of his not being able to preserve the Estates of his Father That he left him Heir of all excepting his Fortune Now the Ancients had Fortune in great reverence and put her amongst their domestick Gods And the Emperours religiously kept her Statue of gold which they sent as a badge of Empire to those whom they intended to design their successors Thus Antoninus Pius being ready to dye sent it to Marcus Antoninus the Philosopher and Severus sent it to his two sons Bassianus and Geta. Moreover because it visibly bears the chief stroke in gaming even in those Games to which she gives not the addition of her name and depend not upon skill there are found some at this day who think they can fix her to some thing which they wear about them while they are at play others attribute it to a particular situation of their bodies in respect of the Planets But all agree that Caesar ow'd more to his valour then to his fortune that if she could not make an Orator of a Consul or the contrary yet she can make a poor man rich by play and he must be a great Rhetorician that can perswade those who have good or bad luck that there is no Fortune The Fifth said 'T would be too much presumption in us to accuse all antiquity of ignorance which observ'd not only certain persons and places but some days and hours fortunate and unfortunate noting the happy days with chalk and the other with a black stone Moreover Philosophers divide goods into those of the Mind the Body and Fortune comprizing under the latter Friends Lineage Reputation Honours and Riches which are the things men make most account of in this world And riches are so commonly attributed to her that they are frequently denoted by the name of Fortune So that to maintain that there is no such thing is to go about to overthrow common sense and to correct Calepin But her efficiency is chiefly prov'd by the employments which happen to many contrary to all apparence according to the diversity of which every one makes progress or not in riches and honours For he that labours in little things takes most pains and gets least and so on the contrary which cannot be attributed to any thing else but fortune no more then the contracts bargains and other actions of men which are made almost always by chance Whence arose the Proverb There is nothing but good luck and bad luck in the world In War such a great Captain is constantly unfortunate whereas Timotheus was always the contrary in whose Nets Cities came to be taken whilst he slept In Physick such a Doctor is always accounted lucky whereas 't was enough to kill a sick man but to have seen Hermocrates in a dream not to mention what the Lawyers themselves call the hazard of Judgements The Sixth said The Ancients did like the Gouty person mention'd by Montagne who ate Saucidges and Gammons and drunk of the best that he might have whom to lay the fault upon They phancy'd Fortune that they might have whom to blame for evil events or rather to blaspheme against the Deity She is a pure fiction of the Poets who represented her upon a wheel one half whereof always ascends and the other descends to shew the volubility and continual vicissitude of humane things blind to signifie that good or evil doth not always befall us according to desert but oftentimes without distinction sometimes a man and sometimes a woman but principally the latter to denote her inconstancy all this mysteriously as all their other fables to take which literally were to do worse then the learned Pagans themselves The Seventh said Every one is the Artificer of his own fortune and all the Deities are present where Prudence is though we rank Fortune among the Gods Of whom we may say what Hercules said to the bemired Waggoner who invok'd him but touch'd not the wheel Help thy self and God will help thee none having ever obtain'd the title of fortunate but by great pains watchings and industries means which the vulgar not observing so much as their effect attribute it to a Deity Moreover dextrous men affect the title of lucky because the vulgar esteems them the more for it and the great est States-men hiding their counsels and the instruments they make use of to accomplish their designes give occasion to this errour Therefore when Zeno had lost all his wealth by Shipwreck he should not have said Fortune thou hast done well to bring me to this short cloak but rather have accus'd his own imprudence in having ventur'd all his estate at sea For since there is nothing in the world but hath its cause and fortune is that which is done by no cause it follows that there is no such thing as fortune CONFERENCE LV. I. Of the Taste II. Whether Poetry be useful I. Of the Taste THe right handling of a subject requiring the knowledge of its differences an Apicius might seem fitter to discourse of Taste then a Philosopher in whom too exact a knowledge of Sauces would be accounted blameable yet the word of Sapience or Wisdom among the Latines taking its name from Sapours the Sages who profess it may seem oblig'd too to be expert in this matter Besides this Sense supplies Physitians with the surest evidence of the faculties of every medicament by their Sapours which are second Qualities resulting from the various mixture of the four first whereof the Taste is an external sense discerning Sapours by help of the moisture in the mouth and the Nerve of the third Congjugation which is expanded upon the tongue whose flesh is therefore spungy and porous the more easily to imbibe the same Thus the object of the Taste is sapour or rellish the Organ is the Nerve the medium is the flesh of the tongue the condition without which it is not exercis'd is the humour either internal as that of the mouth supply'd by the Tonsils or Almonds or external as the moisture which all bodies have either in act or in power Whence they whose tongue is dry cannot taste that which is so nevertheless the humidity must be moderate since its excess no less depraves the taste then its defect The Second said Since the Organ ought not to
hath gotten the life of his Enemy Indeed the word Virtue coming from the Latine which signifies Man implyes that to be virtuous 't is requir'd to overcome as a Man and leave tricks sleights and subtleties to Women to supply their weakness and yet Women too when they see the masculine vigorous deportment and feats of Arms of a Cavalier that has won the victory over his Enemy will prefer him before an other who hath had the same advantage without striking a blow Whence it appears that in all sort of Minds Generosity and Courage finds more favour then subtlety The Second said That the Emblem of the Wind and the Sun trying which should make the Traveller quit his Cloak attributing the mastery to the Sun above the Wind shews that Force is not alwayes the most efficacious For he who aimes to overcome must accomplish it by the most facile way which being ordinarily the gentlest because it finds least resistance brings about its designes more easily then violence which giving the Alarm makes every one stand upon his guard and renders all enterprizes dangerous Therefore the wise General who commits his affairs to Chance as little as he can assayes all other means before he comes to open force imitating a discreet Master of a Family who never falls to blows either in his house or out of it so long as he hath any hope from wayes of gentleness Moreover the means which peculiarly belong to Man ought to be prefer'd before those which are common to him with brutes yea in which they go beyond him And you see that they are not the most strong and robust that command in Monarchies and States but the most wise and prudent whose bodies are commonly more weak through their great watchings and toils and because these delicate bodies are more easie to be govern'd by the powers of the Soul which consequently are more worthily exercis'd therein The Third said That Philip of Macedon had reason to compare subtlety to the Foxes skin as force to the Lion's saying that the former was to be made use of when the latter hapened to be too short For he who employes subtlety in war thereby acknowledges his weaknesse which made an old Captain say when he was advis'd to set upon his Enemy in the night That he would win not steal a Victory For he that is vanquish'd onely by stratagem does not acknowledge himself worsted and they who make use of wiles when they think they have done they are alwayes to begin again as the Barretors who by some subtlety have procur'd a Verdict are never secure against new Sutes So a little man skill'd in wrastling may haply trip up his more sturdy Antagonist and so be counted more dextrous or nimble but not more strong then he Moreover since all actions take their rule from Justice which cannot consist with fraud he is not to be reputed a Conqueror that hath gotten a Victory unjustly The Fourth said That if we receive the judgement of the vanquish'd the Victors are alwayes faulty Therefore it matters not by what means we defeat our Enemies provided those means be lawful and transgress not the maxime of Divines That evil is not to be done to the end good may come of it This premiz'd 't is not onely lawfull for the chief of an Army but perfectly his duty to deprive his Enemies of all advantages before the fight in it and afterward besieging places defending them or giving them relief So Joshuah to encourage the Israelites to make an invasion into the land of Canaan caus'd Grapes of prodigious greatness which grew in that Country to be shew'd them in the Desart Cato to animate the Romans to the Carthaginian War let fall in the Senate some of the large African Figgs crying that there were but three days sail from the place where they grew An other by letting loose a Hare from the walls of Thebes thereby assur'd his Souldiers that they had to do onely with cowards since they suffer'd those Animals to come amongst them M. Antonius to exasperate the Romans against the murtherers of Caesar display'd his shirt to them all bloody And Augustus to convince them of ingratitude publish'd his Testament true or fictitious whereby he made those very murtherers his heirs Others of whom Examples are infinite by continual Alarms oblige their Enemies to watch and stand for some dayes in armes before the fight to the end to tire them out by those toiles they weaken them by delights cut off their provisions hinder their relief raise false reports and intercept Letters on purpose to abate their Courage or that of their Allies In the fight they strive to give their Enemies the disadvantage of the wind dust smoak and Sun in their faces they possess the highest and most advantagious places and drive them upon precipices ditches bogs and other incommodious places they let loose mad beasts upon them as Elephants of old to break their ranks and strike terror into them which others do also by their cryes words armes engines and other uncouth inventions the strangeness whereof making a great impression in their Minds puts them into disorder They make shew of assailing them on one side whilst on the other where they are weakest they give an assault in good earnest Some have overcome them by their celerity surprizing them asleep feasting playing or wearied others by a contrary stratagem get the better of them by patience undermining and consuming them by little and little After the fight when the Enemies are defeated they hinder them from getting together again in a body In brief all the sleight and artifice that humane invention can imagine to confound the counsels and dissipate the forces of the Enemy hath been in all times employ'd to that end and they who have best practis'd the same have gotten the name of great Captains Therefore Virgil had reason to say That it was not to be consider'd whether fraud or force were to be us'd against an Enemy but to conclude both are succesfully joyn'd together CONFERENCE LXIII I. Of Motion II. Of Custome I. Of Motion MOtion is consider'd variously in the Sciences By Metaphysicks inasmuch as Entity is divided into Moveable and Immoveable By Natural Philosophy as 't is an internal propriety of a Natural Body By Logick so far as 't is inseparable from Contrariety whereof it treats amongst the Opposites By Physick as being comprehended amongst the six things not-natural By Astronomy as it is annex'd to the Heavens and by them is the cause of all those here below By the Mechanicks as 't is the Agent of all their Engines And 't were to be wish'd for the perfection of the Mathematicks that as some of them treat of continuous Quantity permanent as Geometry others of discrete Quantity as Arithmetick considering them abstracted from their matter so there were some that treated purely of the nature and properties of continuous Quantity successive which is Motion For the doctrine of Motion
of action as neglect of a salutation makes men go to the field Yea all the professions of the world borrow their praise or their blame from Phancy And who is there amongst us but would account it a grievance and make great complaints if that were impos'd upon him by command which his phancy makes him extreamly approve The studious person rises in the night to study the amorous spends it in giving serenades In brief the Proverb that saith None are happy or unhappy but they who think themselves so abundantly evidences the power of Imagination The Fourth said All Animals that have outward senses have also Imagination which is a faculty of the sensitive soul enabling them to discriminate things agreeable from the contrary Therefore those Philosophers who deny'd this power to Worms Flyes and other insects which they affirm'd to be carried towards their good by chance and not by any knowledge of it besides their derogating from divine providence were ignorant that the smallest animals cease not to have the same faculties as others at least confused as their Organs are which contain the more marvels in that they serve to more several uses Moreover Experience shews us that they well distinguish what is fit for them from what is not yea they have their passions too for choler leads the Bee to pursue the enemy that hath pillag'd its hive their providence or fore-cast since both that and the Pismire lay in their provisions and observe a kind of policy among them the former acknowledging a King which they could not do without the help of Imagination although the same be not so strong in them as in perfect animals among whom even such as have no eyes or want the use of them as the Mole are much inferior to others in Imagination which is chiefly employ'd about the Images whence it takes its name whereof the sight supplies a greater quantity then all the other Senses So that every animal being naturally lead to its own good needs an Imagination to conceive it such but all have not Memory which being given only to enable animals to find their abode again which they are oblig'd to quit for some time in quest of food those who change not their residence as Oysters or which carry it with them as Snails and Tortoises have no need of it The Fifth said That the Imagination is a cognition different from that of sense for it knows that which is not but the Sense doth not from Science and Intelligence because these are always true but that is sometimes true sometimes false Nevertheless 't is not opinion because opinion produces a belief in us which presupposes perswasion and this is an effect of Reason whereof brutes are not possest although all of them have more or less some Imagination It s object is of so great latitude that it goes beyond that of entity since that which is not as well as that which is the false as well as the true are under its jurisdiction for it composes divides and runs over all nature and what is out of nature herein almost like the Intellect which owes all its highest notions to it since it can know nothing without the phantasmes of the Imagination which on the contrary depends not any ways upon the Understanding in its operations The Sixth said The Imagination although very active and carri'd in a moment from the lowest stage of the world to its highest stories and to those spaces which it phansies above the heavens yet cannot comprehend where it self is lodg'd But the quality of the Brain most proper for it is heat For besides its great activity whereby it is necessarily alli'd to fire the phanciful persons are most subject to burning Fevers the cholerick excel in this faculty of which on the contrary the phlegmatick are worst provided Whence perhaps Poets who owe their best Verses to the Phancy heighten the heat of their Brain by drinking the best liquors Moreover 't is the strongest of all the Souls Faculties and involves every thing here below It disorders and quiets Nations making them undertake wars and desire peace it awakens and stills our passions and as if nature were not powerful enough to produce all things necessary to the perfection of the world it daily frames new ideas and makes other worlds to its curiosity 'T is this that blinded him of whom Pliny speaks who having dream'd in the night that he had lost his sight found himself blind when he wak'd 't is this that gave a voice to Croesus's son which nature had deny'd him which chang'd L. Cossutius from a woman into a man which made horns grow out of the forehead of Cippus after his dreaming of the Oxen whom he had seen fighting all the day before In brief 't is this that made Gallus Vibius become foolish by having mus'd too much upon the causes of folly But it acts not only within both upon the body and the soul it diffuses its power beyond its own mansion For to it is attributed that wonder of the Tortoises and Estriches which hatch their egges by the sight as also that of Hens which breed Chickens according to the colours laid neer their Nests and sometimes of the shape of a Kite if they have been frighted by that bird whilst they were hatching 'T is also to the power of Imagination that what my Lord Bacon affirms is to be referr'd namely That it is dangerous to be beheld by our enviers in extream joy as 't is reported that certain Scythian women murder'd only with a single aspect and possibly to this cause better then to any other the bleeding of a murder'd body in the murderer's presence may be imputed as also that the most vigorous have been found cold and impotent and other effects the cause whereof may be better referr'd to this Imagination and the connexion and coherence of this cause with those effects demonstrated II. Which is most powerful Hope or Fear Upon the second Point it was said That fear being of two sorts one filial mix'd with respect proper to the ingenuous the other servile arising only from the consideration of punishment it appears hence that fear is more effectual then hope which is not often found but in good persons whereas fear is found both in the wicked and the good The Laws seem also to decide this question there being none that encourages vertue to hope for any thing but all infuse an abhorrence of crimes by the fear of punishments Moreover both the Indies would not suffice the least Commonwealth if profitable rewards were to be given to every good action perform'd in it and honorable recompences being valu'd only for their rarity would be no longer so if they came to be common Therefore there is but one Treasurer of the Exchequer in office but Judges Counsellors Archers and Serjeants innumerable Moreover there is always more to be fear'd then hop'd For he who hath an estate and honour may more easily lose
and the holiest mysteries of Religion not onely by the Delians who accompany'd all their prayers with dancing and the Indians who ador'd the Sun by dancing and imitating the course of that luminary but also by the Prophet David before the Ark and by Saul who being full of the Spirit of God fell to dancing with the Children of the Prophets as also did Miriam the sister of Moses Judith when she had kill'd Holofernes and infinite others in testimony of their thanksgiving to God The Muses themselves are painted by the Poets dancing about their fountain upon Mount Helicon Apollo is call'd dancer by Pindar and the Graces are represented dancing Proteus so celebrated by the Poets became famous onely by this Art and which he so excell'd that his nimble in strange postures gave occasion to the fable of turning himself into all kind of shapes because sometimes he counterfeited the fluidity of the water sometimes the lightness of fire the bending of trees the rage of the Leopard the cruelty of the Lyon and in brief the nature of every sort of things The Third said That Dancing is compos'd of three parts Motion Gesture and Indication For there is first a stirring up and down then a representing things by the Gestures of the Body chiefly by the Hand which Art is call'd Chironomy and those which are expert in it Chirosophers that is wise by the Hands Hence Dancing is defin'd a motion of the Body according to rule and number imitating by gesture things or persons either with singing or without As Motion 't is very delightful to Nature which is as much pleas'd therein as rest is disagreeable to it Nor is it less so as it includes an harmonious proportion of measure having this correspondence with Musick Poetry Eloquence Painting Comedy and all other Arts whose end is the delight of man But as it is an imitation it delights marvellously we loving nothing so much as to imitate or to see some thing imitated Hence works of Art please us more then those of Nature because Art doth nothing but imitate her Besides its delightfulness 't is also profitable and honest It s usefulness is sufficiently known to Physitians who make it a part of their Gymnastick Physick which treats of the exercises and motions prescrib'd in order to health and is divided into Palestrical and Saltatory Moreover Galen affirms that he cur'd many Patients by appointing them to dance which is an exercise of all parts of the body whereas walking exercises onely the legs riding the intestines bowling the reins going by ship the stomack and brain 'T is also very honest or decorous since it formes and fashions the body giving it a good grace one of the principal points of handsomeness For the Soul having the Sciences to instruct the Understanding and the Moral Virtues to rectifie the Will the body its dear partner needs some habit to regulate its defects the rather because they have influence upon the Soul it being very difficult for the motions of the Soul to be regular so long as those of the body are not Therefore Plato in the seventh book of his Laws requires that the instructers of youth have equally care of the body and the soul and for this purpose teach them Musick to regulate the motions of the Soul and dancing to frame those of the body and give it gracefulness as wrastling gives it strength CONFERENCE LXVII I. Of Death II. Of the Will I. Of Death AS Being is the first and greatest good because the foundation of all other goods so speaking absolutely upon a natural account the first and greatest of all evils is the privation of that Being which is Death so terrible that not onely brutes abhor the sight of their dead fellows through fear of the same death of which they behold an image of their carcases but men likewise although their name of Mortals be a token of the necessity of their dying yet use all the vain attempts they can to avoid that death which they fear as the most terrible of terrble things Yea all their great and violent actions and passions take their source from this fear which is so much greater as the evil is phancy'd nearer Whence old or sick persons have more apprehension of it then then those that are young and in health The vulgar commonly labours onely through fear of starving A man that is decrepit yet is willing to part with a limb if he may by the loss respite his death apprehended so terrible by some that the fear of it has kill'd some criminals before execution and carry'd others to such madness as to kill themselves for fear of dying Nevertheless he that shall consider Death more nearly will find that being but a privation it is nothing and that what we fear so much is onely the way to this death or the sequel of it the former in respect of irrational animals and both in reference to man who apprehends in the other life the judgement of the actions of this Otherwise Death being onely a poynt and a moment which hath neither quantity nor extent but approaches to Nothing hath therefore nothing in it self for which it ought to be feared For so long as the Animal hath sense it is not dead and so soon as 't is dead it hath no more And because 't is a motion and passage from Being to not Being between which two there is no medium or middle therefore 't is a pure nothing and consequently hath no foundation saving in the troubled Phancy Since upon due perpension of things that which is not is no-wise to be fear'd by those that are insensible yea that exist no more The Second said That to maintain Death to be nothing is to accuse not onely all men of folly in fearing what exists not and consequently is not capable of producing any effects or passions but likewise Nature of imprudence in having imprinted this apprehension in all creatures for their preservation As therefore Reason and Experience teach us that there are substantial generations so the same shew us the true and substantial corruptions of all compounds which corruption in a thing endu'd with life is call'd Death which is the separation of the Soul from the Body For the Platonists are ridiculous when they make two kinds of this separation namely that of the Soul from the Body which they call Extasie and that of the Body from the Soul which alone they say is to be call'd Death For they are both one and the same thing and Extasie is not a separation of essence but of power hapning when the Soul is so glu'd to an object in the contemplation whereof it employes all its powers that there remains none for corporeal functions the Eyes not perceiving what is then presented to them Whence the Soul being more where it loves then where it lives is also more where it understands Now Death is either natural or violent The former caus'd by the consumption
the campaigne War is the fair where wares are had best cheap and in sack'd Cities commodities are taken without weighing and Stuffs are not measur'd but with the Pike instead of the Ell if any complain there needs no more but to imitate Brennus's treating with the Romans besiedg'd in the Capitol cast the sword into the balance it will carry it Wherefore being Master of all Arts it is more necessary then they For he that is strongest finds sufficient of every thing The Seventh said As amongst the Arts some have others subservient to them as the Ephippians to the Military Art Chyrurgery Pharmacy the Gymnastick and all that relate to Health to Medicine or Physick Carpentry Masonry and others employ'd about building to Architecture and these Master Arts are call'd Architectonical So there is one above all these which is Policy the Eye and Soul of the State which governs all Arts gives them their rewards and punishes their defects sets what price it pleases upon things affords convenient place for the merit of every one sends Armies into the field and calls them back according to the necessity of affairs hath care of Piety and Justice establishes Magistracy appoints quarters to Souldiers and gives free exercise to all other Arts. All which considerations and accounts argue it the most necessary of all CONFERENCE LXXIII I. Of the Earthquake II. Of Envy I. Of the Earthquake IRregular motions are as strange as regular are agreeable especially those of bodies destinated to rest as the Earth is being the immoveable centre about which the whole fabrick of the world is turn'd For though the whole Heaven cannot rest any more then the whole Earth move yet the parts of them may the Scripture informing us that Joshuah made the Sun stand still that he might have time to pursue the Amorites and every Age having experiences of Earthquakes To which Aristotle ascribes the appearing of a new Island in the Pontick Sea call'd Heraclia and of another call'd Sacrea Many Geographers affirm that the Islands of Rhodes and Delos were produc'd by the like cause and that Sicily sometimes joyn'd to Italy was separated from it by an Earthquake whence the place of separation is still call'd by the Greek word Rhegium which signifies separation and fracture Pliny affirms that the Island of Cyprus was by this means divided from Syria and Euboea from Boeotia Histories tell of some Mountains that have clash'd together contrary to the Proverb which saith that they never meet of Towns transported to some distance from their first situation as hapned by an Earthquake in Syria in the ninth year of Constantinus Copronomus of others swallowed up as sometimes the greatest part of the City of Sparta upon which at the same time fell a part of Mount Taygetus which completed its ruine twenty thousand inhabitants of which City were also overwhelm'd by an other Earthquake by the relation of Diodorus about the 78. Olympiade Josephus reports that thirty thousand Jews were swallow'd up by another And Justin that when Tigranes King of Armenia became Master of Syria there hapned so dreadful an Earthquake that a hundred and thirty thousand Syrians perish'd by it Four hundred years agoe twelve thousand houses were shaken down at Lisbon Italy was much endamag'd in the year 1116 by one which lasted forty dayes principally Tuscany Puglia the Territory of Venice and Campagnia where twelve Cities perish'd and that of Pompey was swallow'd up in Winter which season neverthelesse is accounted free from it Four years agoe the City of Naples was horribly shaken especially the borders of Mount Visuvius The common opinion refers these effects to a dry Exhalation which makes the same concussion in the belly of the Earth as in that of a cloud shattering many times both the one and the other when it cannot otherwise get free from its confinement how hard or dense soever the bodies be that inclose it The Second said That the causes of Earthquakes are either Divine or Astrological or Physical The first have no other foundation but the Will of God who thereby oftentimes manifests to Men his justice and power and sometimes contrary to the course of ordinary and natural causes Such was that at the death of our Saviour in the 18th year of Tiberius which was universal and wherewith twelve Cities of Asia perish'd and that mention'd by Sigonius hapning in the year 343. under Constantine the Arrian Emperor whereby the City of Neocaesaria was wholly swallow'd up except the Catholick Church and its Bishop The Astrological causes are if we may credit the professors of this Art the malignant influences of Jupiter and Mars in the Houses of Taurus Virgo and Capricorn But as the first are too general so these are very uncertain being built for the most part upon false principles as also those which suppose the Earth a great Animal whose tremors are made in the same manner as those which befall other Animals Wherefore holding to the most perceptible causes I conceive with Democritus that torrents of rain coming to fill the concavities of the Earth by their impetuousnesse drive out the other waters and that upon their motion and swaying from one side to another the Earth also reels this way and by and by the other or rather that these Torrents drive out the winds impetuously as Air issues out of a bottle when it is filling which wind repells and agitates the Earth till it find some issue whence also come the sounds and lowings which accompany Earthquakes As is seen in Hydraulick instruments which by arificial mixing Air and Water when they are impell'd into pipes fit to receive the same excite sounds like those emitted by the wind-pipe of Animals agitated with the wind of their lungs and moistned with the salivous liquor or natural water The Third said That he could not be of their mind who because water is found by digging to a good depth in the Earth therefore interpret that place literally where 't is said That God hath founded the Earth upon the Water upon which it floats and that according to their agitation the Earth is like a Ship which fluctuates in a tempestuous Sea and lyes even and still in a calm since if this were so then the whole Earth should tremble at the same time which is contrary to experience The opinion of Anaximenes is more probable that as part of the Earth upon a droughth after a wet season cleaves and crackles so the same happens to Regions and whole Countries The Fourth said That if this opinion were true then they would begin increase diminish and cease by degrees nor would they last long Yet 't is observ'd some have continu'd forty days yea six moneths as that of Constantinople under Theodosius the younger and miraculously ceas'd upon the first singing of those words by all the people Sanctus Sanctus c. Aristotle also makes mention of some that lasted two years the cause whereof depends either upon the quality or
That every thing that disturbs the publick quiet is to be repress'd concludes that the Seditious are to be punish'd So 't is not enough for a Mathematician to know that equal things added to equal things are likewise equal unless he apply this universal principle to particular lines surfaces and bodies Which is done either by the Synthetical or by the Analytical way which nevertheless must be follow'd by the Synthetical Now 't is in the application of these general rules to particulars that errour is committed even in the most certain Sciences The Seventh said That there are few Sciences because there are few Principles and Proposition's demonstrable as the contingent and the absolute are not Whence it is that the future is not demonstrable and hence follows the incertainty of Politicks Wherefore only necessary Propositions whereof the truth is permanent and eternal are demonstrable and all these are necessarily demonstrable because they have infallible principles yet only such of these whose principles are known by men are demonstrable by men So 't is certain that the Inundation of Nilus and the flux and reflux of the Sea are not demonstrable because men know not the principles are not known Whereby it appears how ridiculous they are who undertake to demonstrate every thing CONFERENCE LXXXV I. Whether the manners of the Soul follow the temperament of the Body II. Of Sights or Shews I. Whether the manners of the Soul follow the temperament of the Body THe extream variety of men's actions and manners cannot proceed from the diversity of their souls which are accounted all equal but from that of the bodies wherein according to the various tempers thereof the soul produces that variety of manners And as in natural and animal actions one and the same Soul digests in the stomack makes blood in the Liver and Veins sees by the Eyes and reasons in the Brain so likewise it is sometimes sad when the melancholy humour predominates in the body sometimes cheerful when blood abounds and sometimes also froward or angry when the choler is agitated The Second said That the soul being the form as the body is the matter it must be the cause of all humane actions not the body which receives them since the soul informs and perfectionates the body and begets in it the habit which produces the manners and actions As the horse governs not the rider but the contrary and 't is to the rider that the honour or blame of the course is to be imputed And were the soul but a quality as the most prophane have ventur'd to affirm yet the same priviledge must be reserv'd to it which is allow'd to the predominant quality in every compound which gives it not only the denomination but also the action as in compound medicaments the most active simple carries the credit from the rest Besides if the body and the humours thereof were the author and cause of manners an ignorant person could never become learned and a single Lecture of Xenocrates had never made a Drunkard cast off his chaplet of flowers and turn a Philosopher The examples of many grand personages sufficiently ill furnish'd with graces of the body evidence what certainty there is in arguing from the out-side of the corporeal structure to the furniture of the soul and that the signs of malice remark'd in some as in Zoilus from his having a red beard a black mouth and being lame and one-ey'd of Thersites and Irus from their having sharp heads rather shew the malice or ignorance of such as make these remarks then prove that these dispositions of body are the true cause of malice we see people of the same temper hair stature features and other circumstances very different in their manners and inclinations And the same is observ'd in horses For since the Stars the most powerful agents do not constrain but only incline certainly the humours cannot do more True it is their inclination is so strong that no less grace of Heaven is needful to resist the same then strength to retain a man that is rolling down the declivity of a hill Yet Socrates remaining unmov'd by the embraces of a Curtezan whom his Scholars contriv'd into his bed to try him although he was naturally very prone to vice justifies that how hard soever it be to stop the slipping foot when it is once going yet 't is not impossible and therefore the manners of the soul do not always follow the constitution of the body Not considering the power which the fear of God hath over our wills the effects whereof I here meddle not with as being supernatural since they have sometimes destroy'd all the maximes of nature witness those that give themselves to be burnt for the faith The Third said That the body must needs contribute to the soul's actions as being its instrument But it contributes only what it hath namely its temperament and other proprieties Therefore 't is from this temperament that the same are diversifi'd The soul sees no longer when the eyes are shut or blinded 't is wise in a well temper'd brain not only in a dry as Plato in his Timaeus conceiv'd because he saw children grow more prudent as their brain was desiccated 't is stupid in a too moist brain and foolish or furious in one inflam'd as in deliration or madness 'T is also forc'd to leave its body when a violent Fever hath so deprav'd the humours thereof that there remains not the temper necessary to its reception Therefore it follows the temper of the humours Thus because we see fire introduc'd into any combustible subject and extinguish'd when the same is consum'd we say fire follows combustible matter and becomes of the same nature quantity and other qualities Moreover Hippocrates saith Nations are warlike or cowardly laborious or not of good or bad nature according to the diversity of climates and soils they inhabit which render them diversly temper'd Hence in Asia where the air is temperate and less subject to changes then Europe and Africa men are more healthy and handsome their manners more equal and laudable on the contrary in Countries more cold or hot the inhabitants are either more cruel or more boisterous more hardy or more timerous and Mountaineers are more industrious as on the contrary those who live in a fertile soil are commonly more slothful Hence amongst the Greeks the Thebans and all the Baeotians whose Country was rich and the air very thick were very dull and the Athenians very subtle which was the cause that 't was said people were born Philosophers at Athens on the contrary 't was a prodigious thing to see one wise Anacharsis among the Scythians Hippocrates addes the seasons too according to the change whereof men's manners are also found divers But all these cannot act upon the soul but by the organ of the body changing its humours and introducing new qualities into the parts thereof The Fourth said Even sucking children give some tokens to what their
of Art which we learn'd from them for the most part but they have also virtues as Chastity Simplicity Prudence Piety On the contrary God as the Philosopher teaches exercises neither virtues nor any external actions but contemplation is his sole employment and consequently the most divine of all though it were not calm agreeable permanent sufficient proper to man and independent of others which are the tokens of beatitude and the chief good The Third said since 't is true which Plato saith that while we are in this world we do nothing but behold by the favour of a glimmering light the phantasms and shadows of things which custom makes us to take for truths and bodies they who amuse themselves in contemplation in this life cannot be said contented unless after the manner of Tantalus who could not drink in the midst of the water because they cannot satisfie that general inclination of nature who suffers nothing idle in all her precincts to reduce powers into act and dead notions into living actions If they receive any pleasure in the knowledge of some truths 't is much less then that which is afforded by action and the exercise of the moral virtues of the active life the more excellent in that they are profitable to many since the most excellent good is the most communicable Moreover all men have given the pre-eminence to civil Prudence and active life by proposing rewards and honours thereunto but they have punish'd the ingratitude and pride of speculative persons abandoning them to contempt poverty and all incommodities of life And since the Vice which is opposite to active life is worse then ignorance which is oppos'd to the contemplative by the reason of contraries action must be better then contemplation and the rather because virtuous action without contemplation is always laudable and many times meritorious for its simplicity on the contrary contemplation without virtuous acts is more criminal and pernicious In fine if it be true that he who withdraws himself from active life to intend contemplation is either a god or a beast as Aristotle saith 't is more likely that he is the latter since man can hardly become like to God The Fourth said That to separate active life from contemplative is to cut off the stream from the fountain the fruit from the tree and the effect from its cause as likewise contemplation without the vertues of the active life is impossible rest and tranquillity which are not found in vice being necessary to contemplate and know Wherefore as the active life is most necessary during this life so the contemplative is more noble and divine if this present life be consider'd as the end and not as the means and way to attain to the other life in which actions not contemplations shall be put to account Contemplation is the Sun Action the Moon of this little World receiving its directions from contemplation as the Moon of the great World borrows its light from the Sun the former presides in the day of contemplative life the second which is neerer to us as the Moon is presides in the darkness of our passions Both of them represented in Pallas the Goddess of Wisdom and War being joyn'd together make the double-fronted Janus or Hermaphrodite of Plato square of all sides compos'd of Contemplation which is the Male and Action which is the Female CONFERENCE XCIII I. Of the spots in the Moon and the Sun II. Whether 't is best to use severity or gentleness towards our dependents I. Of the spots in the Moon and the Sun THere is nothing perfect in the world spots being observ'd in the brightest bodies of Nature And not to speak of those in the Sun which seem to proceed from the same cause with those observ'd in our flame according as 't is condens'd or rarifi'd we may well give account of those in the Moon by saying with the Pythagoreans and some later excellent Mathematicians that the Moon is an earthly habitable Globe as the eminences and inequalities observ'd therein by the Telescope the great communications of the Moon with our earth depriving one another of the Sun by the opacity rotundity and solidty of both and the cold and moist qualities which it transmits hither like those of this terr-aqueous Globe since the same apparences and illumination of the Earth would be seen from the Heaven of the Moon if a man were carri'd thither And because solid massie bodies as wood and stone reflect light most strongly therefore the brightest parts of the Moon answer the terrestrial dense parts and the dark the water which being rarer and liker the air is also more transparent and consequently less apt to stop and reflect light This we experience in the prospect of high Mountains very remote or the points of Rocks in the open Sea which reflect a light and have a colour like that of the Moon when the Sun is still above the Horizon with her whereas the Sea and great Lakes being less capable of remitting this light seem dark and like clouds So that were this Globe of Ocean and Earth seen from far it would appear illuminated and spotted like the Moon For the opinion of Plurality of Worlds which can be no way dangerous of it self but only in the consequences the weakness of humane wit would draw from it much less is it contrary to the faith as some imagine is rather an argument of Gods Omnipotence and more abundant communication of his goodness in the production of more creatures whereas his immense goodness seems to be restrain'd in the creation of but one world and of but one kind Nor is it impossible but that as we see about some Planets namely Jupiter and Saturn some other Stars which move in Epicycles and in respect of their stations and those Planets seem like Moons to them and are of the same substance so that which shines to us here below may be of the same substance with our earth and plac'd as a bound to this elementary Globe The Second said That the spots of the Sun and Moon cannot be explicated without some Optical presuppositions And first 't is to be known that Vision is perform'd three ways directly by reflection and by refraction Direct Vision which is the most ordinary is when an object sends its species to the eye by a direct way that is when all the points of one and the same object make themselves seen by so many right lines Reflective Vision is when the species of an object falling upon the surface of an opake body is remitted back to the sight as 't is in our Looking-glasses Vision by refraction is when the species of an object having pass'd through a medium diaphanous to a certain degree enters obliquely into another medium more or less diaphanous for then 't is broken and continues not its way directly but with this diversity that coming from a thicker medium into a thinner as from water into air the species in breaking