they should not bear to have it so much as recommended or mentioned but prefer Slavery and Dependance before living upon their own Stock getting above Fortune and making themselves easy and Masters at all times and places and upon all Accidents alike May we not most justly cry out with Tiberius more justly indeed than He did O Wretches born to be Slaves How absurd is it that we who are such Patrons and Sticklers for Liberty in the Case of our Bodies Estates and all other Properties should not bear to have our Mind free which after all is the only Free-born thing that belongs to any of us We seek and employ conveniences fetch'd from all parts of the World count no expence too great for the Health the Service the Ornament of the Body but grudge every thing for the improvement and enriching of the Mind In short We are so partial as to take all possible pains that the Body may be at large while the Soul is fettered and coop'd up in Prison The other Branch of this Liberty in which the Will is concerned is of yet greater value in which the Wills is concerned is of yet greater value Liberty of the Will and ought to be more endeavour'd after by a Wise Man as indeed it is more serviceable to him than the former Now here I think it necessary to admonish my Reader that the Matter under our present Consideration is not that Faculty and Privilege of Human Nature which Philosophers and Divines commonly stile Free-Will nor shall we treat of it in the same Method with Them But my meaning is That a Wise Man ought to preserve his own Ease and Quiet to keep his Will and Affections free and disengaged and to lay them out upon very few objects and those such as may justify his Choice For indeed the things that deserve our Choice and challenge our Affections if nicely examined will be found but very few But this is not all For even Those that deserve them best will not justify our Vehemence and Eagerness and immoderate Fondness of them And here I find my self under some necessity of encountring two very popular and plausible Opinions The One is That which teaches us to be always forward to serve other people to lay aside all thoughts of one's self for the sake of our Neighbours and especially when the Publick Good is concerned pretends that no private Interest ought to come in Competition with it And the Other prompts us to espouse such Matters with all possible Zeal and to the very utmost of our power He that declines the Former is accused of wanting Good nature and a publick Spirit and He that is remiss in the Latter is suspected of Coldness and Indifference want of Generosity and the Zeal that is required of a Good Man and in short reputed incapable of making a Friend Now whatever there may really be at the bottom of these Opinions yet it is plain the World have overloaded the Foundation and built such Notions upon it as exceed all Reason and Measure and nothing can be more Romantick and Extravagant than what we sind delivered upon these Occasions For our Governors who feel the Advantage of them oftentimes infuse Principles into us not according to the true merits of the Cause but in proportion as they perceive they may prove serviceable and beneficial And it frequently falls out that those Opinions which are in themselves most reasonable and true are not most convenient to be generally entertained And besides this Observing how natural the Love of our Selves and our own private Advantage is and what Partialities and unreasonable Excesses it is apt to carry us into they thought it necessary to divert and draw us off as far from This as possibly and so took the Common Course of bending the Crooked Stick the Contrary way that it might at last stand strait by being forced toward the other Extreme 1 These Opinions when misunderstood and misapplied which is commonly the Fate of most Opinions when they fall into the hands of a Multitude occasion great Injustice and Disorder many Difficulties and grievous Mischiefs As we may plainly observe in those persons that snap at every bait of this kind let themselves out to hire as it were and devote all their Time and Pains to the service of other people These men do not only suffer themselves to be managed and taken absolute Possession of by their Friends but they thrust themselves forward of their own accord and will have an Oar in every Boat It is indifferent to Them whether the Matter concerns them or not whether it be of greater consequence or of none at all still they Interess themselves in all alike for indeed they often do it merely to keep themselves in Motion and Employment It stirs their Spirits put their Soul into a pleasing sort of Agitation and thus * In Negotio sunt negotij causà they are busy purely because they love to be so They cannot bear the having nothing to do nor can they confine their Thoughts to their own Affairs but either do not see or carelesly overlook them and so seek Employment abroad and meddle and turn undertakers in things that are foreign and distant as if they had nothing at all to do at home no concerns that are essential and necessary to be followed no personal no domestick Cares that lye upon their hands such as ought to be first dispatched and which if duly attended to would leave no room for Sloth nor leisure so great as should prove a Temptation to us to turn Managers for other people that we may keep our selves in Action Many of these persons are good husbands of their purse and careful not to part with a Penny of Money but upon valuable considerations but they are unreasonably prodigal of their Soul their Life squander away their Time and their Pains their Affections and their Will most profusely and unaccountably dedicate Themselves and all their Powers to any occasions that calls for their Assistance And yet when all is done These are the valuable Treasures of which we ought to be exceeding choice and sparing and in such Instances it is chiefly that Frugality and good Management are commendable But alas the Persons we speak of are so far from this that they glory in their Extravagance act all with such Violence and Passion that they are lost to Reason and common Sense and never think they do enough till they have engaged as deep as is possible and given up their Persons and their Wits both to the Cause they espouse Great Men make their Advantage of such Tempers as these Men that will be eager and angry and expose nay lose their lives upon pretences of Friendship and Punctilio's of Honour and Respect are special Tools for Their purpose And they are not wanting to countenance and caress them throw out large Promises and use a thousand little Stratagems to draw them in and six them to their
Frost and Snow made only this Answer That other People cou'd bear their Faces naked and he was Face all over History tells us of several very great Persons who went constantly bare-headed as Masinissa and Caesar and Hannibal and Severas And some Nations there are who being accusiom'd to no Defence for their Bodies at other times never trouble themselves for any when they go into the Wars but engage in the hottest Action whole Armies of naked Men together Plato thinks it adviseable for the Health never to cover either the Head or the Feet at all Varro pretends that when Men were commanded to stand bare in the Temple of the Gods and in the Presence of the Magistrates it was not only the Respectfulness of the Ceremony but the Wholsomness of it that the Law had regard to since Men by this means harden'd their Bodies against the Injuries of Wind and Weather and strengthen'd themselves while they paid a due Reverence to their Superiours In a Word abstracting from what Revelation hath taught us and looking at Nature only I shou'd make no doubt but the Contrivances of Hutts and Houses and other Shelters against the Violence of the Seasons and the Assaults of Men was a much more ancient Institution than that of Cloathing and there seems to have been more of Nature and universal Practice in it for we see that Beasts and Birds do the same thing The Care and Provision of Victuals was unquestionably of far greater Antiquity than either of the former for this seems to have been one of the first Impulses and Dictates of Nature the Necessities and Appetites whereof return so thick upon us that it is not easie to suppose Man cou'd subsist at all without this Care Book III. In the Vertue of Temperance But of these Matters we shall have other Opportunities to treat more fully when we come to give Rules for the Use and Regulation both of Food and Raiment hereafter CHAP. VII Concerning the Soul in general WE are now entring upon a Subject of all others the most difficult and nice One which has been treated of and particularly canvassed by the greatest Philosophers and most penetrating Wits of all Ages and Countries Aegyptian Greek Arabian and Latin Authors but yet so that their Opinions have been infinitely various according to the several Nations from whence they sprung the Religions they embrac'd the Professions in which they had been educated and the Reasons that offer'd themselves to their Thoughts So that how far soever each Man might satisfie his own Mind yet they have never been able to come to any general good Agreement or certain Determination in the Matter Now the main Points in Controversie upon this occasion are those Ten that follow What may be the Definition of the Soul What its real Essence and Nature Its Faculties and Actions Whether there be One or More Souls in a Man Whence its Original What the Time and Manner of its entring the Body the Manner of its Residence the Seat where it dwels the Sufficiency to exercise the several Functions belonging to it and lastly Its End or Separation from the Body First of all It is exceeding hard to give an accurate Definition of the Soul It s Definâ—tion or be able to say exactly What it is And this in truth is the Case of all Forms in general and we cannot well conceive how it shou'd be otherwise with Things which are Relative and have no proper and independent Subsistence of their own but are only Parts of some Whole Hence without question it hath come to pass that the Definitions of it put abroad have been so many and at the same time so infinitely various too that not any one of them hath been receiv'd without Clashing or Contradiction Aristotle hath rejected no less than Twelve among the Philosophers who had written before him and yet he hath found but little better success with That of his own which he labour'd but in vain to establish in the room of them Nothing can indeed be more easie and obvious than to determine what the Soul is not We dare be confident that it is not Fire Air nor Water nor a Mixture and due Temperament of the Four Elements together the Qualities or the Humours nicely adjusted For This is a thing in perpetual Flux and Uncertainty the Animal subsists and lives without it And besides This is manifestly an Accident whereas the Soul is a Substance To this we may add that Minerals and several inanimate Creatures have a Temperament of the Four Elements and prime Tactile Qualities and still continue Inanimate notwithstanding Nor can the Soul be the Blood for several Instances may be given of Animated and Living Creatures without any Blood at all belonging to them and several Creatures die without losing one Drop of Blood Nor is it the Principle and First Cause of Motion in us for several Inanimate things impart Motion So does the Loadstone to the Iron the Amber to the Straw Medicines and Drugs and Roots of Trees when dry'd and cut to pieces draw and create very strong Motions Nor is it the Act Life Energy or Perfection for Aristotle's Term Eutclechia hath been interpreted in all these dissering Senses For all this cannot be the very Essence of the Soul it self but only the Operation and Effect of it as Living Seeing and Understanding are plain and proper Actions of the Soul Besides admitting this Notion it wou'd follow from thence that the Soul were not a Substance but an Accident only that it could not possibly subsist without that Body whose Act and Perfection it is any more than the Roof of a House can subsist as such without the Building which it covers and is supported by or a Relative without its Correlate In a word When we express our selves after this manner we only declare what the Soul does and what it is with respect to something else but we pronounce nothing of its proper and abstracted Nature or what it is in it self Now though things are thus far clear and easie yet when we go farther the Case alters extremely A Man may say indeed that the Soul is an Essential Life-giving Form which distributes this Gift as the Receiver is capable of it To the Plant it imparts Vegetation to the Brute Sense which includes and contains Vegetation under it and to Man Intellectual Life in which both the former are imply'd as the Greater Numbers comprehend the Less and as in Figures a Pentagone includes a Quadrangle and That again a Triangle I rather choose to term this the Intellectual Life than the Rational which is compriz'd and understood by it as the Less is within the Greater and that particularly in deference to those many renown'd Philosophers who have allow'd Reason in some Sense and some Degree even to the Brutes but not Any of them have ever gone so high as to attribute the Intelligent Faculty to Them and therefore I take Intellectual Life to be a
for this particular Number of Five Senses Whether enough of them and to prove that These are suflicient by comparing and distinguishing them and the Uses they serve All Bodies say they without us which are Objects of our Senses are either very near and close to Our Body or they are at some distance from it If they be close to us and still remain without us then they fall under our Touch If they approach and come into us then they are the Objects of our Taste If they are more remote and stand before us so that their Distances are measur'd by a Right Line then the Sight discerns them If the Line be Oblique and the Motion Reflex then the Hearing does it Now methinks the Distinction were better thus Of the Five Senses accommodated for the Service of the whole Man as he is compounded of Body and Soul some are appropriated to the Use of the Body only and These are the Touch and the Taste the One for all that enters within the Other for that which continues still without it Some again are first and chiefly design'd for the Benefit of the Soul and those are Sight and Hearing the Former to assist Invention the Latter for Improvement and Instruction and all manner of Communication And One more in the midst of these Extremes sitted to those Spirits and Avenues that belong to Soul and Body both which is Smelling Again They answer to the Four Elements and their respective Qualities The Touch to the Earth Hearing to the Air Taste to Water and Moisture Smelling to Fire and Sight to a Compound of Water and Fire because of the Brightness of the Eye It is likewise pretended that there are as many Senses as there are General Divisions of sensible Objects and these are Colours Sounds Scents Relishes and a Fifth sort which wants a Name to express it adapted to the Touch and comprehending all the Tactile Qualities as Hot Cold Hard Soft Rough Smooth Sharp and the rest of them But This is evidently a Mistake for the Number of the Senses is by no means adjusted according to the Number of the Objects they are capable of Nor are these Objects the Cause of their being just so many and no more Were this a good Account it wou'd follow that we must have been endu'd with a great many more than we now have whereas now one and the same Sense entertains Objects of different Kinds and one and the same Object creates a Perception and impresses it self upon several Senses at once The most probable Account of this Matter seems rather to be That the Senses were intended for Means and Instruments of conveying Knowledge to us and that Nature which as she is not niggardly so neither is she profuse hath given us as many Senses as are suflicient for this purpose and that when she had supply'd us with enough for our Use she did not think sit to give us any more Of These the Sense of Seeing does surpass all the rest in the Quickness of its Operation A Comparision of them For it reaches the very Heavens in an Instant and acts in the Air which is full of Light and Images without any Trouble or Motion whereas all the rest of the Senses receive their Impression by the Motion of those Bodies which make it And all Motion requires Time to be perform'd in so that all the other Senses must needs proceed more slowly than This which need but open its Organ and is sure to find Light and Colours stand always ready to be discern'd by it All the Senses are likewise capable of Pleasure and Pain but This is observable of the two grossest of them That the Touch is capable of abundance of Pain and but very little Pleasure and the Taste just contrary feels a great deal of Pleasure and little or no Pain The Weakness and Uncertainty of our Senses is the Great Cause of our Ignorance and Errour The Weakness and Uncertainty of them and all sort of Misapprehension For since Knowledge is attain'd by the Mediation of the Senses only if these make a false Report what can we do but receive and stick to it But after All who can tell what Reports they make or how can any Man accuse them of Falshood since we learn all from Them and consequently even That which gives us this Jealousie and is the Ground of the Accusation Some indeed affirm That the Senses are faithful in all their Messages and represent the very Truth That when we imagine they deceive us the Fault is not in Them but in something else and that we ought rather to lay it at any other Door for no other thing is so free from so incapable of imposing upon us Some again run into the contrary Extreme cry out upon the Senses as downright infamous Lyars and tell you that nothing at all of Certainty can be had from them * See Advertisement But the Truth lies between these Extremes Now Whether the Senses themselves are deceiv'd or not thus much at least is evident The mutual Deceits of the Mind and the Senses that they put a Cheat nay sometimes a Constraint upon Reason and that by an unhappy Vicissitude Reason pays them back in their own Coin and returns the Cheat upon Them And is not Man think you like to be wonderful Wise and Knowing when the outward and the inward Instruments of Instruction are Eternally tricking one another and his whole Composition is full of Falshood and Weakness in the most necessary and essential Parts of it Now that the Senses deceive and commit a Violence upon the Understanding we see plain enough in those Instances where Some of them immediately put us in a Rage Others sweeten and appease the Soul and Others again tickle and please it exceedingly And why shou'd Men turn their Heads away when they are let Blood or lanced or suffer Incisions and Burnings but from their Consciousness of the Power the Senses have to disturb their Reason and that the same thing is better born when the Eyes do not observe the Operation The Looking down a Pit or vast Precipice disorders and confounds a Man though he knows at the same time that he stands safe himself and cannot reasonably apprehend any danger of salling into it And to instance in no more 't is evident that Sense of Pain and Pleasure both does every Day vanquish and utterly confound the best and bravest Resolutions of Virtue and Temperance and Patience Again It is no less evident that the Senses on the other hand are cheated by the Understanding This is demonstrated by those Agitations of Anger and Love and Hatred and other Passions which impose upon us and make us see and hear things quite otherwise than they really are Nay sometimes our Senses are not only deceived but perfectly stupify'd and bound up from all power of Action by violent Disorders of the Soul as if the Soul retir'd inwards and were entirely taken
of those Faculties he hath given us to distinguish things by Again If we observe the manner how these Operations are perform'd that it is by External Impressions by which the Object strikes upon the proper Organ and that Impression is continu'd till it be carry'd on to that which is called the Common Sensory or the inward Seat of Sense All this must depend upon the same necessary Laws of Matter and Motion by which Bodies in general act upon one another And therefore supposing the same Object the same force of Impression the same Situation the same Disposition of the Organ the same Medium and the like the Report of the Sense cannot but be the same But where there is a Variation in any of these the Perception is under a necessity of Varying too Thus to use the Instance mention'd by Charron When part of the Eye-Lid is press'd down by the Finger the Rays are differently admitted into the Pupil and fall upon two several places of the Tunica Retina which consequently creates a twofold Impression of the Object And This Duplicity is as natural and necessary in such a Disposition of the Eye as truly agreeable to all the Rules of Matter and Motion as a single Representation wou'd be in the usual Posture so far from a Reflexion upon the Truth of Sense that our Senses could not be true if the thing were otherwise represented A proportionable Difference must needs follow in the different Modifications of Light and Shades which is the Reason of that Appearance taken notice of here of Pieces in Relief the dextrous Management whereof makes the great Secret of the Art of Painting So it is again if there be any thing uncommon in the Medium through which the Rays pass from the Object to the Organ of Sense which is the Case of Prismes or of Eyes either distorted in their Situation or discolour'd in any of the Humours And as These make a Change in the represented Colour of the Object so does the Contraction or Dilatation of the Pupil in the Magnitude or Figure of it And the Eye and other Organs of Sense varying by Age Sickness Nature or Accidents unavoidably require different Sensations in Persons of different Years and Conditions The Matter coming much to one whether the Object be variously represented through Distance or its own Posture and Form or through some Change and Defect of the Organ which receives the Impression All Which sufficiently accounts for the differing Sensations of Children Grown-Men and Aged Persons the different Tastes of the Sick and the Healthful and indeed the vast Diversity of Palats among Mankind in general For here is a mighty Diversity in the Organ of Sense and the making one and the same Report is therefore impossible For our Senses are like Messengers and all their Business is To be Faithful and True in delivering their Errand as they have receiv'd it If it were not given as it ought to be at first that is if there be any accidental Defects to change the Appearance This they are not responsible for but they are to tell what they feel and hear and see and in This they are faithful and may be depended upon For That they may be trusted even in Matters of the greatest Consequence is beyond all reasonable Contradiction not only from the most necessary and important Matters of Humane Life being carry'd on upon the Confidence of this Testimony but which to a Christian is much more considerable from all the External Evidences of Religion being put upon this Issue The Life and Death the Resurrection and Ascension of our Blessed Saviour the Doctrines he taught and the Miracles he did in Confirmation of them being so many Appeals to the Senses of those with whom he convers'd and the great Motive to Persuasion which the Apostle urges is that he deliver'd That to his Proselytes concerning the Word of Life of which they had had all possible Demonstrations since it was what He and his Fellow-Preachers had heard what they had seen with their Eyes what they had looked upon 1 John I. 1. and their Hands had handled All which was certainly a very weak and impertinent Allegation if the Senses are so liable to Mistakes and so uncertain a Foundation of Knowledge that we cannot with safety fix any Conclusions from the Reports they make to us And yet it cannot be deny'd but Men do very frequently err by too easie a Credulity in this respect which ministers sufficient ground for our Second Enquiry II. Whence those Errours do really proceed which we find sometimes charged upon the Deceiveableness of our Senses In This as well as some Other Particulars Epicurus seems to have been very unfairly dealt withal by the Stoicks and some other Philosophers of a contrary Party who because he asserted the Truth of the Senses and vindicated their Fidelity in Reporting have charg'd him with affirming that a Man cou'd not possibly mistake in forming Judgments according to those Appearances Whereas in Truth Epicurus only places the Senses in the Quality of Evidence whose business it is to relate bare Matter of Fact but does by no means deny the Jurisdiction of the Court to which those Accounts are given to pass Sentence as shall seem just and equal To this purpose is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Diogenes Laertius in his Tenth Book mentions and Gassendus in his Comment upon it so rationally enlarges upon By which is meant that Men ought to avoid Precipitation and not rashly pronounce that things are in reality as they are represented but calmly and slowly examine Circumstances and observe the Causes of such Representations Thus likewise Lucretius in his Fourth Book after having instanc'd in several Appearances which when strictly enquir'd into are found to differ from the Nature of the things themselves closes his Account with these very significant Verses Caetera de genere hoc mirando multa videmus Quae violare fidem quasi sensibus omnia quaerunt Nequicquam Quoniam pars horum maxima fallit Propter Opinatus animi quos addimus ipsi c. Which the English Reader may take from Mr. Creech thus Ten Thousand such appear Ten Thousand Fees To Certainty of Sense and All oppose In vain 'T is Judgment not the Sense mistakes Which fancy'd Things for real Objects takes If then One Light appear to be Two when the Eye-Lid is press'd if a Square Building at a Distance seem Round if a Piece in Perspective seem a Cloyster or a Portico a Man is not presently to conclude that these are really such nor can he be excus'd if he do so For Reason and Considederation wou'd convince him that these Idea's must be so and cou'd not be otherwise That the unnatural Disposition of the Eye must needs double the Image in the first Instance That the Distance of the Object will naturally cut off the Angles and render the Perception less distinct in the second and that Shades artificially cast and
exert it self at all Where it does the Vegetative Soul is vigorous and active in Youth and very weak in Old Age It is then decay'd and spent and cannot repair the Losses of Nature those of Teeth especially Which yet it does with the greatest Ease imaginable in Children and Young People The Reasonable Soul quite contrary is evidently weaker in Infancy and Youth and cannot exert it self then as it does afterwards in riper Years and old Age This also performs some sort of Actions in some sorts of Distempers which it hath not power to do in time of perfect Health and Others again there are perform'd in time of Health which it is utterly incapacitated for when the Body labours under a Distemper Now all these Objections are insufficient For First of all They who hold the Opinion I am now contending for never pretend that the Faculty and Power of Understanding is communicated to every Man in equal Proportions They admit a very great Inequality from whence that Ancient and Noble Aphorism became so usual in the Mouth of Philosophers That the acting Intellect is given to very few and this very Inequality they make use of as an Argument to prove that Science does not proceed from Sense since it is very manifest according to what hath been urged already that They who are most advantageously provided for in point of Sense are oftentimes least so in point of Learning and Wisdom As to the Second part of the Objection That these Functions are not always perform'd alike The true Reason of this is certainly The different Condition of those Instruments which the Soul hath absolute occasion for and constantly works by for These neither are nor can be at all times in the same Order and Disposition Sometimes they are disturbed so as to be fit for no Business at all And when they are not put out of their Course by any accidental Interruption yet even in their Natural State they are not qualify'd for all Business alike nay they act in perfect Contrariety and cross and interfere with one another To express this now in as few Words and as clearly as the thing will bear That Temperament of the Brain which you have heard so much of already is the next and immediate Instrument by which the Soul is assisted and determin'd in her Actings Now This is exceeding various and mutable and at those Seasons when it serves well for one Function of the Soul it obstructs and runs counter to another In Youth it is Hot and Moist and this Complication is extremely proper for strengthening the Vegetative Faculty but it keeps the Rational one Weak and Low On the other hand it is Cold and Dry in Aged People and This is a convenient Temper for the Reasonable Soul but highly prejudicial and improper for the Vegetative When this Temperament of the Brain is soundly heated and refin'd by a high Fever it is then accommodated to the Imaginative Faculty and does Wonders in Invention and Fancy but this very Condition disables the Intellectual Faculty and is the most opposite that can be to Mature Deliberation and sound Wisdom and Judgment It is no part of my Intention by all this Discourse to defraud the Senses of any part of the Commendation which is their just due but only to prevent their ingrossing All and assuming more than their due 'T is confess'd that the Mind reaps great Advantage and is very conveniently served by the Senses especially in the beginning of its Contemplations the first Hints and Occasions the Invention and new Discoveries of Things But still we affirm in vindication of the Mind 's just Rights that it does not depend upon the Senses entirely that it is capable of Knowledge and Understanding can reason and discuss Matters infer and conclude without the Senses Whereas on the contrary all Knowledge proceeds from the Mind and the Senses when left to themselves cannot make the least Progress nor have one single Perception without it It is farther observable that the Mind proceeds in different Methods and makes regular and gradual Advances in the Consideration of Things Sometimes it proceeds by the Addition and Conjunction of Idea's As first it conceives a Lion simply and directly without attending to any of his Qualities Then it adds the Idea of Strength to the former and so having from some Effects had reason to believe that these will agree well together and be true of each other it concludes that the Lion is Strong This is what they call the Affirmative way of Arguing Sometimes it proceeds by the Division of Idea's which is what they term the Negative way Thus it understands the Hare to be Fearful for observing her to run away and hide her self it concludes from this Timorous Behaviour that a Hare is not Stout Sometimes again we come to the Knowledge of things by Similitude and the help of Comparison and of Others by a Collection of several Idea's Exaggerating and Amplifying these as we see fit Other Methods there are which need not be instanced in particularly because any Man from his own Observation and what hath been already deliver'd here may easily represent the manner of them to himself CHAP. XIV Of the Parts of the Humane Soul And first of the Understanding which is its noblest Function Imagination Reason Wit Judgment c. THis Mind of Man is a dark and deep Abyss an Intricate Labyrinth full of Corners and Creeks and secret lurking Places Such is the Disposition and State of this exalted part of the Soul distinguish'd by the Term of Intellectual which consists of vastly many Parts and Faculties and Operations and different Movements each of which have their proper Names and each of them infinite Doubts and Difficulties peculiar to them The First part of its Office is commonly known by the Name of Apprehension or Imagination and this consists in barely receiving and apprehending Images and simple Idea's which is indeed in the Nature of a Passion and Impression occasion'd by the Presence of things that strike upon or are represented to it The next is that Power by which we feed upon those Idea's to which the Imagination hath given such Entertainment we handle and turn them about chew the Cud concoct and digest them and this is Reason or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Third Action or Office is what we commonly term Discourse or Ratiocination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Exercise of this Power consists in collecting or separating joyning together or taking asunder the Idea's thus received and according as those are found to agree or disagree adding some fresh to them which is the Nature of Inferences and Conclusions The Doing all this with Ease Nicety and Readiness searching deeper and seeing farther into Matters than the World commonly do is an Excellence known by the Name of Penetration or Sagacity Ingenium and the Persons happy in it are distinguished by the Titles of Ingenious shrewd sharp Men
OF WISDOM THREE BOOKS Written Originally in French BY THE Sieur de CHARRON With an Account of the AUTHOR Made English By GEORGE STANHOPE D. D. late Fellow of King's-College in Cambridge from the best Edition Corrected and enlarged by the Author a little before his Death LONDON Prinâ—ed for M. Gillyflower M. Bentley H. Bonwick J. Tonson W. Freeman T. Goodwin M. Wotton J. Walthoe S. Manship and R. Parker 1697. THE Sieur de CHARRON's Three Books of WISEDOM Made English London Printed for Mat Gillyflower M Bentley H. Bonwick J. Tonson W. Free man T. Goodwin M. Wotton J. Walthoe S. Manship and R. Parker TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM Lord Dartmouth My Lord IT is now near Two Years since I was desired to employ some of my leisure Hours in considering this Book and putting it into a Condition of becoming somewhat more useful and acceptable than it may without any suspicion of Vanity be said the former Translation could pretend to be A little Time spent in the Perusal satisfy'd me that there was Matter in it not unworthy my Pains and such as it was great Pity Men should want the Knowledge of who understand not the Original And as unreasonable did it seem that others should be discouraged from enquiring into this Author by the Misfortunes which naturally attend even the best Undertakings of this Nature when Time and Improvements of Language have given another Turn to Writing and created a Disrelish for every thing which is not suitable to the Genius of the present Age. The greatest Difficulty which lay upon me was that of finding Opportunities in the midst of those more important Cares of my Profession which neither This nor any other Attempt or Consideration however commendable or beneficial in it self must prevail with me to neglect But here I found even my Duty assisting for That requiring part of my Attendance in a Place of somewhat more Retirement and Ease than where Your Lordship's Father was pleased to fix me I made use of those Advantages to this purpose and finished much the greatest part of the following Book in a way of Diversion as it were and unbending from severer Studies and a more Laborious Station The particular Liberty taken by this Author is a Qualification which the present Generation at least in our Parts of the World will certainly be fond of But it happened to have the same Effect upon Him sometimes which we are not much to wonder if we find very frequent in those of less Judgment and that is over-straining Points of Dispute by affecting to say all which either the Case will bear or which any other Person hath said before This gave Occasion for my interposing sometimes with an Advertisement and that I hope in such a manner as may not have injur'd the Author while it designs the Benefit and Security of my Reader One thing only I cannot forbear adding upon this Occasion that in the midst of all his Free-Thinking he constantly expresses a due and absolute Deference for Revelation and Divine Truths And This indeed was by no means the Effect of his Profession but of his Judgment for Your Lordship is too discerning not to know that as a little and superficial Knowledge in Physick makes Men Quacks so it is not the Abundance but the Defect of Reason and good Sense which makes them Infidels and Scepticks in Religion How little the Sieur de Charron suffer'd his Thoughts to be under the Bondage of any private Respects will be sufficiently evident to any considering Reader from sundry Instances Particularly from what he hath deliver'd upon the Subject of Government in his Third Book In which tho' some Moot Points may seem a little uncouth to Us of this Nation yet if we reflect upon the Constitution under which he liv'd we shall rather have occasion to wonder at his admitting so few reserv'd Cases than mentioning so many Besides that even those mention'd would be of no mighty ill Consequence if always confin'd to those Conditions and Occasions which He hath temper'd and restrain'd them with But passing from the Mysteries of State and pressing unusual Emergencies to the Ordinary Measures of a Publick Administration there is somewhat of an Air so full of Ingenuity and such regard had to the Great Ends for which Government was instituted as a very gentle Application would think an Encomium upon the English Constitution and a sort of Prophetick Satyr upon the late Oppressions of a People to whom he stood nearly related Upon the whole Matter My Lord I have Reason to hope This may prove not only a Book of Good Entertainment but Great Benefit to Persons who have the Capacity and will give themselves the Pains to consider it Were it not so I should not have thought it worth my Trouble and should yet much less have presumed to make an Offer of it to Your Lordship I can with good Confidence say that no Man is better qualified to be a Master of the Subject it treats of The particular and intimate Knowledge of Your Abilities which my being Honour'd with the Care of Your Lordship at the University gave me would bear me out in delivering more upon this Occasion than Your Modesty will permit And indeed the General Opinion of all that have the Honour of Your Lordships Acquaintance saves You that Decency and hath prevented me in this Point The Manly Sense and Wonderful Penetration which appear'd very early in You have given me many pleasing Reflections and I am sure are Foundation sufficient for making Your Lordship a Greater Ornament and Honour to Your Family than even that Nobility which You have by Descent But I must beg leave My Lord to put you in mind that besides Your Own Your Lordship hath a mighty Stock of Honour and Esteem to set out upon deriv'd from the Memory of a Father than whom Few if Any of his Condition are more universally loved and admir'd I say loved my Lord for This as a more rare so is it a more valuable Tribute than that of Honour to Persons of Quality and in Great Offices For where so much is paid to the Station we can make very little Judgment what is sincere and what is the Effect of Formality or Fear or Interest But in His Lordship's Case there was something so Distinguishing in all the Respects paid to Him as plainly shew'd a particular Regard to his Person and that the outward Testimonies were not Things of Course but that he had engag'd the very Hearts of Those who paid them I will not so far seem to distrust Your Lordship's Acceptance of this Address as to make the least Apology for it You will interpret it I doubt not as a Testimony of the Honour I have for You and a Desire to publish my having it to the World And Your Lordship will do me the Justice too to believe that were it in my Power to give any other Evidence of This than such an open Declaration nothing should
and polishes this rude Mass and forms it into Wisdom In short This is the true Learning all the rest a Man is capable of is mere Vanity in comparison at least it is in no degree necessary and in a much less degree useful For here we learn both to Live and to Die well and this is the whole we have to take Care of It teaches a generous and noble Integrity and Honest Prudence and well advised Probity such as raise a Man above little Ends and low Respects and put him upon Virtue from the more exalted and Divine Principles for the sake of its own Excellence and the Sense that this is what becomes him to do But alas This Second Help is almost as generally neglected or as ill used as the former For the generality of the World are so entirely taken up with worldly Wisdom that they give themselves little or no trouble about this which I am now mentioning Thus Nature and Industry must both do their parts in order to a Man's obtaining Wisdom He who hath been kindly dealt with by Nature and brings the Disposition to Wisdom with him in a convenient Temper of Brain will find good Actions and Manners flow very naturally from hence and feel himself advanc'd a great way without his own Pains And those Pains need not be very great where he is not so much obliged to conquer as to promote Nature and moves with speed and inclination towards the Prize he aims at But if the Temper on the other hand be amiss All will be difficult and strained Industry must then correct and supply oppose and subdue Nature as Socrates observed of himself that by infinite Pains and laborious Study of Philosophy he had at last got the better of a very ill Disposition In proportion to these two Helps there are on the other Hand two Hinderances or powerful Countermines which carry Men into Folly the one natural the other acquir'd The Former proceeds from the Distemper of the Brain whether that be Original or Accidental by this means it happens sometimes to be too soft or too moist or the Parts of which it consists are too heavy and gross from whence proceed Dulness of Apprehension Weakness of Judgment Dark and confused Notions of Things flat and low and little Thoughts such as we generally sind among the mean and illiterate sort of People Or else in the other Extreme It is too hot and dry which disposes the Person to be furious and bold extravagant and intractable in Vice These are the two Extremes like Fire and Water Mercury and Lead each of them improper for Wisdom which requires a strong and vigorous but at the same time a sixt and steady Mind and such as in the midst of all its Gallantry and Firmness may be manageable and yielding and modest This Second Desect however of the two seems the easier to be redrest the First is hardly curable The acquir'd Obstruction proceeds either from Want of all Instruction or from being Ill instructed which among other things consists very much in strong Prepossessions wherewith the Mind was early tinctur'd and so sinds it self captivated to them not able to get above these first Impressions nor to think freely and impartially Such Men we commonly say are Headstrong and touch'd in the Crown Whimsical and wedded to their own Opinions And if to that Obstinacy of Humour there happen to be added any degree of Learning This blows them up into Presumption and Arrogance puts Weapons into their Hand to defend their Prejudices finishes them in Folly and renders their Disease incapable of all Remedy Natural Defects and Acquired Prepossessions are indeed two very formidable Obstructions and if Learning do not as in truth it very seldom does cure them it adds to the Disease and renders them impregnable Which yet is by no means any Reflection upon Learning or Dishonour to it as some may be apt to imagine but rather a Commendation and to its Advantage Learning is without all Controversie a most excellent Weapon but not fit to be trusted in every Hand and he who knows not how to manage it will find more hurt than good from it For it makes sick and weak Minds giddy and conceited perfects and polishes Fools no less than it does those of good Capacities and Dispositions A weak and injudicious Man knows not how to use his Weapon on the contrary it weakens and over-powers Him He is opprest with it like a Stomach over-charged with more Meat than it can digest or an Arm that is benumb'd and born down by a Staff heavier than it can use The strong and sound Mind quite contrary plays with it dexterously shews a masterly Skill in the use of it turns it to Advantage perpetually forms his Judgment rectifies his Will pours in this Oil to make the Lamp of Nature burn stronger and brighter is the wiser and better for that very thing which makes the other but the more exquisite and more insupportable Fool. But all this while Learning is not accountable for those ill Consequences any more than Wine is guilty of all the Excesses committed by it or a good Medicine ill apply'd for the Patient's growing worse upon it Now against these conceited half-witted Fellows whom Nature hath disposed to Folly and their own Acquisitions have perfected in it I denounce formal War in my Book as looking upon them to be irreconcilable Enemies to Wisdom and the sittest Title I can find to distinguish them by is that of Pedants for which I have the Authority of several good Writers who have used the Word in this Signification It is confest that in its Original Language and proper Sense it is taken in a very good and commendable Meaning but in latter Times and other Languages the great Abuse and Corruption of Learning hath given occasion for the fixing a very ill and contemptible one upon it a vile sordid peevish stiff way that makes no other use of Learning but for Gain and Ostentation Arrogance and Presumption In short all That which makes Learning despicable and derided is signify'd by it And so this like Tyrant Sophister and the like is one of those Words which hath absolutely lost its first Signification and is now become a Mark of Reproach and Contempt It is very possible some Persons may be offended at my using this Term imagining that I design an Affront to those who make Learning their Business and Profession But they I hope will be satisfy'd with this ingenuous Declaration that I have not the least Intention of reflecting upon any Science or Condition of Men particularly not the Gown which I have the honour to wear and to be one of those who are called Men of Letters my self my meaning is only to charge a certain Quality of Mind a sort of Souls which I have been describing of mean and low Capacity but moderately provided by Nature and afterwards depraved by Art and Study Men prepossest and obstinate and sierce in
likewise are the Lungs a soft rare and spongy Substance supple and pliable in their Motions like a pair of Bellows and thus they become the Instruments of Respiration By which the Heart is cool'd with fresh Air the Blood kept in perpetual Agitation the Fumes and Excrements that oppress it are by this means discharg'd and the Voice formed by the help of the Aspera Arteria or Wind-Pipe The Fourth and Last Apartment which answers to that highest Region by way of Eminence call'd Heaven is the Head and this contains the Brain a Substance cold and spongy cover'd over and wrapt up in two Membranes One hard and thick which touches the Skull and is term'd the Dura Mater The Other more gentle and thin contiguous to the former and known by the Name of Pia Mater From the Brain are deriv'd all the Nerves and that Marrow which runs all along through the Back-Bone This Brain is the Seat of the Reasonable Soul the Source of Sense and Motion and of all those Noble Spirits call'd the Animal and extracted from the Vital Spirits which when sent up through the Arteries into the Brain are concocted refin'd wrought off and subtiliz'd by means of an infinite number of small and exceeding fine Arteries which like so many little Threads plaited and interwoven with each other make a sort of Labyrinth or double Net the Rete Mirabile in which the Vital Spirit being kept by perpetual Motion backward and forward is exalted and refin'd till it becomes Animal that is sublimated and spirituous to the last and highest Degree The Outward Parts and such as stand in View are either single or double If single they are placed in the midst as the Nose which serves us in Breathing and Smelling and conveys Comfort and Refreshment to the Brain as it is also useful for the discharge of any Humours which happen to annoy the Head And through this Passage the Air goes in and out both for the Service of the Lungs below and of the Brain above The Mouth which assists us in Speaking and Eating and as the Uses of it are different so are the Parts likewise which qualifie it for those Uses Without there are the Lips Within you have the Tongue extremely nimble in Motion and a nice Distinguisher of Tasts The Teeth to bruise and chew our Meat and prepare it for the Stomach If the Parts of the Head be double and alike they are plac'd collaterally and answer exactly to each other So do the Eyes which like Centinels or Spies are posted at the top of the House for the gaining a more advantageous Prospect These are made up of wonderful variety each hath Three Humours Seven Coats Seven Muscles different Colours and are form'd with infinite Artifice and inexpressible Contrivance They are indeed the noblest and most admirable Parts of any that appear outwardly in the Body Their Beauty their Usefulness the Sprightliness of their Motion their strange Attractive Power in creating Love These are to the Face what the Face is to the rest of the Body the Life and Air of the Countenance it self And in regard they are exceeding tender and nice and valuable therefore provident Nature hath cover'd and fenc'd them in very carefully on all sides with Skins and Lids and Brows and Hair The Ears are near upon the same Level with the Eyes these being a sort of Scouts to the Body and Porters for the Mind they receive report and distinguish Sounds which naturally ascend upward The Approaches and Entries of this Organ of Sense are intricate and crooked full of Windings and Turnings to prevent the Air from rushing in too quick and with too great Violence by which means the Hearing might be extremely impair'd the Organ wounded and strain'd and the Sound more confus'd by its excessive loudness To all these we must add the Hands and Arms by which all manner of Workmanship is perform'd and our Legs and Feet which like Pillars support this wonderful Edifice and which although not of the Trunk and main part of the Body are yet Instruments of such universal Use that the Body can very hardly subsist without them and it wou'd be very ungrateful not to allow These an honourable Mention in this Account whose Labours make Provision for the whole CHAP. IV. THE Body of Man hath several very particular and distinguishing Qualities which are Excellencies peculiar to himself and such as Beasts have no share at all in The first and most remarkable seem to be these that follow Speech an Erect Stature that Form and Port which hath been in so high Esteem among wise Men nay even with the Stoicks the Rigidest and most Abstracted of all Philosophers that they declar'd it more eligible to be a Fool in Human Shape than to be Wise in the Form of a Brute So preferring the advantage of this Frame of Ours before even Wisdom it self and all the Beauties of the Soul without it The Hand which is a Prodigy in Nature and no other Creature not even the Ape it self hath any thing comparable to it the Natural Nakedness and Smoothness of our Skin Laughing and Crying the Sense of being Tickled the Eye-Lash upon the lower Lid of the Eye a visible Navel the Point of the Heart inclining toward the Left-Side the Knee which is said to stand forward in no other Creature whatsoever the Palpitation of the Heart Bleeding at the Nose which you will think very odd when you recollect that Men carry their Heads upright and Beasts hang theirs down toward the Ground Blushing for Shame Looking Pale for Fear Multiplying at all times indifferently not moving their Ears which in other Animals is a signification of their inward Passions But These are sufficiently discovered in Mankind by looking Red or Pale and particular Motions of the Eyes and Nose Others tho' they are not altogether his own and incommunicable yet may be styl'd Peculiar in respect of the Degree and the Advantage he hath above others which partake of them Such are the Number of his Muscles and vast Quantity of Hair upon his Head the Nimbleness and wonderful Variety of Motions in his Limbs and Joynts the great Abundance of the Brain the Largeness of his Bladder the Form of the Foot so very long forward and so short a Heel behind the vast Quantity the Clearness and the Fineness of the Blood the Easiness and Agility of the Tongue the Multitude and unspeakable Variety of his Dreams so extremely above all other Animals that Man alone deserves the Name of a Dreaming Creature the Faculty of Sneezing And to be short the innumerable different Motions of his Eyes and Nose and Lips Some there are that have particular Countenances and Looks Gestures and Motions which Art and Affectation have accustom'd them to and sonle others who have these from Nature They are particular indeed and so distinguish them from other Men but yet they are so Natural that the Persons are not at all sensible of them when they
the same time to the Exercise of its Vegetative and Sensitive Powers as we see plainly by Instances of Persons who have been raised from the Dead to live here below But this would not infer a Necessity of the same things for living in another State For those Faculties whose Exercise supports this Life we now lead are not thereby proved of such Consequence that no other kind of Life could be supported or enjoyed without them It is in this Case with the Soul as with the Sun for the same Instance will be of Use to illustrate our Argument in this Branch also which continues the same in himself every whit as entire and unblemished not in any Degree enfeebled though his Lustre and Vital Influences be sometimes intercepted and obstructed When his Face is cover'd with a Total Eclipse we lose the cheerful Light and cherishing Heat but though no sensible Effects of him appear yet he is in his own Nature the same Powerful Principle and Glorious Creature still Having thus as I hope sufficiently evidenced the Unity of the Soul It s Origine in each Individual animated by it let us in the next Place proceed to observe from whence it is deriv'd and how it makes its Entry into the Body Concerning the Former of these Particulars great Disputes have been maintained by Philosophers and Divines of all Ages Concerning the Origine of the Humane and Intellectual Soul I mean for as to the Vegetative and Sensitive attributed to Plants and Beasts those by general Consent have been esteemed to consist intirely of Matter to be transferred with the Seminal Principles and accordingly subject to Corruption and Death So that the whole Controversy turns upon the single Point of the Humane Soul and concerning this the Four most Celebrated Opinions have been these which follow I omit the Mention of any more which are almost lost in the Crowd because These have obtained so much more generally and gained greater Credit than the Rest The First of these is that Notion of the Stoicks embraced by Philo the Jew and after Him by the Manichees Priscillianists and others This maintains Reasonable Souls to be so many Extracts and genuine Productions of the Divine Spirit Partakers of the very same Nature and Substance with Almighty God himself who being said expresly to have breathed it into the Body these Persons have taken the Advantage of Moses's Words and fixed the sublimest Sense imaginable upon them He Breathed into him the Breath of Life by which they are not content to understand that the Soul of Man is a distinct Thing and of a different and more exalted Original than the Body a Spirit of greater Excellence than that which quickens any other Animal but they stretch it to a Communication of God's own Essence The Second was deriv'd from Aristotle receiv'd by Tertullian Apollinaris the Sect of the Luciferians and some other Christians and This asserts the Soul to be derived from our Parents as the Body is and in the same Manner and from the same Principles with that whence the Soul of Brutes and all that are confin'd to Sense and Vegetation only are generally believ'd to spring The Third is that of the Pythagoreans and Platonists entertained by most of the Rabbinical Philosophers and Jewish Doctors and after them by Origen and some other Christian Doctors too Which pretends that all Souls were created by God at the beginning of the World that they were then by Him commanded and made out of Nothing that they are reserv'd and deposited in some of the Heavenly Regions and afterwards as his Infinite Wisdom sees Occasion sent down hither into Bodies ready fitted for and disposed to entertain them Upon this Opinion was built another of Souls being well or ill dealt with here below and lodged in sound and healthful or else in feeble and sickly Bodies according to their Good or Ill Behaviour in a State and Region above antecedent to their being thus Incorporated with these Mortal and Fleshly Tabernacles How generally this Notion prevail'd we have a notable Hint from that great Master of Wisdom who gives this Account of his large improvements Wisd VIII 19 20. above the common Rate of Men I was a Witty Child and had a good Spirit yea rather being Good I came into a Body undefiled Thus intimating a Priority of Time as well as of Order and Dignity in the Soul and that its good Dispositions qualified it for a Body so disposed too The Fourth which hath met with the most general Approbation among Christians Especially holds that the Soul is created by God infus'd into a Body prepared duly for its Reception That it hath no Pre-existence in any separate State or former Vehicle but that its Creation and Infusion are both of the same Date These Four Opinions are all of them Affirmative There is yet a Fifth more modest and reserv'd than any of the former This undertakes not to determine Positively one way or other but is content Ingenuously to confess its own Ignorance and Uncertainty declares this a Matter of very abstruse Speculation a dark and deep Mystery which God hath not thought fit particularly to reveal and which Man by the Strength and Penetration of his own Reason can know but very little or nothing of Of this Opinion we find St. Augustine St. Gregory of Nice and some others But though they presume not so far as to give any definitive Sentence on any Side yet they plainly incline to think that of the Four Opinions here mention'd the Two latter carry a greater Appearance of Truth than the Two former But how The Entrance into the Body and when this Humane Soul for of the Brutal there is little or no Dispute nor is the present Enquiry concerned in it Whether This I say make its Entrance all at once or whether the Approaches are gradual and slow Whether it attain its just Essential Perfections in an Instant or whether it grow up to them by Time and Succession is another very great Question The More general Opinion which seems to have come from Aristotle is That the Vegetative and Sensitive Soul whose Essence is no other than Matter and Body is in the Principles of Generation that it descends lineally and is derived to us from the Substance of our Parents that This is finished and Perfected in Time and by Degrees and Nature acts in this Case a little like Art when That undertakes to form the Image of a Man where first the Out-Lines and rude Sketches are drawn then the Features specified yet These not of his whole Body at once but first the Painter finishes the Head then the Neck after that the Breast the Legs and so on till he have drawn the whole Length Thus the Vegetative and Sensitive Soul they tell you forms the Body in the Womb and when That is finished and made fit for the Reception of its new Inhabitant the Intellectual Soul comes from abroad and takes Possession
of such Souls as are gross sunk down immerst in inseparable from and compounded of meer Matter Such are the Souls of Brutes The Other quite contrary such as have no manner of Communication with Matter and Body as Angels and Immortal Spirits whether Good or Bad. In the midst and between these two is the Humane Soul and this is neither entirely and necessarily confin'd and fasten'd to Matter nor entirely separated from it but joyn'd and wedded to it in this present State yet so that its Divorce is not its Destruction but it can subsist and live without Matter in Another State Such an Order and Distinction as This is no despicable Argument for the Immortality of the Soul since otherwise we must suppose a wide Gap a vast Defect and foul Deformity in Nature such as carries Absurdity in it self casts a Reflexion upon its Author and threatens Ruine to the World Which is supported by nothing more than by the Gradual and Contiguous Order and Succession of the Creatures And therefore between Distances so wide as altogether Corruptible and absolutely Incorruptible Nature requires some middle Condition of a Substance partly the One and partly the Other Such a Link as this is necessary to tye the two Ends of this Chain together and such a Link can be no other Creature than Man For if we carry our Thoughts farther we shall find that Other Beings are without the Compass of this Length and so there are Five Stages of Beings in all One below the meanest and even those Souls which are said to consist entirely of Matter such as Stones which we cannot say have any Soul at all Another far above even the most exalted the most pure and immortal Souls which is the Ever-Blessed and Eternal Spirit the Great and Only God But besides the Separation of the Soul already treated of Separation Unnatural there is Another Unnatural and Uncommon One and this happens by Fits and Starts is out of the way and consequently very intricate and hard to give our selves any tolerable Account of Such I mean as comes upon Men in Extasies and Raptures which as they differ very much in their Symptoms and Circumstances so do they likewise in their Causes and Occasions Of these some are Divine Extasies wrought by the express and immediate Operation of God Such are those Trances which the Scripture takes notice of in Araham Daniel Ezechiel Zacharias St. Peter and St. Paul Others are Daemoniacal procur'd by the Interposition of Good or Evil Spirits many whereof are mention'd in Story And we are told of John Duns-Scotus in particular that having lain a long time in a Trance and being taken for dead he was carry'd to be bury'd and put into his Grave but being rouz'd with the Blows and Bruises of the Mould thrown upon him he came to himself and was taken up again and in a few Days after dy'd in good earnest with the loss of Blood and the Bruises he had received upon his Head Cardan mentions somewhat of this Nature with which both Himself and his Father were possessed And many Creditable Authentick Relations have been made from several distant parts of the World of abundance of People most of them of the Vulgar sort too weak and ignorant to contrive such Stories and of Women possessed whose Bodies have not only continu'd long without any Sense or Motion or Pulse but have been cut bruised burnt without ever feeing it and afterwards when they came to themselves they have complain'd of intolerable Torture and exquisite Pain and have given very strange Accounts of what they have seen and done in places a great way off A Third Separation there is which we may call Humane because proceeding from Humane Means and such as no Superiour or Invisible Power seems to be concern'd in This comes either from that Disease which from Hippoerates is call'd Morbus Sacer but commonly known by the Name of the Falling-Sickness attended with Foamings at the Mouth which are lookt upon as the Mark and Character of it and distinguish this Distemper from Possessions in which the Patients are said to have none of these Frothings but a very noisome Stench in the room of them Or this Separation may be owing to the Force of Stupifying and Sleeping Medicines Or to the Strength of Imagination which being vehemently intent upon some One thing perfectly carries away the Soul and renders it stupid and insensible to all other Objects besides Now in these Three kinds of Extasie and Transport whether Divine Daemoniacal or Humane the great Doubt arising is Whether the Soul be really and truly separated from the Body or whether without any such Separation it still continue there but be so entirely taken up with some External Object as perfectly to forget the Body belonging to it So that its Natural Operations and the Exercise of its proper Offices and Vocation are during that time suspended and wholly superseded As to Divine Extasies The Apostle speaking of Himself and what happen'd in his own Case 2 Cor. 11. will not presume to define any thing * Whether in the Body or out of the Body I cannot tell says he God knoweth And this Caution of His is methinks a good Warning to all other People that They too shou'd be modest and reserv'd and not rash in determining any thing positively not only in These but even in less Abstractions of the Mind As to the Second Case That of Demoniacks Their having no sense of great Blows and exquisite Tortures and reporting things transacted at Two or Three Hundred Leagues distance these I confess are great Conjectures and very violent Presumptions of an actual Separation but yet I think they are not conclusive and necessary Arguments for it For the Devils may amuse the Soul and keep it so fully employ'd even when at home that it shall have no Commerce or Communication with the Body for some considerable time and at the very same time too he may represent to the Imagination what passes at a great distance in so lively and clear a manner as to fool the Man with a Persuasion that he hath really been there and seen those very things which the Images thus strongly imprinted upon his Fancy have enabled him so particularly to relate How far the Activity of Evil or Good Spirits extends is not possible for us to say But it is a very bold Assertion and what Nature will very hardly endure that the Whole Soul formally taken goes out and abandons the Body for upon these Terms the Body must die to all Intents and Purposes And such Mens coming to themselves again wou'd not be a Recovery of their Senses but a Resurrection from the Dead And yet to say That the Soul does not All go but the Imaginative and Intellectual Faculties rove aboad while the Vegetative stay behind and keep House is still more Monstrous and Absurd For at this rate the Soul which is entire and One in her Essence wou'd be
there are several subordinate Powers of less Note and Figure which hold as Branches of or Deputies under those and will fall in naturally to be mentioned in the Profecution of that Method I have here proposed As for That which concerns Vegetation it is the meanest by much and given us in common with the very Plants I shall therefore say but very little of it not only because the subject is not of Dignity enough to bear me out in long Enlargements but also because this is more properly the Business of Physicians whose Profession leads to the Study of Health and Sickness the Preservatives of the One and the Remedies against the Other I shall only call upon my Reader at present to observe that under this Faculty there are Three Great and very Important Subalterns concerned and each of them subsequent and assisting to each other in a regular Progression For the First promotes the Second and the Second the Third but not so as that the Order can be inverted and the Remark hold back again The First of these is the Nutritive Instituted for the Preservation of the Individual and under This there are several Assistants such as the Attractive or seeking of Necessary Sustenance that of Concoction and Digestion which separates the good and useful Parts from those which are noxious and naughty The Retentive for what is necessary and the Expulsive to throw off what is offensive or superfluous The Second is that of Growing which tends to the Perfection of the Individual and giving it all its just Proportions The Third is the Generative for the Continuance and Succession of the Species From hence now it is plain that the Two former of these were instituted by Nature for the Sake and Benefit of the Individual and terminate in the Advantage of one single Person and his own Body The Third extends to the Species in general and its Effects do not cannot center in the Person himself and therefore This as more Extensive and Beneficial is esteem'd superiour in Dignity to the other Two and advancing nearer to That Faculty next above it which is the Sensitive For Producing ones own Likeness is a very Eminent Perfection in Nature and gives us the Honour of some distant Resemblances even to the Great Creatour himself CHAP. IX Of the Sensitive Faculty THE Exercise of this Faculty or the Operations of Sense require the Concurrence of no less than Six several things Four within and Two without the Body And they are These which follow I. The First is the Soul This is the Prime Efficient Cause of Perception II. The Second is the Faculty of Sensation which I distinguish here from the Former having already proved that it is only a Quality of the Soul and not the very Essence or Soul it self This consists in the Perception and Apprehending of External Objects Which may be done Five several Ways for which Reason we are commonly said to have Five Senses Concerning that Number I shall say something in the next Chapter in the mean while my Reader need scarce be told that these Senses are call'd Hearing Seeing Smelling Tasting and Feeling III. The Third thing necessary is the Bodily Instrument or Organ of Sense and these are proportionably Five too The Eye for Sight The Ear for Hearing The Cavity at the Top of the Nose which goes into the first Ventricle of the Brain for smelling The Tongue for Tasting and the Skin all over the Body for that of the Touch or Feeling IV. The Fourth Requisite is that Animal Spirit derived from the Brain which is the Origine and Seat of the Sensitive Soul and conveighed through the Nerves to these several Organs by the Motion and Mediation of which Spirit and Organ the Soul exercises her Faculty V. The Fifth is what the Philosophers were used to call the Species Sensibilis which is in plain English the Object which moves and affects or is propounded to the Organ and This is of a different kind according to the different Sense excited or applyed to by it That of Sight or the Eye according to the commonly received Opinion is Colour A Quality or Accident inherent in the Body coloured Six of these are Styled Simple Colours as White Yellow Red Purple Green and Blue To which some add Black and call them Seven But strictly speaking Black is not any Colour but only a Privation of Light resembling Darkness as other Colours do more or less resemble Light The Number of Compounded Colours is infinite And indeed if we go to the Philosophical Nicety of the Thing there is no Colour at all in any Body whatsoever for This is nothing else in Truth but the various Representation which Light differently modified makes upon our Senses For when the Light is gone all Colour is gone with it and as this never appears without some Colour so it never disappears so as to leave Colour behind Now Light is a Quality proceeding from a Luminous Body which creates in us a Perception and Sight of it self and of all things else within our View When this terminates upon and is stopp'd by any solid Body it rebounds back again and doubles its Rays by Reflection But if it peetrate the Body and find farther Passage it cannot be seen except only in its first Source the Luminous Body from whence it was shed originally nor does it then do us any Service in shewing other Objects The Object of Hearing is Sound by which we are to understand that Noise which results from the mutual Collision of two Bodies and this is very various For some Sounds are sweet and melodious they sooth and charm the Soul calm the Passions compose the Humours of the Body and chase away the Disorders of the whole Man Others again are smart and piercing strike through the very Soul wound and disturb our Faculties with an ungrateful Harshness But of all our Senses the Mind seems to be most under the Power of This none entertains it with greater Variety none takes more absolute Possession of it The Object of Taste is what we call Savour or Relishes of which the Simple are Sweet Bitter Sour Sharp Salt Acid But of the Compounds there is no Number they are made so exquisite and multiplied so industriously That of Smelling is Flavour which is a sort of Vapour arising from the Odoriferous Object and ascending through the Nose into the first and most prominent Ventricles of the Brain Such Perfumes as are very strong commit a sort of Violence upon the Brain and are prejudicial or offensive to it But those that are agreeable and moderate minister wonderful Comfort and Refreshment and both delight and do good to the Head The Objects of Feeling are such as usually are term'd the Tactile Qualities Hot Cold Moist Dry to which we may add Soft and Sharp Rough and Smooth Motion and Rest Tickling c. VI. The Last thing which must concur in Sensation is the Medium or Space betwixt the Object and the
the help of this Sense but though it lays the first Foundations and gives the Hints yet it brings nothing to Perfection It is farther to be consider'd that Sight is capable of Perception in nothing but what is Corporeal and it gives no Knowledge of Universals Individuals and Bodies are its proper Object and it cannot penetrate into these any deeper than the Shell or Surface It is the proper Instrument of Ignorant and Unlearned Men who look no farther than that which is just before them and makes an Impression upon the outward Senses Hearing may be term'd an Inward and Spiritual Sense Hearing 〈◊〉 It is the Agent and Conveyer of Intelligence to the Understanding the Instrument of Learning and Thought and receives not only Individuals as Sight does but dives into their most secret and abstruse Parts nay it hath a Capacity so large as to comprehend General Spiritual Abstracted and Divine Truths such as Sight is so far from giving us any assistance in that it rather disturbs and confounds us in the Disquisisition of them Accordingly there have been many Instances of Great Men who have been blind and yet singularly eminent for Wisdom and Knowledge and some of Persons who have depriv'd themselves of Sight in order to the becoming more exquisite Philosophers but no one Example of either of these Kinds can be produced in Deaf Persons This is the Gate by which we enter and storm the Castle By This we bend the Mind to Good or Evil. So Profane Story tells us of Agamemnon's Queen whose Chastity was preserv'd by Musick And so Sacred Story relates that Saul's Evil-Spirit was charm'd by David's Harp and so the Roman History observes that Graechus the famous Orator sweetned his Voice by the help of one that play'd to him upon the Flute and taught him such Tones as were most moving and for his purpose In short This is the Only Passage that Learning and Truth and Vertue have found to our Souls and the Gospel it self enters by it Rom. x. 17 For the Apostle hath told us That Faith cometh by Hearing and Hearing by the Word of God And that they who obstinately stick to the Report of their Sight will find it rather an Obstruction than an Informer in the highest Mysteries of Religion Heb. xi 1. That Faith is the Evidence of things not seen and the Belief of Testimonies that are heard And accordingly the Primitive Christians had a Class of Believers to whom they gave the Title of Audientes Hearers To all This I may add that This Sense is of great Use in the Dark and when Men are asleep by giving them seasonable Alarms and awakening them to provide for their Defence and Preservation Upon all these Accounts the Philosophers are so profuse in their Praises of Hearing recommending the diligent use of it advising us to purge our Ears and keep them clean from Prejudice and Corruption This being the best Security the surest Guard of our Souls as a Commander in Garrison would make it his first and chief Care to keep strict Centry and line the Gates and Walls well for fear an Enemy should rush in and surprize him Speech is a particular Favour of Nature to Mankind The Power of Speech and a very useful necessary and excellent Gift it is Consider it with respect to the Speaker and it is the Image and Interpreter of the Soul the Messenger of the Heart the Door by which all that lies within comes out and shews it self abroad Whatsoever is born in Darkness is thus brought forth into the Light the Mind discovers and displays it self most clearly this way which gave occasion to that Saying of one of the Ancients * Eloquere ut videam Speak that I may know what you are Thus Men are like Vessels which by the Sound are quickly distinguish'd whether they be broken or whole full or empty and Speech to Them is like the Touchstone to Metals the Counterfeit and the true Standard are immediately known by it But if we consider it with regard to the Persons to whom it is directed thus it is a powerful and an imperious Master enters the Castle seizes the Governour it moves and stirs him it animates and encourages it provokes and appeases it raises and dejects him it overwhelms him with Grief and transports him with Joy makes what Impressions inspires what Passions it pleases manages and moulds the Soul into any Form and bends it all manner of ways Nay it extends its Dominion over the Body too makes that Red with Blushes and Pale with Fear provokes Laughter and Tears forces it to start and shiver to tremble with Anger leap for Joy swoon and faint away with Violence of Passion Consider it with regard to the World in general and Speech is as it were the Hand of the Soul which This uses as the Body does the Natural one for taking and receiving for asking and for giving Assistance This is the great Goer-between the Carrier of Intelligence the Factor for Trade †Merx à Mercurio as the Latin Etymologists tell us that the Word which signifies Traffick and Commerce derives it self from Mercury the God of Eloquence By It Treaties of Peace are made War proclaim'd all manner of Business publick and private negotiated and dispatched Learning and all the hidden Treasures of the Mind uttered and distributed For This in Truth is the Original and the Instrument of all Communication the Band and Cement of Humane Society provided the Language be perfectly understood for as one of the Ancients said A Man had better be in the Company of a Dog that he knows and is acquainted with than in that of another Man who cannot make himself understood by us So that one Foreigner to another does by no means answer the †Ut externus alieno non sit hominis vice Character of his Nature and is in effect as no Man In short The Tongue is a Tool converted to all manner of Uses an Instrument of Good and Evil Prov. xviii 21. as Wisdom it self hath taught us Life and Death are in the Power of the Tongue The Advantages and the Inconveniences that proceed from it are never to be exprest a prudent or an incautious a wicked or a conscientious use of it disposes our own and sometimes other Peoples Fortunes or draws down infinite Dangers preserves or destroys Reputation Of a good and ill Tougue Prov. x. 20. xii 18. xv 4. So that nothing is of better or worse Consequence than the Tongue The Tongue of the Wise and Just says the same Divine Wisdom is as choice Silver it is Health it is a Tree of Life enriching healing reconciling a Preservative and a Happiness It is as the Door to a Royal Cabinet upon the opening whereof we immediately see a Thousand precious Rarities more beautiful more valuable than all the Wealth of both the Indies more fragrant and refreshing than all the Gums and Spices of Arabia The
Thing we attempt to give an Account of By this Temperament is to be understood the Mixture and Proportion of the Four Prime Qualities Of the Temperament of the Brain Hot and Cold Moist and Dry or rather a Fifth Quality which is as it were a Harmony resulting from a due Conjunction of all these together like that Concord in Sounds which arises from a Friendly Complication of different Notes Now upon that Mixture of the Brain it is that the State and the Operations of the Reasonable Soul depend Only This is Man's great Unhappiness that the Three Faculties Understanding Memory and Imagination do each of them require different nay contrary Temperaments for their Exercise and Perfection The Temperament proper for the Understanding is a Predominance of Dry and this gives us some Account how it comes to pass that Persons far gone in Years are more Intelligent and Judicious than those that are Younger For besides the Advantages which Art and Study and Experience may give them they have a Disposition to it from Nature The Brain as Men grow older purifying it self from Excrementitious Humours and growing dryer every Day For the same Reason in all likelihood Melancholy Persons and those under Affliction and Want and Persons that are fasting it being an Effect of Grief and Fasting to keep the Brain dry may be better disposed to think and qualified to do it to good Purpose as well as some of them are necessitated by their Circumstances to apply themselves to it This is farther observable in Brutes Ants and Bees and Elephants as they are the Dryest so they are the most capable and ingenious of any and those of a moist Constitution the Swine for Instance are Stupid and Senseless Thus again in Men Those of Southerly Countries excel in Wisdom from the Drought of their Brain and their inward Heat being moderated by that of a Violent Sun without which exhales it The Temperament best accommodated to the Memory is Moist and hence it is that Children are more ready and perfect in it than old People hence it is most apt and faithful in a Morning when the Brain hath been well refreshed and throughly moistned by a good Nights Sleep hence also the Inhabitants of the Northern Climates have the strongest Memories for These are under a moister Air by Means of their great Distance from the Sun But this Moisture must not be so mistaken as if I meant that the Temper of the Memory is fluid like Water but rather such a Moisture as we may observe in Air Glew Grease or Oyl something of such a Substance and Continuity of Parts as may both take the Impression easily and keep it a great while as we see Pictures do that are laid in Oyl Colours The Temperament sittest for the Imagination is Hot which makes Distracted Hair-brain'd and Feverish People excel all others in bold and lofty Flights of Fancy Thus Poetry Divination and all that depends upon Imagination were always thought to proceed from a sort of Fury and Inspiration This Faculty is for the same Reason most Vigorous in Youth and the Flower of our Age The Poets accordingly flourished at these Years and Almighty God who even in Supernatural Influences and Effects made great use of Natural Causes and did as little Violence as was possible to a Course of his own Instituting ordered the Matter so that most of the Prophets should do so too The same Reason holds likewise for those Middle Regions and more Moderate Climates between the North and the South where Men are observ'd to excel in those Arts and Sciences which are derived from the Strength and Sprightliness of Fancy Now from this great inequality of these Mixtures and Proportions it frequently happens that a Man may be tolerably well to pass in all these Three Faculties and not arrive at an Excellence in any one of them as also That a Man may be conspicuous and exceeding well Accomplish'd in one of these Respects and yet very Wanting and Despicable in the other Two It is manifest the Temperaments adapted for the Memory and the Understanding are the most Distant and Contrary in the World for what can be more so than Moist and Dry That of the Imagination does not seem so remote from the Rest for Hot will agree well enough with Moist or Dry and is far from being Incompatible with either and yet though these seem so consistent in Nature we see them very seldom reconcil'd in Fact For those who are esteemed most Excellent in Imagination are generally found very Weak both in Point of Memory and Understanding and thought near a Kin to Fools or Mad-Men The Reason whereof may possibly be This. That the Heat which feeds and exalts their Imagination wasts and exhausts that Moisture with which the Memory is assisted and also the finest and most volatile of Those Spirits of which that Dryness Partakes which is serviceable to the Understanding and the Faculty when destitute of these grows flat and heavy So that in Effect This is an Enemy to both the other Temperaments and Experience shews it to be Destructive of them From all that hath been said we may plainly see that the Principal Temperaments which serve But Three of them assist and set the reasonable Soul on working and which distinguish the Excellencies of the Mind according to its Faculties are Three and cannot exceed that Number For Cold which is the Fourth is of no significance at all Hot and Moist and Dry only can contribute to Mens Ingenuity The Other is a sluggish unactive Principle and instead of quickening does only benumb and stupifie the Soul and put a Stop to all its Motions Therefore when in reading some Authors we find them recommending Cold as of use to the Understanding and saying that Men of a Cold Brain such as those of Melancholy Complexions or under the Southern Climes are Prudent Wise Ingenious and the like we must not there understand the Word Cold in its Natural and most received Sense but interpret it of a large Abatement and more moderate Degree of Heat only For nothing can be more opposite to Wisdom and a good Understanding than that Excess of Heat which yet to the bettering of the Imagination and refining the Fancy would be of great Importance And according to the three Temperaments of the Brain there are three corresponding Faculties of the Reasonable Soul But both the One and the Other of these admit of several Degrees and may be variously subdivided and distinguished The Principal Offices to be discharged by the Understanding and the different Qualifications of Men The Faculties Subdivided with regard to it are Three To conclude truly To distinguish nicely and To choose wisely The Sciences that fall properly under this Faculty are School-Divinity The Speculative Part of Physick Logick Natural and Moral Philosophy The Memory hath likewise Three Qualities to be distinguished by For there is One sort of Memory which easily receives Impressions and
easily loses them again A Second which quickly remembers and seldom or never forgets and a Third where the Impression is hard to be made and yet is presently worn out again The Sciences proper to this Faculty are Grammar and the Theory of the Civil Law Dogmatical Divinity Cosmography and Arithmetick The Imagination abounds in Distinctions and Differences are occasioned by it much more than either the Memory or the Understanding is capable of To this belong after a more peculiar manner Fanciful Inventions Pleasant Conceits Witty Jests Sharp Reflections Ingenious Repartees Fictions and Fables Figures and Comparisons Propriety and Purity of Expression and in a Word All that Quaintness and Elegance and Easiness which adorns Conversation and becomes the Character of a Man of Sense and Good Breeding And therefore we may range under this Division Poetry Eloquence Musick Correspondence Harmony and Proportion Now from hence it appears that Sprightliness The Properties of the several Faculties Subtilty Readiness of Parts and all that which commonly goes by the Name of Wit is to be imputed to the Warmth of Imagination Solidity Mature Judgment and Truth to the Dryness of the Understanding The Imagination is Active and Blustering and Busy keeps all about it awake and sets the other Faculties on work The Understanding is a grave sedate and severe Action The Memory acts not at all but is purely Passive and the manner of these Operations seems to be thus In the First Place the Imagination collects together the Idea's and Figures of Things not only such as are present by the conveyance and ministry of the five Senses but those that are absent too by the Assistance of that Inward and Common Receptacle called the Sensorium commune where the Forms of them lie deposited The Next thing in Order is to represent these to the Understanding if that be thought fit and then this Faculty takes them into Consideration examines digests and makes a Judgment of them When That is over the Imagination lays them up carefully to be preserved in the Memory as a Man takes down a Memorandum in his Table-Book that so they may be consulted and made use of again when any future Occasion shall call for them Or if the Imagination be not so disposed then she commits these things into the Memory's Custody without referring them to the Understanding at all and so the Second Branch of this Operation is wholly Superseded Now this Account informs us that the Acts of Recollection Representing to the Intellectual Faculty laying up in the Memory and drawing out those Stores again for Use are all of them Operations of the Imaginative Faculty So that That Common Repository the Internal Sense Reminiscence as it is called and Fancy come within the Compass of This and are not as some pretend Powers of the Mind distinct and separate from it And consequently there is nothing in those Operations that shou'd oblige us to quit the former Division or allow more Faculties of the Reasonable Soul than the Three already insisted upon The Common People who to give them their due are very seldom in the right have an high Esteem The Faculties compared together and make a marvellous to do with Memory extolling This insinitely above the other Two The only Reason whereof seems to be that this hath more of Shew is more pretending and forward and makes a greater Noise in Conversation Hence it is that a Man whose Memory is well stored is usually reputed a great Scholar and that to pronounce one a Person of good Parts you look no farther than his having a good Memory as if Learning were to be preferr'd before Wisdom which indeed comes infinitely short of it and this Faculty from whence it is furnish'd is the least valuable of all the Three For it is consistent with great Folly and insufferable Impertinence and very rarely to be met with in any great Degree where the Person excels in Understanding and Wisdom for the Temperaments indeed from whence they result are contrary to one another From this vulgar Errour I suppose the improper Methods of teaching Children to have taken their Rise it being the Custom of Country-Schools almost every where to follow them close with Tasks to be got by Heart as they call it that so they may be able to repeat and quote things readily out of Books Thus they stuff their Memories full and load them with the Riches of other Men without taking any care to awaken and whet the Understanding to form or to refine the Judgment Which after all is the most necessary part of Instruction to shew them the true worth of their Natural Faculties to draw out the Stores and Abilities of their own Mind and by the Exercise and Improvement of their Home-Growth to render them considerate and wise and qualify'd for all manner of Business Accordingly we see that many of your Scholars which carry all Aristotle and Cicero in their Heads are mere Prigs and Puts and incapable of any management at all and that generally speaking the World is led by the Nose and all the weightiest Affairs of Governments entrusted with Men of little or no Learning Which yet no doubt is of infinite Advantage and wou'd render even the prudentest and cunningest Politicians yet more capable than they are if wisely instill'd and well us'd But then they must not as the way of the World is value themselves upon Other Men's Wisdom nor think it their Own because they remember it but make it so by digesting what they read incorporating it with their own Thoughts refining and improving upon it and knowing how to convert it to the Use and Benefit of themselves and others But to return All Wise Men have given the Preference to the Understanding and admit it to be the most excellent and choicest Piece of Furniture belonging to the Mind If this moves right all the rest goes true and the Man is wise and if this be false the whole Movement is out of Course Imagination is the Second in Dignity and Memory is the Last and Lowest The following Similitude may perhaps contribute something to our apprehending the true State of these Faculties and the different Circumstances and Relations they are in more perfectly An Image of the Three Faculties The Reasonable Soul then cannot be more painted to the Life than by forming an Idea of it to our selves as a Court of Judicature Now in every such Court there are Three Degrees and Orders of Persons concern'd The Uppermost and most Honourable Order is the Bench of Judges and here there is little or no Noise but a World of Business and Dispatch For they proceed calmly and quietly and without any Hurry or Passion try Causes decide Controversies and Claims make Decrees and give the Final Determination to all Matters brought before them This carries a very lively resemblance to the Understanding which is the highest the most honourable and the judging Faculty of the Soul The Second
is the Bar where the Council and the Attorneys are plac'd and here is a world of Clutter and Bawling and Noise but nothing done for they can bring nothing to an Issue They make no Orders nor Awards pronounce no Sentences All Their Business is only to discuss Matters to plead the Cause and to lay it before the Judge This is a lively Picture of the Imagination which is a loud a blustering and a restless Faculty never lies still not even then when the Soul seems perfectly bound up in the profoundest Sleep but is eternally buzzing about the Brain like a boyling Pot and this can never six or come to a peremptory Resolution in any thing The Third and last Degree is that of the Notaries and Registers and Clerks where there is neither Noise nor Action It is no part of their Concern which way things go they are purely Passive and all they have to do is to make Entries of what passes in Court and to take Care that the Records be faithfully kept and ready to be produc'd upon occasion This gives us no ill Idea of the Memory and its Office The Action or Employment of the Soul is Knowledge or Understanding It s Operations and this is of Universal extent For the Mind is a House open to every Guest a Subject ready to receive any Impression As the Philosophers say the Primitive Matter is disposed to be moulded into any Forms or as a Looking-Glass receives and reflects all Faces so this Soul is capable of considering all things indifferently be they Visible or Invisible Universals or Particulars Objects of Sense or not the Understanding is in at All. But if we may be allow'd to argue from the vast and almost infinite Diversity of Opinions and the still growing Doubts upon this Matter it is acquainted with it self the least of any thing This Knowledge is but dim and indirect It is attained by Reflection only and the Knowledge of other things brought home and apply'd to it self By which it feels that it does understand and thence infers a Power and Capacity of this kind This seems to be the Method by which our Minds attain to the Knowledge of Themselves Almighty God who is the Sovereign Mind knows Himself first and all things else in Himself But Man who is the last and lowest of all the Intellectual World inverts that Order quite and discerns other things before he can come to any Knowledge of Himself for His Mind is in Contemplation of Other Objects like the Eye in a Looking-Glass which cannot work upon it self without the help of a Medium and sees nothing at Home while the Vision is continu'd in a streight Line but can do it by Reflection only But the great Difficulty to be enquir'd into upon this occasion The manner of it concerns the Manner of Operation and by what Method the Soul attains to the Knowledge of Things The most receiv'd Opinion is that deriv'd from Aristotle importing That the Mind understands and is instructed by the Senses That it is naturally and of it self a perfect Blank a clean White Paper and that whatever is written in it afterwards must be dictated by the Senses and cannot be convey'd thither any other way But first of all This is far from being Universally true for as was hinted before and the Point referred hither for a farther Disquisition there have been great Authorities of Philosophers that the first Seeds of all Sciences and Vertues and necessary Knowledge are originally sown in our Minds and grafted there by Nature so that Men may if they please live very comfortably and grow Rich out of their own Stock and provided they take but a little care to cultivate and cherish the kindly Beginnings the Harvest will not fail to be plentiful and abundantly to reward their Pains Again That Opinion seems highly injurious to God and Nature and taxes them with unreasonable Partiality For upon these Terms the Rational Soul is more sparingly dealt with and left in a much worse Condition than either the Vegetative or Sensitive or any other Creature whatsoever For all These as hath already been observ'd exercise their Functions readily and are sufficiently instructed by their own Native Endowments in all things necessary for their Purpose Thus Beasts apprehend several Things without Experience and the Discipline of Sense They make Inferences so far as their Case requires and conclude Universals from Particulars From the sight of One Man they know the Humane Shape wheresoever they see it again See Adv. upon Chap. XXIV they are forewarn'd to avoid Dangers even while invisible and to follow after That which is agreeable and beneficial to Themselves and their Young And wou'd it not be a Reproach or scandalous Blunder and Absurdity in Nature if this Noble this Divine Faculty shou'd have no Provision at all of its own but sent about a begging and depend for mere Necessaries upon so mean so frail Relief as what the Senses are able to give Once more How can we perceive that the Understanding shou'd go to School to the Senses and be taught by Them who are not able to teach themselves What precious Masters are these whose utmost Knowledge goes no deeper than barely the Accidents and Outsides of Things For as to the Natures Forms and real Essences of them they know nothing at all of the Matter And if This be the Case of Individual Substances much less are they capable of penetrating into Universals the dark and profound Mysteries of Nature and all those things which do not affect the Sense at all Besides If all Knowledge were deriv'd from the Senses the Consequence of this one would think shou'd be That They whose Senses are the quickest strongest and most discerning wou'd always be the Persons most conspicuous for Ingenuity and Learning and Skill in Reasoning But we frequently see it happen just contrary that such People are the dullest most stupid and most incapable of all others Nay some Persons have thought their Bodily Senses rather an Obstruction than any Advantage to their Improvement And upon that Account have wilfully depriv'd themselves of them that so the Soul might be more expedite and free and do her Business without Distraction when the Avocations and Disturbance of Sensible Objects were taken out of the way Now if this Matter be as I have represented it you will ask perhaps Why these things are not always perform'd by the Soul and why not by every Man alike What hinders that all should not be equally Wise and Knowing but especially why it shou'd lie dormant without being reduc'd into act Or if it do act how comes it to pass that its Operations are not always equal that it goes about its Duty feebly and performs its Functions much more lamely and imperfectly at one Season than at another This is the Case even of the Wisest and most Capable Persons and some are so miserably stupid that the Intellectual Soul seems never to
for the Service and Gratification of his filthy Desire That Desire if allow'd and let alone will turn to Rage and Madness and yet a great part of this is unavoidable For Nature hath given us the Inclination and That is the Reason why it is common to All and very strong in the greatest part of Mankind The Care incumbent upon Us must be to keep a strait Hand and a constant Watch over this Passion To check and divert its first Irregularities and cool those Fires which we cannot absolutely quench For if indulg'd it levels Men with Brutes stupisies all our Wisdom baffles our Resolution confounds our Prudence and Conduct breaks in upon our Contemplation hardens the Conscience blinds the Eyes of the Mind and disturbs all the Operations of our most noble Faculties This convinc'd Alexander that he was Mortal and is such another Argument of our Frailty as Sleep is for both of them agree in suspending suppressing and binding up the Powers of the Reasonable Soul Philesophy takes upon it to treat of all manner of Subjects The Chams Câ—â—li whence and uses great Freedom of Expression in doing so that so the true Causes of Things may he discover'd a right Judgment made of them and proper Rules and Directions given for the governing our selves with regard to them The same thing Divinity does likewise which is a Science insmitely more sublime and resin'd of nicer Honour and greater Modesly and Reserve And this Liberty may sometimes be very Convenient nay very Innocent and Chaste for the Sun shines upon Dunghils without contracting any of the Pollution or ill Scents by his Rays that fall there But this is a Case that requires great Tenderness and Caution and usually Silence is the most becoming and the most profitable For one had better altogether conceal and suppress those things which when intended for Cood are yet liable and likely to be made an ill use of by most of Those into whose hands they sall And highly probable it is that many Persons have learnt to be more exquisite in their Vices of this kind by those very Precepts and particular Instructions design'd to teach them how to prevent or conquer those Exorbitances 'T is true indeed Nature by strong Impulses persuades to these Gratifications but yet it is as true that she teaches us to blush and be out of Countenance at the very Mention of what she is so importunate for Some indeed pretend that we ought to be ashahed of nothing that is Natural and that this Aâ—â—elation of Modesty serves only to sharpen Men's Appetites the more That we may as well be ashamed for the Infirmities of our Bodies the spontaneous Motions of our Lungs and Heart and Veins and Arteries our Eating and Drinking and Weariness and Pain and Sickness and Dying all which like This before us have their Motions and Intervals without our Consent or Knowledge return by certain necessary Causes and act upon us by unseen Springs and All like This too betray the great Weakness and Indigent State of Humane Nature Our Brain discharges it self by Defluxions our Eyes by Tears our Body by proper Evacuations our Faces grow red or pale our Bodies fat and lean our Hair black or white or grey and we are not concerned in or for these things which yet are no more Natural than This yet They or any Discourse of Them is by no means ignominious or unbecoming and in the present Case it is To all which Objections it were sufficient to oppose the general Sense and Practice of all civiliz'd Persons and Countries who in proportion to their being polish'd and resin'd above others have ever exprest a greater Reserve in educating their Children in their own Behaviour and Conversation and in looking upon all such as Impudent and Profligate who indulge loose and wanton Discourse and even They who are but too much Friends and Slaves to this Passion choose rather to provoke it by distant Myâ—â—â—rious Expressions and nauseate the Roug◠〈◊〉 Rudeness of blunt uncomely Language 〈…〉 you will ask whence this Shame proceeds 〈…〉 how that Custom became so general The Câ—â—tification of these Appetites I grant you is 〈◊〉 shameful in it self in the least It is truly and properly Natural and no Shame is due to it sim ply consider'd for Beasts 't is plain have no Sense of any But why do I speak of Beasts The Sacred Oracles of God themselves have told us expresly that This is no Appendage of our Nature that while Man preserved his primitive Purity and was in that Condition which was Originally and truly Humane he had no Sense of Shame Gon. ii 25. nor ever blush'd at his own Nakedness Every Work of God is Sacred and Good and nothing but the Abuse can cast a Blemish upon it So that in truth Shame is only the Essect of Weakness and that Weakness the Essect of Sin Shame came into the World afterwards and by Accident it was no part of the Creation hath no Eeing in Nature but is the Creature of our own Wickedness and what we have brought upon our own selves by making the Workmanship of God Instruments of Vice and Pollution The true Reason then which makes this Passion so violently condemn'd and run down Hew it is Vibra is not from any real Vice or Shame in it when consider'd abstractedly and in its own Nature but from the general Corruption and Inordinacy Men are betray'd into by it For how very few are there that have any regard to Moderation or Discretion or Decency What infinite indirect Methods do they use for the gratifying of these Appetites What Quarrels and Disturbances what Wars and publick Consusions what Desolation and Ruine have been owing to this accursed Cause this common but most fatal Incendiary of Mankind Insomuch that the Wickedness of the Means that introduce these Pleasures and the long black Train of Consequences they draw after them are worse a Thousand times than the Thing it self The Expence and Damages are infinitely more than the Purchase is worth And all these ill Essects are peculiar to Mankind for other Creatures know nothing of all this Clutter But Men have used great Industry to Trapan themselves On one side they make Laws to keep them off urge Religion and Modesty and Decency to restrain their Desires and yet on the other hand they sharpen and inflame them set all their Wits at work to contrive to confound to get over every thing for the compassing their Desires Witness Comedy and Poetry particularly whose pretended Beauties even when most Chaste were chiefly seen in amorous Subjects but now they have perfectly prostituted themselves to Lewdness and seem to design nothing so much as the laughing Virtue and Reserve out of Doors as if These were the things we ought most to be asham'd of But of all others the most mischievous Corruption of Nature seems to be the setting an extravagant value upon stollen and unlawful Pleasures representing Injuries of this
The Causes from whence it arises are various Weakness of Judgment Its Causes which is most remarkable in Women and Children I. Aged and Sick People whom Experience shews to be of all others most fretful and peevish and easie to be provoked * Invalidum omne naturâ querulum est Every thing that is infirm is naturally disposed to be querulous and froward It is a Mistake as great as it is common to imagine that Fierceness and Rage is an Argument of Courage For all violent Motions are like the Essorts of Old Men and Children who run when they would walk and go faster because they have not Strength enough to go how There is not in the World any thing so feeble as an irregular and unsteady Motion and therefore Anger which is such in the Mind is rather a Mark of Infirmity and Cowardise It is a Distemper in the Soul which makes it tender and sore not able to endure Offences as Hurts and Wounds in the Body render the Smart of every little Blow intolerable Were it in a State of perfect Health and Soundness every Trifle cou'd not create so great a Disorder †Nusquam sine querel◠aegra tanguntur But when all is full of Aches and Diseases the gentlest Touch is treublesome and it is always complaining because always ailing A Miser will fume and storm for the loss of a Penny for the missing of some Advantage which he might have gain'd A jealous Husband will fall into a Rage for the most innocent Smile of his Wise or the least Glance of her Eye II. Luxury and Niceness or any particular Fancy that renders a Man Singular and Humorsom and Uneasie is apt upon the least Accident which crosses that Humour to put him into Passion and ‖ Nulla res magis Iracundiam alit quam Luxuria No one thing says a great Philosopher cherishes Anger more than this vain Temper III. So again does the being fond of any little trifling things not worth our Affection and Concern A Glass a Dog a Bird This is a Folly that gives us a great deal of Trouble and often exposes us to most unreasonable Passions the least of which is more than they can possibly deserve Another Cause is Curiosity IV. and a busie inquisitive Temper * Qui nimis inquirit seipsum inquietar He that asks too many Questions is sollicitous to disquiet himself This is so far from avoiding and conniving at that it is seeking Occasions hunting about and following the Scent and with great Eagerness and Pleasure running abroad after Provocations without having the Patience to stay till They come home to Us. Sometimes indeed says Seneca Anger comes to Us but not near so often as We go to It. V. Another is Credulity and Easiness the suffering our selves to be possest with the first Account and the first Chance-comer and not reserving an Ear free for the other side of the Cause nor suspending our Belief till more perfect Information But the Principal VI. and indeed the very formal Cause of Anger is an Opinion that we have been undervalu'd and ill us'd That some Word some Look for any thing will serve carried an Air of Contempt and was less respectful than it ought to have been This is always the Argument angry Men lay hold of in their own Justification And no wonder then that Proud Men are most Cholerick and fuller of Resentment than any others since no other Disposition makes Men think so much their Due and consequently inclines them to be so jealous of Affronts and Omissions in point of Respect For which Reason the Scripture tells us Prov. xiii 10. xxi 24. that Only by Pride cometh Contention in one Place and Stiles it most Emphatically Proud Wrath in another The Signs and Symptoms of this Passion are many and manifest Signs of it more and more visible than those of any other and so Strange and Strong that they make a mighty Difference in the Person alter the whole Temper and Frame both of Body and Mind transform and turn him into quite another Man Insomuch that * Ut sit difficile utrum magis detestabile vitium aut deforme it is not easy to say whether this Vice be more detestable or more deformed and disfiguring Some of these Changes and Symptoms are outward and apparent Redness and Distortions of the Face Fieryness of the Eyes a wild and enraged Look Deasness and Insensibility in the Ears Foaming at the Mouth Palpitation of the Heart Quickness and Unevenness of the Pulse Swelling and Bursting Fullness of the Veins Stammering in the Tongue Gnashing and Setting of the Teeth Loudness and Hoarsness in the Voice The Speech thick and indistinct and in short The whole Body is set on Fire and in a perfect Fever Some have been transported to such a Degree upon these Occasions that their very Veins have broke their Urine stopt and they have dropt down Dead being stifled and strangled with excess of Passion And what Condition can we suppose their Mind must be in in the mean while when the Disorders of the Body are so Violent and Dismal Anger at the first Brush quite banishes Reason and confounds the Judgment clears all before it and takes possession for it self alone and when it hath got it then it sills all with Fire and Smoke with Darkness and Confusion with Noise and Clamour It is like a Robber or an Enemy that first drives the Master out of Doors and then sets Fire to his House and that with such Fury and Madness as to destroy and burn it self alive in het Flames It is like a Ship that hath neither Rudder nor Pilot neither Sails nor Oars nor Ballast but floats about at Random and commits it self to the Mercy of Winds and Waves and that when the Sea rides Highest and the Storms are Loudest and most Raging And what can be expected in such a Case but Strandings and Shipwracks when there are so many Rocks on every Side to break her to Pieces so many Quick-Sands to swallow her up when she thus lets her self drive upon them This leads us to consider its Effects which are indeed very great and for the most Part Its Effects exceedingly Wretched and Deplorable I. For First Anger urges and exposes us to Injustice it takes Fire afresh and is rendred more Violent and Fierce by any Opposition though never so Reasonable and Fair and that too not only by Dispute from others but even from a Man 's own Senses and Reflection and the being Conscious to himself that he is Angry either without any just Cause or to a greater Degree than the Provocation deserved When a Man hath thus fusser'd his Reason to be shaken and disturbed let one with all the Calmness imaginable offer the clearest Vindication the justest Excuse any thing to remove or mitigate this Passion all is to no Purpose or to worse than none for Truth and Innocence
And heretofroe Men were slaughtered in Publick Theatres merely for Pleasure and Pastime * Homo res sacra per jocum lusum occiditur satis spectaculi in homine mors est innocentes In Iudum Veniunt ut publice voluptatis hostiae fiant Sence Tertul. Man a Creature Venerable and Sacred is slain for Sport and Diversion Death in Man is Entertainment sufficient Innocent Persons are brought upon the Stage to be Sacrificed for the Peoples Pleasure In some Nations it is Usual to curse the Day of their Birth and bless That of their Death And the Wisest Man That ever lived hath taught us that the Latter of These is much Better of the Two Now no Other Creature is so discontented with it self nor are the Particulars here mention'd True of Beasts or any Part of the Creation besides The Second Evidence of his Misery may be taken from the Retrenchment of Pleasures Destroying his Pieasure Those poor and low Pleasures of which he is capable for the Head of Weakness may have satisfy'd us that the Pure and Exquisite are too resin'd for him the Care taken to abate of the Number and to check the relish of them If this be not done upon a Religious Account how monstrous a Folly is it Thus far Man is oblig'd to become his own Enemy to rob and betray Himself so that even his Pleasures are Burdens and he contributes to his own Uneasiness And this some are so superstitiously severe in that they avoid Health and Good Humour and Mirth as Evils * O miseri quorum gaudia crimen habent Gallus Eleg. 1. Oh wretched Men whose Pleasures are their Crime We are exceedingly ingenious to our Disadvantage and the Force of our Wit feeds upon nothing more than the contriving new Arts of Uneasiness to our Selves Thus it is plainly in a much worse Instance than the former Creating Misfortunes to our selves For the Mind of Man does not only spoil Good and deny its own Appetites and check even lawful Delights but it is eternally busie in framing and forging Pains and Evils Thus Things which have in reality nothing of Evil in Them and such as Beasts stand in no Fear at all of our Minds draw in the blackest Colours and most hideous Shapes and then tremble and start and run away from Monsters of their own making Thus we esteem it a mighty Unhappiness not to be Honourable and Rich and Great and look upon Cuckoldom want of Children and Death as insupportable Evils Whereas to speak freely I know no Temporal Affliction which is really Evil and felt to be so but Pain only And the Reason why some Wise Men have been known to fear those other things was not upon the account of the Things themselves but of the Pain which may happen to be an inseparable Attendant upon them For This sometimes is a Forerunner of Death and sometimes it follows upon Poverty and Disgrace But if you consider these Matters abstracting the Pain all the rest is mere Imagination a Thing that hath no Being but in our own Brains which are eternally cutting themselves out new work and forming Evils that are not to add to Those that are thus enlarging our Misery and finding it fresh Employment instead of quieting and cutting it short For the Beasts feel nothing of all this and therefore it is plain they are Evils not of Nature's but of Fancy's making As for Pain Born to Pain which seems the only real Evil Man is perfectly fitted for That and born to it The Mexicans welcome their Children into the World with this Salutation Child thou art come into this World to suffer take it patiently and hold thy Peace And Three Arguments there are which may convince us that Pain is in a manner Natural to Man and a State of Indolence or Pleasure foreign to his Constitution The First is that every Part about a Man is susceptible of Pain and but very few capable of Pleasure The Second That Those which are capable of Pleasure can receive but one or two sorts of it but all the Parts receive great variety of Pains and Those of the most different kinds too Extremity of Heat and Cold Pricking Bursting Bruising Scratching Flaying Beating Scalding Fainting Swooning Extension Oppression Relaxation of the Parts and others without Number that want a Name besides Those of the Soul so that a Man is much more able to suffer than to express his Sufferings To this must be added that a Man cannot continue long in Pleasures All his Delights are a short Blaze should they last long they would destroy Themselves and become painful and insupportable But his Pains are of a great length and not confin'd to certain Seasons as Pleasures are Thus Pain hath a more absolute Dominion over us its Territories are larger its Reign more lasting more general more uncontroll'd and in a Word more Natural than that of Pleasure is or can possibly be To these Three Remarks may be added as many more as First Pain and Sorrow is much more common and comes oftner upon us Pleasure is hard to be met with and seldom Returns Then Pain comes of its own accord without any seeking or Endeavour of ours to procure it but Pleasure never approaches voluntarily we are fain to court it to buy it dear and oftentimes pay more for it than it is worth Pleasure is never Entire but hath always some Abatement some Alloy of Uneasiness somewhat attending it that we cannot like and had much rather were otherwise but Pain and Dissatisfaction are often without any manner of Mixture or Mitigation And after all this the worst part of the Bargain and that which most clearly proves our Misery is That Extremity of Pleasure does not affect us so sensibly as a very small Degree of Pain or Sickness * Segnius homines bona quà m mala sentiunt Humane Nature is more accommodated to the Sense of Evil than of Good Perfect Health and Ease makes no manner of Impression but the least Indisposition makes a very great one †Pungit In cute vix summâ violatum plagula Corpus Quando valere nihil quenquam movet The Prick of a Pin tho' the Skin be searce razed put the whole Body into Disorder and yet That whole Body when in a state of perfect Ease hath no particular Sensation or Motion of Joy resulting from it As if all this were still too little and neither Real and Substantial Evils Remembrance and Anticipation of Evils nor False and of our own forming could complete our Misery we stretch and lengthen both the One and the Other of these give them new Life and sustain them longer than they could possibly subsist without our cherishing as if we were perfectly in love with Uneasiness This we do several ways as First by calling to remembrance that which is passed and forestalling that which is to come This Method can never fail because the Two great Privileges our
till he hath overtaken it But now we will take him in another Prospect affected with a Sense and weary of some particular Evil for even This does not happen always and many Miseries are endured without any uneasie Resentments at all And when his Mind is thus far awakened let us next observe how he endeavours to disengage himself and what Remedies are to be apply'd in order to a Cure And These are such in truth as rather fret and anger the Sore than heal it for by quitting one Evil he only exchanges it for another and oftentimes for a worse But still the very Change is pleasing or at least it sooths and allays the Pain a little He fancies one Evil may be cured by another and this Imagination is owing to a vulgar Errour that seems to have bewitch'd Mankind which makes them always suspect things that are easie and cheap and esteem nothing truly valuable and advantageous but what costs us dear and is attended with much Labour and Dissiculty And This again rises higher for it is not more strange than true and nothing can more fully prove that Man is exceeding miserable That let the Evils we lie under be what they will some other Evil is necessary for the expelling and subduing them and whether the Body or the Mind be the part affected the Case in this respect is much the same For the Diseases both of the one and the other are never to be healed and taken off but by Torture and Pain and great Trouble Those of the Mind by Penance Watchings and Fastings hard Usage and course Fare Confinements and Mortifications which notwithstanding the Voluntariness and Devotion of them must of necessity be afflicting and pungent because the whole effect of them would be lost if we could suppose them in any degree subservient to Ease and Pleasure Those of the Body require nauseous Medicines Incisions Causticks and severe Dietings as They whose Unhappiness it is to be oblig'd to a Course of Physick know by woful Experience They are got between the Millstones as they say ground and bruised on one side by the Disease and on the other by a Regimen as bad as the Disease Thus Ignorance is cured by long laborious Study Poverty by Sweat and Toil and Care and Trouble are as Natural in all the Provisions for Body and Mind both as it is for Birds to fly The several Miseries hitherto insisted on Miseries of the Mind are such as the Body suffers in or if not peculiar to that alone yet at least such as it bears a part in with the Mind and the highest they go is only to the meanest of our Faculties Imagination and Fancy But Those which next fall under our Consideration are of the most refined and Spiritual Nature such as are more truly deserving of that Name full of Errour full of Malignity their Activity greater their Influence more general more pernicious and more properly our own and yet at the same time less acknowledged less perceived by us And This enhances nay doubles Man's Misery that of moderate Evils he hath a quick and tender Sense but those which are greatest he knows not feels at not all Nor can he bear to be informed of them No Body dares mention them to him none will do the ingrateful good Office of touching this Sore Place so hardened so obstinate so lost is he in his Misery All therefore that can be allow'd us in the Case is to handle them with all imaginable Gentleness and just Glance upon them by the by or rather indeed to point them out at a distance and give him some little Hints to exercise his own Thoughts upon since of his own accord he is by no means disposed to take any notice of them And First In respect of the Understanding The Understanding Is it not a most prodigions and most lamentable Consideration that Humane Nature should be so universally tainted with Errour and â—â—indness Most Vulgar Opinions and commonly the more general in a more eminent manner are erroneous and false not exempting even those that are received with the greatest Reverence and Applause Nor are these so Sacred â—â—otion-False only but which is worse very many of them Mischievous to Humane Society and the Publick Good And tho' some Wise Men and they alas but very few think more correctly of these Matters than the generality of the World and have a truer Notion of them yet even These Men sometimes suffer themselves to be carry'd down with the Stream if not always and in every Point yet now and then and upon some Occasions A Man must be very firm and well fixed to stem the Tide very hardy and of a sound Constitution whom an Infection so epidemical cannot falsten upon For indeed Opinions that have got Footing everywhere and are entertain'd with general Applause such as searce any Body dares to contradict are like a sweeping Flood that bears down all before it * Proh superi quantum mortalia pectora caecae Noctis habent Good Heaven what Errours darken Human Sight And wrap our Souls in gross substantial Night †O miseras hominum mentes pectora caeca Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis Degitur hoe aevi quodcunque est Lucret. Lib. 2. Blind wretched Man in what dark Paths of Strife We walk this little Journey of our Life Creech To instance in all the foolish Opinions with which the generality of Mankind are intoxicated were much too tedious an Undertaking But some few shall be just mention'd here and reserved to their proper places for a more full Enlargement upon them and such are These that follow 1. The forming a Judgment of Counsels and Designs and pronouncing them Prudent See Book III. Chap. 1. and Seasonable and Good or the direct Contrary according as they succeed Well or III. Whereas the Issues of all these things are in no degree at our own disposal but depend entirely upon a Higher Hand One who as his own Infinite Wisdom sees fit prospers the most unlikely Methods and defeats the Wisest Measures and most promising Attempts 2. The Condemning and utterly exploding all foreign and strange Things Manners Opinions Laws See Book II. Chap. 8. Customs Observances and looking upon them as barbarous and Wicked without ever examining into the Matter or knowing of what Nature and Consequence they are And all this for no other reason but that they are New to Us and practised only in remote Countreys and different from the Vogue and Usage of our own As if We were the common Standard for all the World to take Measures by and nothing could possibly be commendable or convenient but what hath been received and is in request in that little Spot of Ground where our particular Lot hath fallen 3. Somewhat distant from This See Book II. Chap. 10. is the esteeming and extolling Things because they are New or Scarce or Strange or Difficult which are the Four
to insert it here though as I said 't is a Notion only and what as we cannot have an absolute Certainty for so we have none against it If Reason give any Countenance to this Speculation Revelation no where forbids it For Moses who made it his Business to describe the World we inhabit had no Reason to mention Others in which we have no Concern and his not mentioning Them was agreable to the Design of his History but does not exclude the Reality or Possibility of any such other Systems as were foreign to his Purpose and so in no Degree necessary to be taken Notice of The Reader if he be desirous of farther Satisfaction in this Point may please to consult the Eighth of Dr. Bentley's Excellent Sermons against Atheism p. 4 c. As for the Things here below upon the Earth that is Animalt Beasts and all Living Creatures Man looks upon them with Scorn and Contempt as if they were of no Consideration at all Forgetting that they are form'd by the Hands of the same Almighty Artificer and are reckoned among the Riches and Possessions of the same Lord That the same Earth is our Common Mother and that They and He are of the same Family and consequently ought not to be slighted and disdained as if they were worthy no part of his Concern nor bore any Relation at all to Him Hence it is that these Poor Creatures are so much abused and treated with an Insolence and Cruelty that flies back upon Their and Our Common Master for it is an Affront and an Impiety to deal thus by any Thing of His making such as he does not only Own but expresss a Tenderness for thinks them worthy his own Care and hath appointed certain Laws for their Benefit and Preservation such as tho' inferiour to Us in the most valuable Parts yet he seems in some Things to have given the Advantage to nay such as in several Instances shame and reproach our Follies and are therefore recommended in Scripture as Masters for Man to be sent to School to But This hath been already mentioned in another Chapter It is indeed a Doctrine commonly received that the World was made for Man and Man for God which in some Sense is certainly true and what I have said is no derogation from it For besides that Instruction which all the Creatures in general contribute to whether those Above or Below us Those useful Hints and Reflections they minister concerning Almighty God Our Selves and Our Duty Some sort of Use with regard to Profit or Serviceableness or Delight may be drawn from every one of them in particular From that Part Above us which we have a less distinct Knowledge of and which is not at all in our Disposal This Firmament so nobly Vaulted so richly deckt with Light and all those rolling Fires above us The Advantage Man receives from Them is That of Contemplation only His Soul by These is raised and transported to admire and to love to fear and to honour and to pay most profound Reverence to the Almighty Master and Maker of so Glorious a Frame In this respect it was no ill Remark of Anaxagoras that Man was created to contemplate Heaven and some of the old Philosophers accordingly gave him the Title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From the Creatures in this lower World he reaps Advantage and Assistance receives great Supplies and Service properly so called But for Men to persuade themselves that God in making all these Things had no other End in his Thoughts and Designs but purely to consult the Convenience of Mankind This is too great a Stretch upon the Doctrine mentioned just now and an Arrogance which I think may very deservedly be charged with all that Folly and Presumption I have laid upon it The Last but Principal Instance of this Presumption Man himself hath Man for its Object and this must be consider'd with regard to Himself or to his Fellows Within as to the forming of his Judgment and private Opinions or Without as those Sentiments are imparted by conversing with other People And upon this Occasion we will insist upon Three Things as so many Topicks in close connexion and consequence upon one another There Degrees of Humane Presumption by which Mankind betray at once their great Weakness and great Presumption and in both great Folly The First of these consists in Believing and Disbelieving I meddle not here with Religion or Divine Faith but desire my Reader to recollect what was said in the Preface Where Two contrary Vices are observable which are exceeding common in Humane Life 1. Believing and Misbelieving One of These and the more general of the Two is Levity and Credulity that is a Disposition to receive Things and be persuaded too easily upon the slightest Inducements so that to gain our Assent any the least Circumstance of Probability or Pretence of Authority is sufficient This is the effect of Easiness and Simplicity in the worst Sense of the Word a Softness and Weakness of Mind such as we observe in mean Parts and Education the Ignorant and Effeminate the Superstitious and Fanciful Men of great Zeal and little Judgment which are all like Wax always in a readiness to receive any new Impression and suffer Themselves to be led about by the Ears with every idle Story Hence it is that we see the greatest part of the World carry'd about with every blast of Opinion and possessed with Notions before either Age or Maturity of Judgment render them capable of choosing and accordingly These Opinions are not the result of Consideration and Choice but the Prepossessions of Time and Custom the Rudiments of their Infancy the Mode of their Country or it may be mere Chance have taken fast hold of them so fast that they are inseparably wedded to absolutely subdu'd and enslav'd by them and no Arguments are able to loosen these Prejudices and set their Minds at liberty from them * Veluti tempestate delati ad quamcunque disciplinam tanquam ad saxum adhaerescunt Some violent Gush of Wind drives them upon an Opinion and there they cling as if they were to save themselves from a Sterm by keeping close to that Rock Thus indeed the World is manag'd We take Things upon Trust and depend upon other People †Unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare versat nos praecipitat traditus per manus error Ipsa consuotudo assentiendi periculosa lubrica Each Man is willing to save himself the trouble of Examining and had rather believe than judge A Mistake that hath passed through many Hands successively turns and tumbles us about at pleasure And all this from a Custom of assenting too easily which is exceeding dangerous and unfaithful Now this Credulity so common in the World tho' it be really a very great Instance of Weakness yet is it not without a large Mixture of Presumption too For to receive and stick by
of Obstinacy and Affectation and intractable Perverseness and other vile Qualities in which the Sex abounds Hence it was the Saying of one Author That whoever first invented the Marriage-Knot had contrived a very fair and colourable but withal a most effectual Expedient for taking a severe Revenge upon Mankind A Snare or Net to catch Fools and Brutes in and then put them to a long and lingring Death And of another That for a Wise Man to marry a Fool or a Woman of Sense a Coxcomb was like tying the Living to the Dead that so by the Extremity of Cold from the Carkass the Body might chill and languish till at last it expire which is of all Capital Punishments the most barbarous that ever Tyrants have been able to invent The Second Accusation imports That Marriage corrupts and adulterates Generous and Great Minds by softening and abating nay utterly enfeebling and dissolving their Life and Vigour by the little Dalliances and Flatterings and Wheedles of a Person of whom one is fond by Tenderness for one's Children Care and Management of Domestick Affairs and Sollicitude to provide for and raise one's Family in the World What lamentable Instances of this Effeminacy are Samson and Solomon and Mark Anthony whose Falls stand in Story like so many noble Ruines to put us in mind of that Enemy with some Indignation that undermin'd and demolish'd what Nature had made so strong If then there must be Marrying it is fit say they that This should be left to Fellows that have more Body than Soul let Them go on securely being so well qualisy'd and having so little to hazard and the Cares and Burden of the World are indeed properest for Them for such mean and low Considerations are Employments just of a Size with Their Capacities But as for Those whom Nature hath been so liberal to in another kind and given them good Sense and noble Souls capable of greater and better Things Is it not pity to shackle and bind Them down to the World and the Flesh as you do Beasts to the Manger Nay even among Beasts some Distinctions are made too for Those among them that are most esteem'd for Service and Courage as among Dogs and Horses particularly are kept up at a distance and forbidden all Approaches of the other Sex Others of less Value serving to breed upon very well Accordingly among Mankind Those that are Devoted to the most Venerable and Holy Professions the Service of the Altar and a Recluse Life both Men and Women such whose Stations oblige them to be the most excellent part of the World the Flower and Ornament of Christian Religion Clergy and Monasticks are forbidden by the Church of Rome ever to Marry at all And the Reason most certainly is This that Marriage obstructs Wisdom and Virtue calls off the Mind and gives it too strong and too frequent a Diversion clips its Wings and checks its noblest Flights For the Contemplation of High and Heavenly and Divine Objects is by no means consistent with the Clutter and Hurry and sordid Cares of Family-concerns Upon which Account it is that the Apostle who commands Continency even in Marriage hath preferr'd absolute Celibacy before it Marriage perhaps may have the Advantage in Point of Prosit and Convenience but the Honour and the Virtue they tell you is confessedly on the other side Besides It confounds Men's Measures and defeats noble and pious Intentions and Undertakings St. Augustin gives an Account to this purpose That He and some other Friends of his some whereof were married Men having formed a Design of retireing from the Town and all Conversation with the World into some Solitude that so they might have nothing to employ their Thouâ—â—â—s but the study of Wisdom and Virtue the 〈…〉 Scheme was immediately interrupted and 〈…〉 ' d by the Interposition of their Wives And another Wise Man hath given us his Opinion That if Men could prevail with Themselves to give over all Conversation with Women Angels would certainly visit and keep them Company Once more Marriage is a great Hindrance to Men's Improvement particularly it keeps them at home and cuts them off from the Opportunities of Travelling and conversing with Foreign Countries Which is really a great Accomplishment and a mighty Convenience to learn Wisdom one's self and to teach it to others and to communicate what we have seen and known to those who want the same Opportunities In short Marriage does not only cramp up and depress great Parts and great Souls but it deprives the World of many noble Designs Works of Munisicence and Charity and Publick Good it renders a Man incapable of serving his Country and attempting such Things as He can give no entertainment to the Thoughts of in the Embraces of a tender Wife and his Little ones round about him For These need and require the Care and Preservation of Himself and serve for an Excuse at least they cool his Courage to Actions that are Brave if at the same time they seem Desperate or are manifestly Dangerous And is it not a noble Sight now to see a Man that is sit to be at the Helm trissing away his Time at home playing and telling Stories with his Wife and Children in the Chimney-Corner Is it not Ten Thousand Pities that One who is capable of Governing and Directing a World should be entirely bury'd in Secresie lost to the Publick and taken up with the Concerns of a single Family Upon this Consideration it was that a Great Man when his Friends moved a Match to him made answer That he was born to Command Men and not one pretty little Toy of a Woman to Advise and give Rules to Kings and Frinces and not to Boys and Girles To that part of these Objections which carry any serious Argument Answer to them for a great deal of them is Raillery only we may answer as follows That Humane Nature must be consider'd as it really is A State not capable of Absolute Perfection nor was such a Life here ever intended for us as we should have nothing in it to be found fault with nothing that should cross or give us cause to wish it otherwise Our very Remedies must make us a little sick even when they are promoting our Health and Recovery and every Convenience carries its Abatement and is clogg'd and incumbred with some Inconvenience inseparable from it These are Evils allow it but they are Necessary Evils And if the Case be not well in all Points yet this is the best of it for there is no other way possible to be devised for the preserving and propagating Mankind but what would make the Matter infinitely worse and be liable to More and Greater Evils Some indeed as Plato in particular would fain have rooted out these Thorns and resin'd upon the Point by inventing other Methods for the Continuance of the Species but after all their Hammering and Polishing Those Conceits at last prov'd mere Castles in the Air Things
Reward of a Man's performing commendably that which is his proper Business to do Thus we find Reason and Common Sense determine us in publick Theatres which are but so many Images in little of this Great Theatre of the Universe The Condition and Splendor of the Character is not enquired into nor weighs at all with our Judgments but He who upon the Stage plays the Part of a Servant or Bussoon if he do it well and to the Life meets with as much Applause as if he had represented a General or an Emperour And he that cannot work in Gold if he shew the Perfection of his Art and carve the Postures and Proportions well in Copper or in Plaister is reputed a good Statuary because this Excellence depends not upon the Fineness or Value of the Materials but in the Skill shewed upon them But yet it seems more reasonable to think that Honour is an Advantage for something more Noble and Sublime than Ordinary and that no Actions but such only which have Difficulty or Danger in them can make just Pretensions to it Those that are but just what they ought to be such as our respective Stations require and proceeding from a Sense of Obligation and Duty cannot aspire to so great Worth nor put in for so ample a Reward a Reward which is disparaged by being made Common or Ordinary and not suited to all Degrees of Persons and Performances Thus every virtuous and chaste Wife and every Man of Integrity and good Conduct is not therefore a Person of Honour For there must go more than Probity to the denominating them so there must be Pains and Difficulty and Danger nay and some will tell you there must be somewhat of general Good and Advantage to the Publick to justifie that Character in its full and true Extent Let a Man's Actions be never so Good never so Useful if they be private and the Advantage redound to himself alone another sort of Payment belongs to them They will have the Approbation of his own Conscience they will procure the Love and Favour and good Word of his Neighbours and Acquaintance they will ensure his Safety and put him under the Protection of the Law but except the Influence and Advantage of them be large and diffusive they cannot come up to Honour for Honour is a publick Thing and implyes more of Dignity and comprehends Splendor and Noise Admiration and Common Fame in the Nature and Notion of it Others add farther that an Honourable Action must not be a part of our Duty but perfectly free and supererogating for if Men were obliged to it all â—retension to Honour is lost The Desire of Honour and Glory and a Sollicitous seeking the Approbation and good Opinion of Others is a very vicious violent and powerful Passion The Inordinacy whereof hath been sufficiently explained and proved already in the Chapter concerning Ambition Chap. xxii But as Bad as it is in it self it does great Service to the Publick For it restrains Mens Extravangancies and keeps them within the Bounds of Decency and Duty it awakens their sleeping Powers shakes off Sloth and kindles in them generous Desires inspires great Thoughts and Glorious Actions Not that it is much for their Credit to be acted and invigorated by so corrupt a Principle but rather a Testimony and strong Evidence of the Weakness and Poverty of our Nature and Condition who are thus forced to use and accept clipt and counterfeit Money in Payment when Standard and true Sterling cannot be had But for the Determining precisely in what Cases and how far this Passion is excusable and where it is to blame and must be rejected and disallow'd and for the making it manifest Book III. In the Virtue of Temperance Ch. XLII that Honour is not the proper Recompence of Virtue I must refer you to those Distinctions and Discourses upon it which will occur hereafter Of the Marks of Honour there is great Variety but the most desirable and charming are Those where there are no Mixtures of private Gain and Interest such as nothing can be drawn out of nor any Share lie in Common for the Advantage of a Vicious Man or of such low and inferiour People as shall pretend to serve the Publick by mean and dishonourable Offices The less of Advantage they bring with them the more Valuable they are And accordingly we find the Ancients infinitely fond of and with all their Industry and Pains aspiring after those which had nothing else to recommend them but purely their being Marks of Distinction and Characteristical Notes of Honour and Virtue Of this Nature in the several Republicks of old were the Garlands of Laurel and Oaken-Leaves and so are the particular Bearings in Coats of Arms at this Day added to the former Charges of the Field upon some special piece of Service distinct Habits and Robes the Prerogative of some Sirname as Africanus to Scipio and the like Precedence and Place in publick Assemblies and Orders of Knighthood It may also fall out that when a Man's Deserts are Notorious and Celebrated it shall be more for his Honour not to have these Ensigns and Marks than to have them And therefore Cato said well that it would make more for the Glory of his Name and Virtues that People should ask why the City had not erected a Statue to his Memory in the Forum than that they should enquire why they had done it CHAP. LXI Of Learning LEarning is without all Dispute a Noble and Beautiful Ornament an Instrument of exceeding use when in the Hands of one that hath the Skill to use it aright But what Place and Proportion it deserves in our Esteem is a Matter not so generally agreed upon And here as in all Cases of the like Nature Men fall into Extremes and are to blame in both Some in overvaluing and Others in disparaging and undervaluing it Some run it up to that Extravagant Height that they will not allow any other Advantage to come near or be thought comparable to it They look upon it as the Supreme Happiness a Ray and Efflux of the Divinity they hunt after it with Eagerness and insatiable Appetite with vast expence and indefatigable Labour and Pains and are content to part with Ease and Health and every Thing in exchange for it Others as much diminish and despise it treat Those with Scorn who make it their Business and Profession And when we have observed this of either side I suppose my Reader will make no Difficulty to allow that a Moderation between both is best most safe most just and reasonable I for my own part were I to execute the Herald's Office in this Dispute should think that Place is without all question due to Integrity and Prudence to Health and Wisdom and Virtue nay See Book III. ch 14. I should not scruple to give precedence to Skill and Dexterity in Business But then for Dignity and Noble Descent and Military Valour I
should think or speak or act according to Truth and good Sense We have likewise before Book I. Ch. xxxix in that Chapter which undertook to represent the Misery of Human Nature given several remarkable and but too notorious instances of the Faults and Failings which the generality of the World are guilty of both in point of Judgment and Choice how miserably their Understandings are darken'd and their Wills depraved which may very easily convince us how fix'd and deeply rooted they are in Error and Vice To this purpose are those Sayings common among Wise men That the Greater part is always the worse part of Mankind There is not one of a Thousand Good That the Number of Fools is infinite And that there is very great Danger of Infection in the Croud Upon these accounts their Advice is not only to keep one's self Clear and Free and have nothing at all to do with such Opinions and Designs and Affections as are popular and in vogue but as if all this Restraint were too little not so much as to venture your person among the Mob to decline all manner of Conversation and Familiarity with the Vulgar since it is impossible ever to approach that diseased part of Mankind without some taint some pestilential vapours such as will certainly bring danger and detriment to our own Health So contagious is the very Breath and Company of the People so little ought even the wisest and persons best established in Virtue and Wisdom to trust themselves among them For who indeed is strong enough to sustain the Attack of Vices when they march up in form of Battel and charge by whole Troops at once We see what a world of Mischief one single Example of Avarice or Luxury does The Conversation of One Effeminate Man softens by degrees and enervates the Minds of them that live with him One Rich Neighbour kindles our Desires of Wealth One Lewd Companion strikes as it were his Extravagance and Debauchery into us so forcibly that we may even feel the Impression it eats like a Canker and nothing is so solid so clean to be free from the Rust of it And if this be the Case of particular Instances what do we think must the Condition and the Power be of those Vices and Dispositions that are become General and such as all the world run into with full Cry and wild Career And yet after all as necessary as this keeping aloof off from Infection is the thing is exceeding difficult and but seldom put in practice For to follow the beaten Track is something very plausible and carries a great Appearance of Justice and Goodness Humility and Condescension in it The Road is plain and large and Travellers are easily seduced into it Singularity is a By-path and none but fanciful or conceited men are thought to take it We go on after our Leaders like Beasts in a Herd The Reasonableness and Worth and Justice of a thing is rarely examined but Example and Custom are the moving Arguments and thus we hurry on and stumble at the same Stones and fall upon one another in heaps we press and push forward and draw whole multitudes upon the same Precipice and there we fall and perish merely upon the Credit of those that go before us Now the Man that would be wise indeed must take quite contrary Measures He must receive nothing upon Content and Example only but be very jealous and considerate and suspect every thing which he finds the generality of Mankind agreed in and fond of and instead of counting Numbers and practising by the Poll he must weigh the Goodness of the thing not suffering himself to be deluded with fair Appearances with general Approbations or common use or doing as the rest of the world do but nicely examine the real intrinsick worth of Things and Actions and resolve to stand alone where this will not justify his Compliance Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil is a just a prudent a necessary Precept and a most vicious and mistaken Modesty That is which prevails with us to disobey it When therefore any one would cut us short and thinks to knock all our Arguments on the head by saying All the world is of this Opinion or all the world does thus a considerate Man will answer to himself at least I like it so much the worse for that this is but a very scurvy Caution for their Approbation makes me suspect it the more Thus the Wise Phocion when he saw the whole Auditory highly applaud something he had spoken turned about and asked his Friends that stood by What was the matter whether he had let fall somewhat which ought not to have been said or been guilty of some egregious Impertinence that all the People were so mightily pleased with him The wisest method then is to decline as much as possibly we can any Familiarity or frequent Conversation with the People who are generally foolish ignorant and a very odd Medley of Men But if our affairs will not permit that yet at least it must be our constant Care to avoid their received opinions not to be born down with their Judgments nor conform our selves to their Temper and Complexion nor be corrupted by their vicious Dispositions and Practices But at the same time we live in the world we must not be of the world And This indeed is the Reason why Solitude is so much and so earnestly recommended by Philosophers and Wise men a Solitude that consists in setting the Soul free and discarding all popular Opinions and reigning Vices delivering the Mind from the Bondage and Confusion which Custom and Example and the Common Cry subject it to that so itmay have leisure to retire into it self and take its full Range without Interruption or Restraint The other Inconvenience and fatal Obstruction of Wisdom Second Thing Exemption from Passions is Internal and as such threatens more imminent Danger and requires a greater portion of our Care And This is that Slavery and Perplexity which our own Passions and disorderly Affections put us into And against These there ought to be a strict and strong guard to prevent their Tumults and Insurrections or rather indeed we ought if that were possible to dispossess them quite that so our Mind might be clean and open and unsullied like a Blank Paper ready to receive any Inscription any Tincture of Wisdom against which the Passions are formal and declared Enemies by the Stains and Prejudices they leave upon it This gave occasion for that Saying of some Wise Heathens That it was not possible even for Jupiter himself to be in Love or to be angry or affected strongly with any other Passion and yet to be Wise at the same time And accordingly both Reason and Revelation in the Ideas they teach us to form of God represent him void of all Passions Body or Bodily Affections as Infirmities by no means consistent with the Excellencies of an Absolutely Good
himself with the Event of this Engagement and be a thousand times more perplexed and mortified with any ill Success than those very Soldiers who spend their Blood and stake down their Lives in the Service In a word We must learn to understand our selves and our Condition and distinguish aright between our private and personal and our publick Capacities For every one of us is under a double Character and hath two parts to play The one external and visible but somewhat foreign and distant the other domestick and proper and essential to us Now though our Shirt be next to our Skin yet according to the Proverb we should always remember that how near soever our Shirt may be our Skin is still nearer to us A Judicious person will discharge his Duty to the Publick and fill an Office well and yet at the same time will discern the Folly and Wickedness and Cheat which a Publick Station exposes him to the practice of He will not decline the thing because it is agreeable to the Custom and Constitution of his Countrey it is necessary and useful to the Publick and perhaps advantagious to himself He will submit in many things to do as the World does because the Rest of Mankind live at the same rate and since he cannot mend the World it is to no purpose to disturb it by being singular But still he will look upon this as a matter somewhat foreign and consider this Character as adventitious and accidental not natural to him it is what he is obliged to put on and appear in but he was not born with it nor is it a part of him And therefore he will always exercise it with all due Limitations and Reservations and not so embark in Business as to be quite swallowed up in it but manage Matters so that he may still enjoy himself and be free and easy with a particular Friend or at least within his own Breast not so serve the World as to neglect and be out of a Condition to serve himself nor endeavour the Benefit of others at the Expence or Loss of a Good that is truly and properly his own CHAP. III. True and Substantial Integrity of Mind the first and fundamental part of Wisdom THE Directions laid down in the two foregoing Chapters being such Preparations as were thought necessary for disposing aright the person who aspires after Wisdom and qualifying him to make successful progress in it That is By removing the Obstructions and cleaning his Mind of Prejudices and setting it at large from the Slavery and Confinement of Popular Opinions and private Passions and also by advancing to that noble and happy Freedom of Thought and Will already described that from hence as from some advantagious rising ground he may take a full prospect and arrive at a clear and distinct Knowledge and attain to an absolute Mastery over all the Objects and Things that occur to him here below which is the peculiar Character and Privilege of an exalted and resined Soul It may now be seasonable to advance in the Method proposed at our Entrance into this Book by giving some fit Instructions and general Rules of Wisdom The Two First whereof are still in the nature of Prefaces to the Main Work necessary to be laid in the Quality of Foundations upon which to raise this Glorious Superstructure And the Former and Principal of these two designed for the Subject of This Chapter is Probity and Sincerity That true Honesty and Integrity of Heart and Life is the First the Chief the Fundamental Point of True Wisdom is an Assertion which it may perhaps be thought needless for me to give my self any great trouble in proving For in truth all Mankind agree in highly extolling and zealously pretending to it though it is but too manifest that what some do in this kind seriously and out of Conscientious regard to their Duty and the real Worth of this Virtue others put on only to set the best face upon the matter and are compelled to dissemble from Shame and Fear and the Ill-consequences of avowing the contrary Thus far then the whole World is agreed that Honesty is recommended and respected and at least complimented every Man professes to be passionately in love with it and subscribes himself its most Faithful most Affectionate and most Devoted Servant So that I may spare my self the pains of arguing in behalf of the Thing in general but I am afraid notwithstanding it will prove no such easy matter to make Men agree with the Notions of that which in my esteem is the True and Essential Honesty and to persuade the as universal Love but especially the universal practice of That which I think necessary upon this occasion For as to That which is in common vogue and usually reputed such though the World I know are generally satisfied and trouble themselves so little about understanding or attaining to any thing better that except a very few Wise Men they have no Ideas no Wishes beyond this yet I make no difficulty to affirm that it is all but a spurious and counterfeit Virtue Sham and Trick and the product of Art and Study Falshood and Disguise Now first of all We cannot but be sensible False Appcarances of it that Men are very often drawn on and pusht forward to good Actions by several sorts of Motives Sometimes such as are by no means commendable As Natural Defects and Infirmities Passion and Fancy nay sometimes by Vice and Things in their own Nature Sinful Thus Chastity and Sobriety and Temperance of all sorts may be and often are owing to a weak Body and tender Constitution which cannot support Excess Contempt of Death to Peevishness and Discontent Patience under Misfortunes Resolution and Presence of Thought in Dangers to Want of Apprehension and Judgment and a due sense how great or imminent the Danger is Valour and Liberality and Justice are often inspired and practised by Ambition and Vain-glory the Effects of good Conduct discreet Management of Fear and Shame and Avarice And what a World of renowned and noble Exploits have been owing to Presumption and Foolhardiness Rashness and Inconsideration Thus what we commonly call Actions and Instances of Virtue are in reality no better than Masks and counterfeit Appearances of it They have the Air and the Complexion but by no means the Substance of it So much resemblance there is that the Vulgar who are no Criticks in Faces may easily mistake the one for the other and so much of good there is in the Effects and Consequences of such Actions that other people may be allowed to call them Virtuous but it is impossible the person himself who does them should esteem them such or that any considering Man can either allow them this Character when nicely examined or think one jot the better of the Man that does them For Interest or Honour or Reputation or Custom and Compliance or some other Causes altogether foreign to Virtue will be found
with such as we never knew nor saw before And This is a Correspondence and Conversation wholly owing to Fortune and Formality our own Choice hath nothing to do with it nor did we seek or take pains to procure or contract it The Other sort of Conversation may be called Particular because consisting of such Companions as we like and love Acquaintance of our own desiring such as we either industriously sought and chose to recommend our selves to or else such as when offered to Us was most willingly embraced and that with a prospect of Advantage to our selves either for the improvement of our Minds or the advancing our Interest or some other Profit or Pleasure which we hope to reap from an Intimacy with them And here we are not to consider such a supersicial Commerce as before but that which is stricter and more endearing close Conferences mutual Communication secret Confidences and great Familiarity Each of which require distinct Rules and shall have Directions apart But before we enter upon either of these Considerations I beg the Readers leave to lay down One general Rule which regards them both and is in truth a Fundamental Principle in the Case before us for which reason I chuse to place it here as a necessary Introduction to every part of the subsequent Discourse One very great Vice which the Wise-man I am all this while forming Easiness of Humour must be sure to keep himself clear of and indeed a most Unseasonable and Troublesome ill Quality it is both to ones self and to all he converses with is the being particularly addicted to some certain Humours to keep always in the same road of Conversation This brings a man into slavery to himself to be so inseparably wedded to his own Inclination and Fancy that he can upon no occasion be prevailed with to comply nor be agreeable to other People and 't is a certain sign of a perverse and unsociable Disposition the Effect of ill-nature and ill-breeding of unreasonable Arrogance Partiality and Selfconceitedness The Men of this Temper have a rare time on 't for whereever they come they are sure to meet with Objects enough either to try their Patience or to raise a Controversy On the other hand It argues great Wisdom and Sufficiency when a Man hath an absolute command of his Temper so that he can accommodate himself to all Companies and is of such a flexible and manageable Spirit that he can rise and fall with the Company be pleasant or serious keep pace and constantly make one with what he finds the rest disposed to And indeed the best and bravest Men have always the largest and most general Souls and nothing argues Greatness of Mind more than this universal Temper the being always in good humour free and open and generous in Conversation This is a Character so beautiful that it in some measure resembles God himself and is a Copy of his Communicative Goodness And among other things said in Honour of Old Cato this is one Noble Commendation * Huic versatile ingenium Sic pariter ad omnia suit ut natum ad id unum dicâ—es quodcunque agereâ— That he was of a Disposition so dextrous and easy that nothing ever came amiss to him and whatever you saw him engaged in at that time he was so perfectly Master of it that you would imagine this the very thing which Nature had cut him out for Having premised this general Consideration which is of use in both the following Branches of the Subject First part And Advice upon it I am now upon let us return to the former part of the Division which concerns what I called Simple and General and Common Conversation in distinction from that other which is Chosen and Intimate and Particular Now for Our Behaviour in this Point there are several things very proper and necessary to be observed and the First thing I would advise is To be very Reserved and Modest in our Discourse The Second is Not to be out of humour with every foolish or indiscreet thing every little Indecency or Levity which want of better Sense or better Breeding or some unthinking Gaiety of mind may betray Men to For we are to consider when in Company that we are in some degree disposed of to Others and no longer entirely our Own so that allowing the Thing to have been otherwise than it ought and better let alone yet it is troublesome and impertinent in Us to take offence at every thing which is not just as we would have it or think it ought to be The Third is Not to be too profuse of speaking all we know but to play the good Husbands and manage the Stock of our Understanding prudently For Reservedness is not unbecoming even the wisest and best provided for Discourse so far as it argues a Deference to the rest of the Company and declines that Assuming way of talking All. But generally it is adviseable that Men should be more inclined to hear than to speak and converse rather with a prospect of informing Themselves than with an Intention to teach the Company For indeed 't is a very great sault to be more forward in setting ones self on and Talking to shew ones Parts than to Learn the Worth and to be truly acquainted with the Abilities of other Men He that makes it his business not to Know but to be Known is like a foolish Tradesman that makes all the haste he can to fell off his old 〈◊〉 but takes no thought of laying in any new The Fourth is Not to lie upon the Catch for Disputes nor to shew our Wit by perpetually entring into Argument and even when it is proper to do so with regard to the Subject yet to make a difference as to the Persons with whom we are to engage We ought not to contest a Point with Persons of Honour and those that are much above us it is a breach of the Deference and Respect due to their Character Nor will it become us to do it with those that are much below us either in Quality or in Parts for neither of these are an equal Match for us To the One we are restrained by Good Manners and the Other is to Triumph where we ought rather to be ashamed of the Victory The Fifth Rule is To be Modestly Inquisitive For there is a decent and very commendable Curiosity such as with great Innocence and Temper and genteel Address endeavours to be informed of all things sit to be known and when a Man hath attained to this his next care must be to manage his Knowledge to the best advantage and make every thing turn to some account with him The Sixth and most important Direction is To make use of his Judgment upon all occasions for the examining and considering Matters well is the Master-piece of a Man 'T is This that acts and influences and finishes All. Without the Understanding every thing is void of Sense and
such order that each Advantage of the Mind hath one belonging to the Body joined and so joined as to be correspondent to it for as Nature hath united Body and Soul together so she seems to have given each of them Accomplishments extremely agreeable and alike Thus Health is to the Body what Probity is to the Mind it is the Probity or good Disposition of the Body as Probity is the Health of the Soul These should be the Sum of our Wishes * Mens sana in Corpore sano Forgive the Gods the rest and stand confin'd To Health of Body and a Virtuous Mind Says the Poet. Beauty is commensurate to Wisdom the Just Measure exact Proportion and Comeliness is the Wisdom of the Body and Wisdom is the Regularity the Decency the Beauty of the Soul Quality and Good Birth is a wonderful Capacity a mighty Disposition to Virtue and these Spiritual Abilities again and Good Parts are the Nobility of the Mind Learning is the Wealth of the Soul and Riches the acquired Advantage of the Body Others I know will differ from me in the Method and Order of ranging these Qualifications for some put all the Advantages of the Mind first and are of opinion that the least of These is more valuable than the best and highest of Those that belong to the Body and others who go not so far yet may not agree in the Preference due to each Particular Every Man in this Case follows his own Sense and from that we cannot but expect great Variety of Judgments will ensue In the next place succeeds a Third Qualification which indeed naturally springs out of the former For Wise Choice from the Sufficiency of passing a just Estimate upon things is derived an Ability of making a Wise Choice and this is not only a matter of Duty and Conscience but very often an Eminent Instance of Wisdom and good Conduct There are indeed some Cases extremely plain and easy as when Difficulty and Vice Honesty and Profit Duty and Inrest stand in competition For the Preeminence in this Comparison is so visible and so vast on one side above the other that whenever these things encounter each other the Advantage lies and the Balance should always fall to the side of Duty though attended with never so great Difficulty and Inconvenience In the Case of Private Persons I mean for possibly there may sometimes be room for an Exception but then this does not often happen and if it do 't is generally in the Administration of Publick Affairs and then too it must be managed with great Tenderness and Circumspection But of This I shall have a more proper season to speak when my Third Book brings us to treat of Prudence in particular But sometimes there is such a Conjuncture of Circumstances that a Man is driven to a very hard Choice As for Instance When we stand inclos'd as it were with Two Vices and there is no getting clear of both Thus History describes that Eminent Father Origen who had it left to him Whether he would commit Idolatry or suffer his Body to be carnally abused by a Moor The first was the Thing he chose and some say he chose amiss Now when we are unhappily involved in such Perplexities and at a loss which way we should incline in the choice of Matters not morally evil the best Rule we can be guided by is to go over to that side where there is the greatest Appearance of Justice and Honesty For though every thing should not afterwards succeed according to our Wish or Expectation yet there will result so pleasing an Applause such Glory and Self-gratulations from within for our having taken the better Part as will make us ample Compensation for our Misfortunes and abundantly support us under them And besides all this If the Worse but seemingly Safer Side had been chosen what Security can we have that the Event would have proved more favourable and why may we not reasonably suppose that the Governour and Lord of Us and all our Fortunes would have been provoked to punish and disappoint us that way too When Matters seem to be so equal that we cannot distinguish which is the better and shorter course we should take that which is the plainest and straightest And in Things manifestly Immoral of which properly speaking there cannot be any Choice we must avoid that which is most detestable and hath more of Villany and Horror in it For this indeed is a Point of Conscience and is more truly a part of Probity than of Prudence But it is very often exceeding hard to satisfy one's self which of Two things of the same kind is the more agreeable to Justice or to Decency or which is preferable in point of Advantage And so likewise of Two Ill Things which is the more Unjust more Indecent and Dishonest or attended with worse Consequences Upon the whole matter then though the Act of chusing is an Act of Probity and Conscience yet the Ability of making this Choice aright is a part of Prudence and sound Judgment I am apt to believe that in such Straights as these the best and safest way will be to follow Nature and to determine that those Things which are most agreeable to Nature are the more just and becoming and that what is most distant from or contrary to Nature is more especially to be avoided and abhorred by us This agrees well with what was formerly delivered in our description of Probity That we ought to be Good Men by the Dictates and Impulse of Nature Before I go off from this Point of Choice give me leave to say one word or two for the resolving a Doubt which some People have started with regard to the Determination of our Wills in these Cases The Question is When Two Things are proposed so Equal and Indifferent that we can give no reason why One should be valued more than the Other what it is that disposes the Soul to take the One and leave the Other The Stoicks pretend that it is a rash Operation of the Soul somewhat Foreign and Extraordinary and beside its proper course But let Them say what they will We may be bold to affirm That there is no g round for the Question and that no Two Things ever do or can present themselves to our Consideration so as to be perfectly Equal and Indifferent to us It frequently happens indeed that the Difference is very small and inconsiderable but still some difference there is something we apprehend in One and not in the Other which casts the Scale and draws us on to a Choice though the Motion be so gentle that we scarce feel it and the Motive so slender that we know not how to express and can very hardly give our selves any account of it But still certain it is that were a Man evenly poized between Two Desires he would never chuse at all For all Choice implies Inclination of the Mind and all Inclination
to the mighty Surprize as well as Advantage of all that were concerned in them †Multa Dies variusque labor mutabilis aevi Rettulit in melius Virg. Aenerd H. Good unexpected Evils unforeseen Appear by Turns as Fortune shifts the Scene Some rais'd aloft come tumbling down amain Then fall so hard they bound and rise again Mr. Dryden In this Case a Man of Honour and Virtue ought to act toward Himself as he should in sighting toward his Adversary To be always upon his Guard to parry and ward off the Blows with all the Art and Skill one hath to weary him out and make good one 's own Party but never to Kill except the necessary Defence of one's self require it and till Matters are brought to the very last Push Secondly There is no Question to be made but it is infinitely more Virtuous and more Commendable to endure patiently and support our selves with firm and immoveable Constancy to the very End than to sink under the Load and tamely flee before the Calamity For such a Yielding betrays Weakness and Cowardice But because Perseverance like Continence is a Grace not given equally to All nor is every Man alike able to receive it the Question before us at present will be Whether upon Supposition of some Great Evil Insupportable for the Quality and past all Hopes of Remedy or Recovery such as is likely enough to subvert and beat down all our Resolution and Irritate our Minds to some very wicked Passion such as Discontent Despair Murmuring against our Great Lord Whether I say in such a Case it might not be more expedient or at least more excusable to deliver one's self by One Resolute Act from such Dreadful such Vicious Consequences while our Understanding is perfect and undisturb'd than by a Cowardly Delay to expose our selves to the Danger of being vanquished by the Temptation and so ruined to all Eternity Is it not better to quit the Field than to Sacrifice one's self by obstinately standing one's ground This perhaps is a Course which in some very Nice and Difficult Exigencies Reason and merely Human Prudence might advise and accordingly some who pretended to be great â—â—â—osophers have practised it in different Countries so that the Opinion seems to have been pretty favourably received The Stoicks do not stand upon so much Ceremony but give Men leave to dislodge and pack off whenever they are disposed to it as we may collect from Seneca and others The other Philosophers are somewhat more reserved but They allow it too provided a Man can give a good reason for his proceeding thus These are the Notions and Determinations of the Schools of Philosophy and Human Reason but That of Christ teaches us much otherwise For the Christian Religion admits no reason to be sufficient in this Case nor ever dispenses with any Circumstances whatsoever The Truth and Wisdom of God absolutely condemns all such Officious and Voluntary abandoning of our Post and never suffers us to stir from our Duty till we are regularly dismiss'd by the same Authority which placed us in it No Man's own Inclinations are sufficient nor can the doing it of his own head bear him out in this matter So that whatever hath been said in this Chapter which may seem in any degree to advise Men to Patience and Perseverance and to propose This as the better and more eligible though in the Philosophical Sense it be only recommended as Good Counsel yet in a Religious one it hath the force of an absolute and indispensable Command Besides we may add That it is an Argument of very great Wisdom for a Man to know and distinguish rightly which is the proper season for Dying and to lay hold on that Opportunity when put into his hands For every Man hath a Critical juncture of this kind in which Virtue and Honour call which Some by being over-hasty Antedate and Others as much too slow let slip through their Hands Both these Defects though so contrary in the Operation yet proceed from the same Principles which are a mixture of Weakness and of Courage But the Misfortune is That even Magnanimity it self without Discretion to Temper and Direct it will not secure a Man's Character How many Persons of just Renown and once unblemished Honour have yet had the Unhappiness of surviving their Reputation and from an Intemperate Fondness of Life for the sake of some poor little addition to their Days have absolutely Sullied and Eclipsed their former Glories followed all their Credit to the Grave a good Name Murthered and Buried by their Own Hands The wretched remainder of their time hath retained not the least Tincture or Resemblance of what went before but the Scandal of Their Age compared with the Honours of their earlier Years looks like some wretched old Clout tack'd to some very Rich and Beautiful Garment And who would patch up Life at this Odious Deformed rate It is with This as with Fruit there is a Critical Season of gathering it from the Tree If you let it hang too long it putrifies and grows Insipid and the longer you spare it the worse it is and if you pluck it too soon the loss is as great in the other Extreme for then it is Green and Sowr and good for nothing for want of kindly Ripening Many Eminent Saints have with great Industry declined Dying upon consideration of their great Usefulness and the mighty Advantage the Publick would receive from their Surviving and this too notwithstanding the certain Prospect of their own Private Gain in leaving the World And when a Man can exchange so much for the better it argues great Charity to be content to Live This St. Paul describes to be his own Case Phil. I. And there is more than Men commonly think of Resignation in that Old Saying If my longer Continuance be for the Benefit of thy People I refuse not the toil of Living Si Populo tuo sum necessarius non recuso Laborem Death appears to us under divers Shapes and the manner of Men's undergoing it is vastly different some of the ways of Dying are more easy and accordingly the Figures and Idea's of it much less dismal and frightful than Others But when all is done the Difference of these Forms is like that of Faces and the Preference given to them depends chiefly upon Humour and Fancy So far as I am capable of Judging Of all Deaths which are usually termed Natural That is the Gentlest and most Supportable which proceeds from a gradual Weakness and Stupefaction of the Parts And of All that are Violent That sure is most eligible which is quickest in Execution and Dispatch and is least thought of before-hand Some indeed are fond of making their last Act Exemplary a Pattern to Others and a Commendation to Themselves by the Proofs they give the World of Courage and Wisdom and Steadiness of Mind at their last Hour But This is rather to have a regard for Other
should he be forced even to his own Good that Compulsion would not only take away the Merit of the Act but the very Nature of the Person whose very distinguishing Character is Choice and Freedom of Consent And therefore God deals with us as he made us he lets us want nothing that we can enjoy the Benefit of and continue Men he instructs suggests persuades counsels encourages promises threatens puts opportunities into our hands and gives us a power of using them but it will depend upon our selves at last whether these shall have a good effect or not We can do no good without Him but neither will He do it without Us nor indeed according to the present Scheme and Constitution of Things is it at all conceivable how he can So that the Actions of Men not answering the Efficacy which might be expected from the Revelation of an Almighty God is no Argument against those Principles coming from Him which are not better obeyed because this is not a Case for him to exert his Almighty Power in And though he wrought many Miracles formerly for the Consirmation of the Truth by virtue of that power yet we never find that he ever used that power for the foreing a belief of those Miracles but Men were left to their own Consideration and Liberty what Interpretation they would make of them and as they determined themselves Belief or more Obstinate Infidelity was the Effect of it Nor is it true that Wicked Men do not believe Religion It is but too sure that they endeavour as much as they can not to believe it when Matters are come to that pass that the Belief of it grows uneasy to them It is indeed confess'd that our Persuasion is the very Spring upon which all our Actions move But then there must a distinction be made between the Habit and the Act of Faith For a Man may entertain an Opinion and yet do some things contrary to it because that Opinion may not in the instant of Action occur to him and then as to all effect indeed it is the same as if he thought it not Thus a Man may believe Christianity but through the Strength of Passion through the Surprize or Violence of a Temptation through Rashness or Incogitancy Multitude and Intricacy of Business Inordinate Affection of the World or the like he may not attend to what he believes or he may not consider it sufficiently or not allow the Future its due weight when set against the Present Now though such a Person as to all the purposes of doing well be pro hîc nunc as an Infidel yet there is a great difference between Him in the general and One who does not believe at all This Man though he does not act in consistence with himself hath yet a dormant Habit which when the Paroxysm is off the Temptation removed the Passion abated or the like may by Recollection and Sober Sense be awakened and then it will at least check him for what is past and may till he hath sinned himself past feeling be a considerable Restraint upon him But the Other hath nothing to inform nothing to controul him And though a Man in sleep may appear to the Standers by to be dead yet we know what difference there is in the thing it self This I take to be a sufficient Account of even good Men's sinning often and some Bad Men doing it very scandalously and yet retaining the Faith which if pursued through all its Consequences and applied closely and warmly to their Consciences would shew them the abominable Contradiction they live in to their own Minds and make them quite another sort of persons From hence I suppose the Reader will naturally draw to himself these following Reflections 1. That Men are not wrought upon by Things as they are in themselves but by their own Apprehensions of them They act by the dictates of their own Minds and as they are persuaded It is not the Happiness of Heaven or the Misery of Hell that excites to any one Good or affrights from any one Evil Action in their own Nature but the Idea and as I conceive of them And consequently in proportion as I desire the One and dread the Other such will my Care be to practise or to decline those things to which the Promises and Threatnings of God are annexed 2. That to make this Persuasion effectual it is necessary it should be present to the Mind For that which is not present at the time of Action is to all effect for that time as if it were not This shews the Necessity of Meditation and much Thought upon the Principles of and Motives to Religion since Faith will not cannot work by barely being assented to but by being vigorously and lively imprest upon the Conscience warm and ready upon every new Assault And this gives us a very Rational Account how it is possible and why it should be common for a Man to entertain all the Principles of a true Faith and upon Premeditation be able to say as much for it as is possible nay to persuade himself as well as others that he is a very sincere Believer and yet lead a Life very contrary to that Belief For this proceeds from his thinking a hearty Assent to the Truth of a Doctrine sufficient and it is so indeed to denominate him a Professor whereas to make him a Good Man that Assent signifies little unless it be followed and frequently inculcated so as to season his Mind throughly and upon all occasions to be at hand and vigorous and fresh for without These qualities it can never be a Principle of Action 3. That consequently the Inconsistence of Men's Lives with their Profession can be no just Objection against Religion because the Fault plainly lies not in the Principles but in Men's neglect to improve them And when we would be convinced of the Goodness of any Persuasion we are to judge the Tree by its Fruits not the Faith by the Practices it produces actually in Men's Lives as that Expression is frequently misapplied but by the Good Actions it would produce if Men would let it have a due influence upon them follow it as far as it will carry them and live up to what they profess The Men who do otherwise are very blameable and lay a stumbling-block before the weak by briging dishonour upon Religion and tempting them to suspect its Power and Excellence But it is only the Weak who stumble at it for there is not nor ever was in the Affairs of Religion or of any other kind any Scheme of Rules or Opinions where all the persons who made Profession of them acted in all points accordingly And at this rate all manner of Goodness and Virtue Natural as well as Acquired and Revealed must be questioned and exploded and the very first Dictates of Human Nature will not escape the same Fate Of such Eternal Equity and Truth is that old Axiom Fides non è
eventu tristia Advice given with Heat and Confidence looks fair and gay at first sight but the execution of it is hard and desperate and the Event full of Grief and Disappointment Next to this presumptuous Vanity and Heat Passion is improper for such Ministers of State All Anger and Envy Hatred and Spight Avarice and Ambicion all Selfish Narrowness of Spirit and private Interest for these are all of them Corrupters of the best Sense the very Bane of all sound Judgment Integrity and faithful Discharge of a publick Character cannot dwell in the same Breast with these personal Piques and private Affections * Private res somper ofiecere officientque publicis consiliis Ceâ—â—umenâ—â—â—â— affectâ—is judicii venenum sua cuique Utilitas Private Advantage ever did and ever will obstruct and confound publick Counsels and each single Man's Profit is that which Poisons all good Sense and kind Inclination to the Common Good One Thing more remains absolutely Necessary to be avoided and that is Precipitation An irreconcilable Enemy to Prudence and good Counsel and fit for nothing but to put Men upon doing amiss and then being all amed and unfortunate upon that Account And thus much shall suffice at Present for a Description of those Qualities which ought to concur and the Vices and Defects which must be declin'd in order to the accomplishing Men for Counsellors of State Now such as these it is the Prince's Business to employ and those are the Rules by which his Choice ought to be directed For his own Personal Knowledge of Persons so qualified will be the greatest Security he can have but if he be not capable of making the Distinction himself nor can with Safety rely upon his own Judgment in the Case then Reputation and common Fame is what he must be contented with And upon such Occasions a general Character seldom leads us into great Mistakes for which Reason one desir'd his Prince That he would look upon him and his Brethren in Office to be such as the World esieem'd them For Hypocrisie is but a parricular Thing and of a very limited extent †Ram singuh decipâ— deâ—â—pi possunt nemo omnes netaitâ—â—◠〈…〉 Single Men may deceive and be deceiv'd but never did any Man deceive all the World we was ever any Man mistaken in all the World Great Care should be taken upon this Occasion that a Prince do not trust himself with Flatterers and sawning Parasites with particular Favourites Court-Officers and mercenary Wretches whose Confidence is a Reproach to their Master and will be his Ruine when they can have a good Price for betraying him For after all the Cabal and the Cabinet is the Foundation of most Monarch's undoing We see it not till it comes upon the open Stage but there it begun and from thence it moves and works under Ground long before the World can discern it Now when a Prince hath made this Choice and sound Persons for his Purpose the next thing incumbent upon him is to make a Wise Use of them And That is to be done by consulting them early and in a Season proper for Deliberation not driving all off till the very Instant of Action when the Time is too short for debate and cool Consideration nor on the other Hand Trifling and losing Time in hearing their tedious Disputes when his Affairs require a speedy Resolution Again This Advice of theirs must be attended to with a Judicious Reserve he must not give himself blindly up to it and follow their Determinations Right or Wrong as that very weak Emperor Claudius is said to have done And he must likewise temper this Discretion with Moderation and Gentleness without being too stiff and inflexible in his own Sense Since generally speaking that Remark of the wise Marcus Antoninus holds good who says it is better for one Man to come over and to comply with the Advice of a great many good Friends than that all their Opinions should be set aside and they forced to truckle to his single Arbitrary Pleasure I cannot but apprehend it of great Advantage in this Case to keep a Man's self pretty loose and use ones Counsellors with a sort of Authority mix'd with Indifference My Meaning is Not immediately to reward Men for their good Counsel because such present Pay will be a Temptation to ill Men to thrust themselves forward in advising and so that which is really bad will be put upon him in hopes of a Reward Nor on the other Hand to discountenance or use Men roughly for counselling amiss Because this will create a Shyness in all about him and no body will dare to advise freely if the delivering their Opinion shall expose them to Danger and Disgrace And besides The Judgment of good and bad Counsel is very uncertain because it usually proceeds upon the Issue Whereas the most injudicious Counsels have often succeeded as well or better than the Wisest by a strange over-ruling Power of Providence thus asserting its Government of us and all our Affairs here below And again It ought to be remembred that They who give the best that is the safest and most prosperous Counsel are not upon that Account to be concluded our faithfullest Friends nor best affected to our Interest for many times They who love us best may be mistaken in their Measures and they who wish us no Good may yet put us in the way of a great deal Nor ought a Prince to resent Freedom and Plainness upon these Occasions For This in all Reason ought rather to be acceptable and a wise Man will keep a Jealous Eye upon Flattering and Timorous Fellows such as make it their Business to sooth his Humors and had rather see him perish by false Measures than disgust him to his own Advantage And sure if there be a Miserable Creature upon Earth it is that Prince to whom no Body about him dares tell the Truth he that must live by the help of other Peoples Senses and yet all who see and hear for him are under a necessity of dissembling and disguising in their own Defence and dare shew him nothing as it really is A Man * Cujus Aures ita formatae sunt ut aspera quae utilia nil nisi jucundum laesurum recipiant whose Ears as Tacitus expresses it are so oddly contriv'd that all Sounds are harsh and grating which tell profitable Truths and they never think themselves entertain'd but with such pleasing Words as are sure to do Mischief The last Caution necessary for the making a good Use of Proper Counsellors is To conceal his own Opinion and not determine Publickly what he approves most or what he resolves to do for when all is done Secrecy is the very Life and Soul of Counsel and †Nulla meliora consilia quam quae ignoraverit adversarius antequam fierent That Advice is always best which your Enemy knows nothing of till the Execution declar'd what it was As
deserve and act upon Discretion and the wisest 〈◊〉 that over sat cannot be so proper Judges at a 〈◊〉 of what is to be done as He who sees and must take his Measures upon the Spot For there are a Thousand unforeseen 〈◊〉 genâ—ies which change the whole Scene 〈◊〉 put a new suâ—â—rizing Face upon the Matter 〈…〉 require that aâ— Man should steer a 〈…〉 and govern himself accordingly But 〈…〉 not be so particular and full but 〈…〉 Reserves must be made for discretionary Proce 〈…〉 yet there are some Methods so general and so fixe 〈◊〉 up Man can be mistaken in observing them nor can any conâ—â—â—erate Author who treats of this Subject overlook them Some few of these I shall briefly represent to my Reader here and leave it to him from his own Observation or Experience to add more as he shall see occasion Now of these there are two sorts Some of constant use throughout the whole Course of the War Others accidental and occasional only as Times or Places or other Circumstances shall happen to make them seasonable I begin with the Former sort The first of these is Watching all Opportunities with the utmost Diligence and Circumspection securing all that offer that none slip by unprofitably and at the same time preventing and countermining the Enemy that he shall have no benefit by those that are put into His Hands For Opportunity hath a huge Run a mighty Stroke in all Affairs of Human Life and more especially in War where one lucky Hit does more sometimes than all the Hands and Heads of a Kingdom put together The Second is Making his Advantage of Reports for be they true or false they are capable of doing great Service and especially while they are fresh and warm * Famâ bella constant fama bellum conficit in spem metumve impellit animos Common Fame begins continues ends Wars exalts Men's Minds with assured Hopes dejects them with pannick Fears They fight as the News goes and many a Field hath been lost and won by virtue of a current Rumor which tho' so powerful in its Effects had yet perhaps little or no Foundation to stand upon it self This last Advice chiefly regards a Man as yet unsetled in his Measures But when the Scheme is laid and he is not only determin'd so much as in those Circumstances one can but hath entred upon his Designs Then my Third Direction is not to trouble himself about any such Rumours He will do well indeed to get well inform'd and to consider of them carefully but still to proceed in his own Methods To do what he is able and what in Duty and Decency he is obliged to what Reason prescribes and there to fest and expect the Event as a wise and a brave Man should do But above all let him in the Fourth place take heed of being too consident and secure for this will lead him into infinite Mistakes and Inconveniences perhaps never to be retriev'd A Man thinks meanly of his Enemy as if he were despicable and not worth his Care and this betrays him to Negligence and Thoughtlessness and Sloth Now This is the most dangerous and destructive Condition that a State of War is capable of For whoever despises his Enemy does most cerrainly expose and betray himself and give that so despised Enemy an Advantage which is no other Consideration did would singly render him extremely formidable * Frequentissimum initum Calamitatis Securitas Nemo celerius opprimitur quam qui non timet Nil tutò in hoste despicitur Quem spreveris valentiorem negligentià facies Security is usually the Forerunner and Occasion of great Distress No Body is so quickly defeated as the Man that is under no Apprehensions of Danger Nothing in an Enemy can be despised with safety for even that Carelessness which naturally springs from Contempt gives him more power to do you Mischief These Reflections are true in their most general Sense but in War nothing ought to be despised because There nothing is or can be frivolous enough to justifie or deserve it for it often happens that what we look upon to be very small and inconsiderable in it self is yet fruitful in great variety of Consequences and even prodigous Effects †Seepe parvis momentis magni casus ut nil timendi sic nihil contemnendi Small Motions are often followed by monstrous Events and therefore as nothing of this kind ought to perplex us with anxious Fears of it so neither ought any thing to lull us asleep with the slight of it as not worth our Notice and Care Fifthly He ought to be extremely curious and inquisitive into the Condition of his Enemy and the posture of his Affairs particularly he should be sure to get certain Information of the following Points The Temper and Complexion the Inclination and Designs of the Commander in chief the Temper of the People and Army under him what their Manners are and in what way they live the Situation of the Places and Condition of the Country all round about his Camp and where either the Scene of Action or any Motions of his Army may probably be And this was Hannibal's peculiar Excellence As for Engagement and Action it self several things must be taken into Consideration the Time the Place For Battels the Persons against whom the Manner how a Man engages Otherwise it may be as unsuccessful as it is an ill-advis'd Attempt A Battel ought never to be hazarded but upon great Deliberation and very pressing Reasons to persuade it Any other Method less hazardous is rather to be chosen He should try to break and tire out his Enemy to harrass him with long Marches to batter him with tedious Encampments with incommodious Places with want of Provision and other Conveniences In short To beat him any other way rather than by Dint of Sword * Incerti Fxitus pugnarum Mars communis qui saepâ— spoliantem jam exultantem evertit perculit ab abjecto For the Chance of War is extremely dangerous and uncertain One Moment turns the Scales routs and overthrows the Victorious in the midst of Joy and Plunder and carries the just-before beaten and despairing triumphant out of the Field A General then must never let Matters come to this Extremity The Time except it be very seldom That is to say when absolute necessity compels or some great Occasion persuades him to it The Cases of Necessity are such as these when you feel Difficulties grow upon you daily when you are reduced to want of Provision when Money runs low and no Supplies can be had when your Soldiers grow discontented and desert apace In such Circumstances there is no subsisting long and therefore A desperate Disease must have a desperate Cure for you can but perish either way For the Occasions which may render it advisable I reckon the manifest Odds of Strength on your side either in Numbers or in other Qualifications
to entertain must receive Satisfaction from the Second Question I insert this Caution by the way because it frequently falls out that a Man is staked down as it were to one party almost whether he will or no. For though he may not make it any part of his Choice and Design nay though in his own Private Judgment he cannot but disapprove it yet in despight of Intention Inclination and Good Sense he may find himself involved and intangled by some Considerations so Powerful that he cannot with any Decency break through them And these being such Bands as Nature hath ty'd him up in or such as Counterbalance all Motives to the contrary will at least carry a sufficient Excuse for his doing as he does Now this first Question hath several Arguments pro and con and abundance of eminent Instances might be produced of Persons who have behaved themselves directly contrary to each other with regard to it So that differing Judgments and Authorities as well as different Reasons minister just ground of Scruple in the Case The Resolutions which seem to me most convenient to be come to according to the different Circumstances of the Persons concern'd in this Debate are such as follow On the one Hand Nothing seems more agreeable to the Character of a Wise and a Good Man than to have nothing at all to do with the Follies and Factions of the World and therefore such a one cannot do better than to stand by and let them try it out by themselves Especially too if we consider what Account hath already been given of these Divisions how irregular and unlawful they are in their own Nature and first Causes what Wickedness Barbarity and Injustice of all sorts they engage Men in That these are inseparable Attendants of such practices and it is not possible to have any hand in them and continue Innocent I say If all these Considerations be fairly laid together it scarce looks any longer like a Matter of free Choice what a Man may or may not do but seems rather a Point of Duty than of bare Allowance and Permission absolutely to decline any Concern in them And accordingly it appears that several excellent Persons have had so great an abhorrence of these Things and such a Sense of the Personal Obligations they violate that no Considerations could prevail with them to come in particularly Asinius Pollio who the Historian tells us Velleius lib. 3. excused himself for these very Reasons to Agustus when he entreated his Company and Assistance in the Expedition against Mark Anthony But then on the other Hand What shall we say to those Reasons which enforce our Obligation to take part with good Men to protect and strengthen such as much as in us lies and to defend Equity and Right against all that oppose and encroach upon it The Great Solon was so strongly possess'd in Favour of these Engagements that he is for inflicting very severe Punishments upon Them that affect Ease and Obscurity and refuse to appear and act openly in such Exigencies of State And that rigid Professor of Virtue Cato govern'd himself by this Rule for he did not only declare and come into One Party in the Civil Wars of Rome but took a Command among the Malâ— contents under Pompey Now if we would know what Measures are fit to be taken where Judgments are so divided and Reasons probable and plausible enough for each to alledge in his own Justification my poor Opinion is This For Persons of Eminence and Character in the World such as are in publick Trust or great Reputation or extraordinary Abilities and are known to be leading and significant Men in the State These I conceive not only may fall into that Side which they in their Conscience think the best but so far as I am able to discern they are bound to do it For he is a very ill Pilot that steers the Ship in calm and favourable Weather and runs away from the Helm when it grows Foul and Stormy What shall become of the Vessel if the best Hands let her drive when there is the greatest Need of Working her and keeping her tight These Gentlemen ought in Extremities especially to stand in the Gap and act like Men of Honour the Care of the Government is upon them and its Safety or Ruine lyes at the Door But then for Persons in a private Capacity such as make none at all or but very inconsiderable Figure in the Government These are more at their own Liberty For as their Condition supposes all the Assistance they can contribute to be of no mighty consequence so the with-holding that Assistance can do no great Damage And therefore they may be allowed to retire into some Place of Security and seek their own Ease and Quiet at a Distance from the Noise and Clutter of the contending Parties But then both these kind of Men those that do and those that do not declare lie under an Obligation to demean themselves in such manner as I am going to prescribe In the mean while I add thus much only upon the present Subject concerning those who are disposed to come in and act That in the choosing what Party they should side with sometimes the Case is so plain that it is almost impossible they can be mistaken For where the Injustice of the Cause and other Disadvantages are so evident that they look one full in the Face and forbid him no Man of common Sense will go in thither But it often happens that there are Reasons on both Sides Each pretends Right and Justice and each hath Advantages to invite us and then the Difficulty of coming to a Resolution is very great because a Man must not only weigh the Arguments on both Sides and settle the Point of Right and Wrong first but he hath several other Considerations to attend to such as may and ought to carry some Weight with them though they have not immediately respect to the Justice of the Cause And now it may be Seasonable to proceed to the other Part of this Advice which relates to the Behaviour of the Persons under these several Capacities To all which I might satisfie my self with prescribing in one Word Moderation and Temper that they would particularly take Atticus for their Pattern whose Name hath been so much celebrated for his Prudence and Modesty in the midst of that boisterous Age in which he lived One who was always believed in his Judgment to favour the right Side and respected by all good Men for doing so but yet one who behaved himself so Prudently and Inoffensively that he never involved himself in the Common Confusions nor drew down the Displeasure of ill Men or any Inconvenience from that Party who were sensible enough he did not approve their Proceedings But to be a little more particular and first for Them who openly declare themselves It is certain that These ought by no Means to be violent or betray indecent Heats and
is the Fruit of all this Suffering and Expence Why you escape the Severity of the Law A goodly Satisfaction indeed a Man is not punish'd that never deserv'd it But where is the Reparation for all the Trouble and Charge you have been at for This will stick by you and can never be wip'd off tho' the Suspicion and Scandal and all the Dirt that a false Accuser bespatter'd you with may The Plantiff or Informer in the mean while if he can but bring the least Colour of probability for what he depos'd against you comes off clear and a very easie thing it is to make any thing look so suspicious as shall suffice to prevent the recovering of Damages upon him So very niggardly so shamefully miserable is Justice in the Matter of Rewards and gratifying Men for having deserv'd well and so entirely addicted to Punishment Insomuch that now the Word is brought to signifie That by way of Eminence and doing Justice or being obnoxious to Justice is constantly understood in the rigorous Sense as if Justice had nothing else to do but to scourge and take Men off And any Man whose Disposition is litigious and his Malice and Conscience wicked enough to put him upon it may very easily give his Neighbours a great deal of Trouble and Charge and without any danger to himself run them into such Difficulties as will not be possible to get quit of again without considerable Detriment and Disquiet Now if we would consider Justice as to the several parts of our Duty and the Objects in which they terminate these are principally Three For every Man is by virtue of his Nature and Condition a Debtor to God to Himself and to his Neighbour So that One of his Creditors is above him Another is upon the level with him and the Third is Creditor and Debtor both in one Person The Duty to God is but another Phrase for Piety and Religion so that this Head of Justice hath been largely insisted upon already in the Second Part of this Treatise And therefore without troubling the Reader any more upon that Subject I shall betake my self to the other Two yet behind the Duty to our Selves and That to our Neighbour CHAP. VI. Of Justice as That regards a Man's Duty to Himself THis indeed is scatter'd throughout this whole Work and every Chapter is full of it For what else is the Design of the First Book which attempts to bring Men throughly acquainted with Themselves and the Condition of Human Life What else does the Second drive at in teaching Men Wisdom and laying down general Rules for their attaining to it What Lastly makes up this Third Book but especially that part of it which treats of Fortitude and Temperance which are both of them Virtues that have a more direct tendency and immediate Relation to this Matter So that any thing industriously apply'd to this Topick in particular might perhaps be well enough spar'd But however I will here lay down some Directions and give the Matter an express and solemn Consideration in the most compendious Method that conveniently I can 1. The First Advice I shall give upon this Occasion and that which in truth is the Foundation of all the rest is That Men would bethink themselves and take up a Resolution not to live Extempore and at Random from Hand to Mouth and without any Reflection of what they are what will become of them and why they are here and yet as extravagant as all this may seem at first hearing the greatest part of Mankind by far are guilty of it They fool away their Time and never live in good earnest but pass Day after Day without one serious Thought or troubling themselves to look at all before them They have no Relish no Enjoyment of Life nor make any other use of it but only to employ it in unnecessary Trifles and Things by the by Their mighty Projects and busie Cares are rather a Hindrance and Perplexity than any Furtherance to the great Ends of Living Such Men do every thing in earnest but live All their Actions and the little broken Parcels of Life are grave and full of Attention but the Bulk and Substance of Life goes off without any Regard or Consideration at all This is like a Self-evident Principle or a Truth taken for granted in Speculation upon which they never bestow a Second Thought That which is Accidental and Insignificant is made their principal Care and that which ought to be their main Business neglected as if it were only an Additional and Unnecessary thing They are exceeding diligent and importunately sollicitous in other Matters some in acquiring a vast compass of Learning some in aspiring to Honours and Preferments some in heaping up Riches Others are intent upon Pleasures and Diversions Hunting or Play or vain Contrivances to pass away their Time as if This were a Burden and hung upon their Hands Others are taken up in useless Speculations fanciful Notions pretty Inventions Others set up for Men of Business and spend all their Days in Hurry and Noise Others pursue Designs different from all these But amidst this vast Variety of Follies few or none apply themselves to the true Wisdom by studying how to live indeed They are Thoughtful and Anxious entirely given up to and eager of many Matters but Life slips through their Fingers insensibly and is turn'd to no Account This is only in the Nature of a Term a set Period of Time appointed to follow other Business in Now all this is extremely injurious and unreasonable the Source of our greatest Misery the falsest and basest way of betraying our selves and abandoning our true Interest It is perfectly losing and throwing away our Life and the most perfidious as well as the most fatal Breach of Duty we can possibly be guilty of For certainly every Man owes thus much to Himself Not to trisle and be wanting in his greatest Concern To make Life as easie as cheerful as desirable as good to himself as he can which is to be done no other way but by making the most of it in point of Usefulness and good Management For Living well and advisedly is the only Expedient in order to dying so and This is the great Task incumbent upon all Mortals We ought to look upon Life as a Matter of the last Consequence a precious Talent an important Trust of which we must render a strict and very particular Account and therefore are bound to husband it thristily and improve it to the utmost of our Power that we may be found faithful in our Stewardship and gain by the Increase This is our Great Concern All the rest are Toys and Geugaws in comparison inconsiderable and very superficial Advantages I cannot deny indeed but some there are who bestow some Thought of this kind and pretend to set about it with marvellous Application But then this Thoughtfulness comes too late and they begin to live when they are just going to
as considering that he is a severe Avenger of those who take his Name in vain that they must give Account for all breach of Faith and Trust but especially that he will be very rigorous with those who by a most monstrous Hardiness and detestable Impiety take Advantage of the Solemnity of an Oath and turn the Use of his Name into an Opportunity of deceiving the more effectually For in Truth if we consider the Matter nicely it will appear that Perfidiousness and Perjury are more execrable Villanies and higher Affronts to Almighty God than even bold and avowed Atheism it self The Atheist who disbelieves a God acts more consistently with his own Principles and dishonours him less in thinking there is no such Being at all than he who is persuaded and acknowledges that there is a God and yet in despight of his own Sense and in defiance of the Divine Justice mocks him by calling upon him to attest a Lye and will not stand by what he hath appealed to that All-seeing Judge for the Confirmation of Now he that swears with an Intention to deceive does plainly mock God and shews that he is afraid of Man only but under no Concern for what God can do in vindication of his injured Honour And sure to be mistaken in one's Notions concerning God is much more pardonable than to be rightly informed and fully convinced and yet to trample all those Convictions under Foot and put a studied Affront upon the Deity we confess and pretend to adore The Horrour and Absurdity of Falshood and Perjury cannot be more fully and significantly exprest than by that Character given of it by One of the Antients who calls this The giving a publick Testimony of our Despising God and standing in Awe of Men. And what can be more Monstrous than to shew one's self a Coward with regard to poor Mortals of the same Frailties and Infirmities with our selves and Hectors with regard to the Irresistible Vengeance and Power of an Omnipotent God But besides the horrible Impiety and Irreligion of such Proceedings the False and Treacherous Man is a Traitor and Mortal declared Enemy to all Laws and the very Being of Human Society For mutual Confidence is the very Link that holds all this together and if once that Knot be untwisted or broken asunder the whole Chain falls to pieces immediately Words are then but Air and empty Noise and yet by these it is that all Commerce can only be maintained so that when Credit can no longer be given with Safety to what People say all Business is at an end and no new Method can be found to hold them in One Branch of this Fidelity remains yet unmention'd Keeping of Secrets which is that of Keeping the Secrets imparted to and intrusted with us And This is more troublesome than People commonly imagine especially when they are such as Great Men have either committed to us or are concerned in Were the Difficulties that attend this Duty rightly considered it would give a mighty Check to curious and inquisitive Tempers For sure that Man acts most prudently who declines this Trust as much and knows as little of this kind as possibly he can For he that thrusts himself under these Obligations entangles himself in more Snares and Uneasinesses than he is aware of For besides the constant Guard he must keep upon his Tongue that none of these Things make their Escape he falls under a Necessity many times of lying or disowning what he knows in a manner irreconcilable with Sincerity and a Good Conscience or at least of evading it by such mean and little Shifts as are very grating to a Man of Generosity and a Great Soul This therefore of avoiding such Troublesome and Dangerous Knowledge is the first and best Advice But if there be no Remedy and Men will unlock their Breasts to us notwithstanding all the modest Pains we are at to be excused the Next Rule is To be Faithful and Exact in the safe Custody of all committed to us under the Seal of Secrecy and to this Purpose to practise a prudent Reserve in all our Conversation Which is an Art that every Man cannot be Master of for it requires something of a Disposition in Nature as well as Art and Industry afterwards and the Sense of that Obligation we are under in these Cases Attendency to Silence as well as a Custom of it For the open and gay Tempers are always in Danger and They who affect to Talk much in all Companies will be sure very often to say a great many Things which ought to have been supprest CHAP. IX Truth and Freedom in Advising and Reproving BY Truth here It s Excellence I mean the venturing to say bold and unacceptable things for free and cordial Advice and Reproof is a most wholesome and admirable Medicine It is one of the most noble and useful Offices of Friendship the best Argument that a Man's Affection is Sincere when he is content to run the Hazard of giving some little Uneasiness in Prospect of doing a great deal of Good For it is Profiting and not Pleasing that every Friend should aim at and one of the most important as well as most express Commands which the Gospel hath left upon us with regard to Conversation is This If thy Brother offend against thee admonish him There is no Man so perfect The Usefalness so circumspect in all his Behaviour as not sometimes to stand in need of having this Physick apply'd to him But Those who are prosperous and great in the World seem to require it more than others For there is somewhat in that Condition which by naturally disposing Men to a loose Gayety and unthinking Heedlessness makes it exceeding difficult and rare to be very fortunate and very wise at the same time But especially Princes who are always in view and curiously watch'd who sustain a publick Character and have an infinite deal of Business constantly upon their Hands who are fain to take things upon Trust from the Observation and Report of other People and who are used to have by much the greatest part of what is true and highly concerns them to know conceal'd from them These Persons above all others have very great need to be freely dealt with and set right in their Proceedings And they who are not so by the Persons about them either run a desperate Hazard for want of it or else are wise and penetrating much above the rate of common Men if they do well without it And yet this Office The rarity and difficulty of it as necessary and useful as it is is discharg'd faithfully by very few For indeed few are capable of discharging it There being Three Qualifications requisite to capacitate Men for it These are Judgment or Discretion Freedom or Courage to speak what one thinks and Affection or Fidelity All These make the Composition perfect and all must concur to give a Relish and due Temper to each
destroy'd or profan'd by the Receiver's Fault If another will needs be wicked and act otherwise than becomes him this can never justifie my ceasing to be good But further The generous and noble Spirit distinguishes it self by Perseverance and triumphs in the Conquest of Ingratitude and Ill-nature when invincible Beneficence hath heaped Coals of Fire upon their Heads melted them down and softned them into good Temper and a better Sense of Things So says the Moralist * Optimi ingentis animi est tamdiu ferre ingratum donec feceris gratum vincit malos pertinax Bonitas A Great Soul bears the ingrateful Man so long till at last he makes him grateful for obstinate and resolute Goodness will conquer the worst of Men. The Last Direction I shall lay down upon this Occasion is That when a thing is given we should let a Man use and enjoy it quietly and not be troublesome and unseasonable with him like some who when they have put one into any Office or Preferment will needs be thrusting in their Oar and execute it for him Or else procure a Man some considerable Advantage and then make over what proportion of the Profits they see sit to themselves Receivers in such Cases ought not to endure the being thus imposed upon and any Resentments or Refusals made upon this Account are by no means the Marks of Ingratitude but a preservation of their own Rights And whatever the Benefactor may have contributed to our Preferment he wipes out the whole Score and acquits us of all our Obligations by these imperious and busie Interpositions The Story is not amiss concerning one of the Popes who being press'd hard by one of the Cardinals to do somewhat inconvenient or perhaps unjust in his Favour and as a Motive which was thought irresistible or at least a Resentment which he look'd upon as reasonable in case of refusal the Cardinal re-minding him that His Interest had been formerly at his Service and his Popedom was owing to it His Holiness very pertinently reply'd If You made me Pope pray let me be so and do not take back again the Authority you gave me After these several Rules for the directing Men in the Exercise of Beneficence it may be seasonable to observe Several sorts of Kindnesses that there are Benefits of several sorts some of them much more acceptable than others and thus some more and others less engaging Those are most welcome that come from the Hand of a Friend and one whom we are strongly dispos'd to love without any such Inducement As on the contrary it is very grievous and grating to be oblig'd by one of whom we have no Opinion and desire of all things not to be indebted to Those are likewise so which proceed from a Person whom we have formerly oblig'd our selves because This is not so much Gratuity as Justice and Payment of Arrears and so draws very little or no new Debt upon us Such again are those done in a time of Necessity and when our Occasions were very urgent These have a mighty Influence they utterly deface all past Injuries and Misunderstandings if any such there were and leave a strong Tie upon a Man's Honour as on the other Hand the denying our Assistance in Cases of Extremity is extremely unkind and wipes out all Remembrances of any former Benefits Such once more are Those that can be easily acknowledged and admit of a suitable Return as on the contrary such as the Receiver is out of all Capacity to requite commonly breed Hatred and a secret Dislike For there is a Pride in most Men that makes them uneasie to be always behind-hand and hence he who is sensible that he can never make amends for all he hath receiv'd every time that he sees his Benefactor fancies himself dogg'd by a Creditor upbraided by a living Witness of his Insufficiency or Ingratitude and these secret Reproaches of his own Mind give great Uneasiness and Discontent for no Bankrupt can bear being twitted with his Poverty Some again there are which the more free and honourable and respectful they are the more burdensom and weighty they are provided the Receiver be a Person of Honour and Principle Such I mean as bind the Consciences and the Wills of Men for they tie a Man up faster keep him more tight and render him more cautious and fearful of failing or forgetfulness A Man is Ten times more a Prisoner when confin'd by his own Word than if he were under Lock and Key It is easier to be bound by Legal and publick Restraints and Forms of Engagements than by the Laws of Honour and Conscience and Two Notaries in this Case are better than One. When a Man says I desire nothing but your Word I depend upon your Honesty such a one indeed shews greater respect But if he be sure of his Man he puts him upon a stricter Obligation and himself upon better Security than Bonds and Judgments A Man who engages nothing but his Word is always in Fear and Constraint and upon his Guard lest he should forfeit or forget it Your Mortgagee and he that is under the power of Legal Forms is deliver'd from that Anxiety and depends upon his Creditor's Instruments which will not sail to refresh his Memory when the Bonds become due Where there is any external Force the Will is always less intent and where the Constraint is less there in proportion the Application of the Will is greater * Quod me Jus cogit vix à Voluntate impetrem What the Law compels me to is very haâ—dly my own Choice for I do not properly choose but submit to it Benefits produce Obligations Of the Obligation and from Obligations again fresh Benefits spring up So that Beneficence is reciprocally the Child and the Parent the Effect and the Cause and there is a twofold Obligation which we may distinguish by an Active and a Passive Obligation Parents and Princes and all Superiours are bound in Duty and by virtue of their Station to procure the Benefit and Advantage of Those whom either the Laws and Order of Nature or the political Constitutions of Government or any other Law relating to their Post have committed to their Inspection and Care And not only so but All in general whether their Character be Publick or not if they have Wealth and Power are by the Law of Nature oblig'd to extend their Help and Bounty towards the Necessitous and Distress'd And this is the first sort of Obligation But then from good Offices thus done whether they be in some regard owing to us as flowing from the Duty incumbent upon the Benefactor by virtue of this former Engagement Or whether they be the effect of pure Choice entirely Grace and nothing of Debt there arises the Second sort of Obligation whereby the Receivers are bound to acknowledge the Kindness and to be thankful for it All this mutual Exchange and propagation of Engagements and good
Horace takes notice of him as a Person so debonnaire and well-fashion'd that every thing he did became him and he was never at a Loss * Omnis Aristippum decuit color status res c. Hor. Ep. xvii All Fortune sitted Aristippus well Aiming at Greater pleas'd with what befel Creech Let your young Charge be so much a Master of Conversation as to be capable of keeping all manner of Company but let him choose and frequent none but such as are virtuous and good Let him abstain from Vice not upon Compulsion only out of Fear or Ignorance but out of Inclination and Choice For †Multum interest utrum peccare quis nolit aut nesciat There is a great deal of difference between refusing to be Wicked and not daring or not knowing how to be so The Fourth Virtue I desire to have early ingrafted into the Minds of young People is Modesty Book II. Chap. 9. This will preserve them from that Forwardness which puts them upon Contradiction and Dispute and attacking all they come hear With some Persons it is never proper for us to engage at all as those particularly whose Quality is much above or very much below our own whether the Difference lie in Birth or Riches or Honour or Parts or Characters These can never be a fit Match for us at any time But indeed Those that are so shou'd not be encounter'd at All Times nor upon All Occasions not for a trifling Circumstance an improper Expression in short What is of little Moment in it self or little or no Concern to Us will not justifie our wrangling for it To let nothing go without putting in an Exception to it is ill-manner'd impertinent and troublesome Bur even in those things that are worth a Dispute to be opinionative and peremptory warm and violent clamorous and loud is as much a Breach of this Virtue for Modesty teaches Men to be Meek and Gentle Moderate and Condescending it cannot be reconcil'd with a positive dogmatical way of Talk with an abounding in our own Sense and a Resolution not to be convinc'd But it yields the Point when it is no longer defensible and As it never disputes for Ostentation or Disputing's sake so it hath a just Deference to the Person and his contrary Opinion it preserves Decency and good Manners allows all that can possibly be granted and takes Care to soften the Opposition of that which Judgment will not suffer it to allow But of This I have spoken in another Part of this Treatise already and therefore shall dismiss the Subject at present and with it Three parts of that Duty which Parents owe to their Children The Fourth and Last part of this Duty concerns the Affection they ought to bear towards their Children Paternal Affection and the manner of treating and conversing with them when they are grown up and the former Rules have had their desir'd Effect Now we need not be told that the Affection between Parents and Children is natural and reciprocal But it is stronger and more natural on the Parent 's side because This is the streight Course of Nature carrying on the Life and promoting the Succession of Mankind by the Descent of a right Line whereas That of Children is only by way of Rebound and Reflection and consequently cannot move so vigorously back again as the former does forward This indeed seems rather to be the Paying of a Debt and the Sense and Return of Kindnesses receiv'd than free and natural and pure Love Besides He that first does the Kindness loves more than the Person who is passive and receives it And therefore the Parent who is the first Mover loves more vehemently than he is belov'd again Of this Assertion there are many Arguments to assure us Every Thing is fond of Existence and Existence proves it self by Exercise and Action Now whoever does Good to another does after some sort exist in that Person and he who gives Being manifestly lives and acts in That Being which is propagated by him He that does a Kindness does a noble and generous Thing but he who receives it hath not the same to alledg For the Virtue is the proper Quality of the First but the Prosit and Advantage is peculiar to the Second Now Virtue we know is rooted in the Nature of the Thing and consequently is a more worthy and amiable a more firm and permanent Quality than that of Advantage can possibly be for This is additional occasional and accidental only it may quickly vanish into nothing and take it self away Again We are fond of those Things that are obtain'd with Difficulty and Expence That is dear to us which costs us dear says the Provetb But the Bringing Children into the World the Cherishing Maintaining and Educating them are infinitely more troublesome for Parents to bestow than it is possible to be to Children to receive these Advantages But this Love of Parents is capable of a very just Distinction and tho' there be two different sorts of it Of two kinds yet thus far they agree that both are Natural The First is purely and entirely so little if at all remov'd from that which we commonly call Instinct in Brutes for they partake of it as well as we This disposes Parents to a strange Tenderness for their Children even at the Breast and in the Cradle and gives the first Infant-Cries and Complaints a wondrous Power of moving Compassion and piercing their very Souls This likewise inspires an unaccountable Fondness and Delight in them while as yet they are only capable of diverting us and as meer Play-things as those Wax and Plaister-Babies which themselves are shortly to be entertain'd withal Now This Affection is not strictly and properly Humane Nor ought a Man enrich'd with an Endowment so noble as Reason to suffer himself to be thus enslav'd to Nature after the manner of Beasts that know no better but rather he shou'd be led by these Motions of the Soul and follow them freely with all that Temper and Evenness which Judgment and Consideration shou'd inspire For these shou'd preside over Nature and moderate its Affections reducing all to the Measures and Guidance of Reason But now the other sort is more agreeable to These and consequently more Humane and worthy of us This inclines us to love our Children more or less as they are more or less attractive and deserving our Affection to rise in This as these tender Plants of ours Blossom and Bud and in proportion to the early Dawnings and brighter and stronger Shinings of Wit and good Sense Virtue and Goodness in them Some Parents there are who seem wonderfully transported with the first Appearances of this kind but lose the Satisfaction soon after because the Charge of maintaining them at first is no great Matter but That of the Education which must improve and finish them and bring Credit to their Natural Gifts is grievous and insupportable This looks as
had no right to any thing who cannot right themselves All this is infinitely distant from true Greatness and utterly inconsistent with Generosity and a Noble Mind for these never dispose a Man to Cruelty or Contempt but are a Safeguard and Defence and delight in Offices of Courtesie and Condescension of Charity and Mercy The Duty of Mean and Inseriour Persons towards those that are above them is likewise Two-fold First That of Honour and Respect and this not confined meerly to the outward Behaviour and the visible Marks of a Ceremonious distance which is due upon the account of their Quality and Rank in the World considered abstractedly and by it self Be they in themselves what they will in other respects their Virtues or their Vices make no difference in the Case But there is likewise an internal Honour the real Esteem and Affection of the Heart which must constantly attend and put forward the other if they be deserving Persons and lovers of the publick Good Honour and Esteem are therefore capable of very dirserent Senses They are both due to such as are Good for such indeed are all that are truly Great Men. To those who want this substantial Character of Quality we must pay the Civilities of the Cap and the Knee our Bodies may and ought to bow to them but our Hearts cannot for this is done only by paying them our Love and Esteem The other part of this Duty consists in endeavouring to please and be in their good Graces by respectful and voluntary Tenders of our Service To please the Great is not the smallest Praise Creech and putting * Principibus placuisse viris non ultima laus est Horat. Fp. 17. our selves under the shelter of their Protection However if we cannot make them our Friends we should be sure to take care that they may not be our Enemies which Care too must be as Prudent as it is Necessary and rightly tempered with Moderation and Diseretion For nothing is more nauseous than a Cringing Fawning Coxcomb and excessive Officiousness does more harm than good He that declines the Displeasure of a great Man with too sollicitous a Caution or tries to wriggle into his favour by impertinent and unseasonable Addresses does not only discover his own weakness and despicable littleness of Soul but he likewise ministers just occasion of Jealousie and Offence and secretly accuses his Patron of Cruelty or Injustice And therefore what is done of this kind must be unseen and by the by †Non ex professo cavere aut fugere nam quem quis fugit damnut He must not make it his profest Business to decline and keep out of the way of his anger for no Man avoids another who does not in his own Breast condemn and think ill of him at the same time But besides this too anxious and constrained way of making our Court may have another very untoward Effect For if the Person be disposed to do ill and delight to be feared it may be a Temptation to him to Exercise his Power to our prejudice For many times Men take a Pride to crush and insult over the fearful and suspicious and mean unworthy Submissions do but provoke a more extravagant and remorseless Barbarity OF FORTITUDE The Third Cardinal Virtue THE two Virtues which have been insisted upon hitherto are a Rule to Men considered as Members of Society and regard their Deportment and Conversation their Interests and Obligations with Others These two that follow are to govern them within and for themselves They look upon Fortune in her two different Aspects Prosperity and Adversity which are general Terms for all the good or ill Accidents of humane Life and the provision made against them is to arm the Mind by Fortitude against Adversity and in Prosperity to balast and moderate it by Temperance Both these Virtues might indeed be comprehended under the general notion of Constancy which is a tight and even firmness or steadiness of Soul in all manner of outward Accidents or Occurrences so that the Man is neither elevated and transported upon the account of Prosperity nor dejected and disheartened from any Adversity that befalls him CHAP. XIX Of Fortitude in General COurage for so indeed this Virtue ought to be called rather than Fortitude is a right and strong Resolution an equal and uniform steadiness of Mind by which we are enabled to encounter Danger and Difficulty and Pain so that the proper Object and true Matter about which this Virtue is conversant is in general any thing that humane Infirmity is apt to start at or be terrified by Thus Seneca describes it a Quality * Timendorum contemptrix quae terribilia sub jugum libertatem nostram mittentia despicit provocat frangit that despises all things in their own nature formidable that challenges and conquers the cause of our Fears and such as enslave and subdue the native Liberty of the Soul This is of all other Virtues the Gallantest and most Noble and hath always been held in highest Honour and Esteem The Excellence whereof was so rightly apprehended by the Latins Virtus that they gave it the Title of Virtue by way of Singularity and Eminence It is of all others the hardest to be attained the most pompous and splendid and produces the greatest and most illustrious Fruits Magnanimity and Patience Constancy and invincible Perseverance and the rest of that Heroick Catalogue of Godlike Excellencies are all contained under it For which Reason Men greedy of Fame have oftentimes not only entertained Calamities gladly but have even courted and eagerly sought out Hardships and Dangers to gain thereby the greater opportunities of exercising it and exerting themselves It is an impregnable Bulwark a compleat Armour tempered and proved †Munimentum imbecillitatis humanae inexpugnabile quod qui circumdedit sibi securus in hâc vitae obsidione perdurat The Fortification behind which bumane nature lies securely intrenched and he who hath cast up this work about him holds out the siege of Life and can never be taken or dismantled But now in regard that this Matter is not rightly understood and many false Pretenders to this Virtue are set up which are not really of the right Line It may not be amiss to expatiate a little more upon the true Nature of Fortitude and in so doing to discover and reject the vulgar Errours concerning it We will therefore observe four Conditions which are all of them requisite to the forming of this Virtue and if what would pass for such be desective in any one of them That we may be sure is counterfeit and of a Bastard Race As first of all True Courage is universal that is it makes a brave stand against every kind of Difficulty and Danger without distinction and this shews us the mighty mistake of confining this notion of Courage to Military Valour only That indeed gains Esteem with the generality of People because it makes more Shew
all that know him and beyond the very utmost of his own most Sanguine hopes Prosperity is a State of infinite hazard and danger As soon as ever this fair Gale begins to blow all that is light and empty in the Soul is immediately carried up with the breath of it Nothing hath so pestilent an influence to stupifie and ruin Men and make them forget themselves They perish and are spoiled like Corn born down by a full Ear and Branches broke with excessive quantities of Fruit. And therefore it is necessary a Man should be sensible what slippery ground he stands upon and look to his steps accordingly but especially he should beware that he be not carried to Insolence and Contempt of others Pride and Presumption with regard to himself These are Vices so incident to Mankind that the least Temptation will suffice for them And as some People according to the Proverb will be drowned in two foot of Water so there are some too who upon the least smile of Fortune swell and look big scarce know themselves and are intolerable to all their Acquaintance Of all the Pictures of Folly which the World can furnish us with this seems to be drawn most like the Life From the unsteadiness of Mind it is that we are able to give a rational account why Prosperity should be so very short and uncertain as generally we find it For Persons in this Condition are for the most part ill-advised and this Inadvertency makes frequent and quick Revolutions changes the Scene from Joy and Grandeur to Calamity and Sorrow and Want alienates the Affections of Providence provokes Almighty God to take back again what Men make such ill use of To all which we may add the secret and undiscernable Reasons of his Dispensations or to express the thing in a more secular Phrase that Inconstancy of Fortune which from a fond Mother changes her humour unaccountably to all the Severities of a cruel and cursed Stepmother Now the properest Advice upon this occasion is for a Man to restrain and moderate his Opinions and Affections of the good things of this World not to esteem them too highly nor imagine himself one whit the better or the worse Man for the Enjoyment or the Want of them and the natural Consequence of this so low Valuation will be not to desire them with any degree of vehemence If they fall to his Lot to accept them as the Gift of a bountiful Master and to serve him with them thankfully and cheerfully but always to look upon these as foreign and additional Advantages no necessary no inseparable part of Life Such as he might have been very well without and such as while he hath them are not to be made any great account of or suffered to change the temper of his Mind either higher or lower For * Non est tuum fortuna quod fecit tuum Qui tutam vitam agere volet ista viscata beneficia devitet nil dignum putare quod speres Quid dignum habet Fortuua quod concupiscas What Fortune hath made yours is none of yours He that will live safe and easie must decline those treacherous Baits those Limed twigs of Fortune For what hath she in her disposal worth engaging our desires or fixing our Heart and Hopes upon CHAP. XXXVIII Of Pleasure and Directions concerning it BY Pleasure I understand a Perception or Sensation of that which is agreeable to Nature a delightful Motion or tickling of the Senses as on the contrary by Pain is meant some disagreeable Sensation which produces Sorrow and is grievous to Nature But those Philosophers as the Sect of the Epicuraeans in particular who resolved the chief Happiness of Man into Pleasure and paid it greater Honour than we think fit to do took it in another Signification and extended the thing no farther than a privation of Grief or Uneasiness such as they thought sit to express by Indolence According to their notion humane Nature was capable of rising no higher than the not being uneasie This is a sort of middle State a Neutrality between the first and vulgar acceptation of the Word and Pain And bears the same Proportion with regard to this Life which some Divines have thought Abraham's Bosom does to the next A Condition between the exquisite Happiness of Heaven and the extreme Torments of Hell 'T is a sweet and peaceable sedateness of Body and Mind an uniform constant and fixed Pleasure which carries some resemblance to that Euthymia or tranquility of Soul which other Philosophers esteemed our chief Good Whereas the other is an active and sensible Pleasure full of vigorous and sprightly motion At this rate there would be three distinct Conditions of which Mankind are capable two in extremes Pleasure and Pain which are neither stable nor durable but both of them sickly and in excess the Mean between them firm and sound healthful and permanent to which the Epicuraeans attributed the name of Pleasure and such indeed it is when compared with Pain and placed the supreme happiness of our Nature in it This unhappy Name brought that general scandal upon their Sect which the opposite Parties of Philosophers insult over with so much Pomp and Triumph For after all as Seneca with great Ingenuity confesses there was no hurt but in the Name no offence but what was meerly Titular for to those who will be at the pains of a nice Examination into their Lives and Manners it will appear that none ever advanced Doctrines of stricter Sobriety none were greater Enemies to Vice and all manner of Debauchery none more distant from those Reproaches to a rational Soul than the Men of this Profession Nor indeed was it without a fair appearance of Reason that they gave this name of Pleasure to that so much exalted Indolence of theirs For this Titillation of the Sense comes at last to this and seems to make it the ultimate end and aim of all the more feeling satisfactions we find in it as for instance the delight we find in Meats and Drinks pretends to nothing more than to deliver us from that torture and those eager cravings which Hunger and Thirst had brought upon us and by satifying the Appetite to place us in a Condition of Ease and Repose till the same Wants return again upon us The learned World have behaved themselves very differently upon this occasion They have determined very peremptorily on both sides and as is usual with hot and positive People have both over-shot the Mark Some have perfectly adored Pleasure and exalted it into a Deity others pretend the greatest Detestation of it and expose it for a Monster They start and tremble at the very Name and cannot allow it to import any thing but what is full of Guilt and a Scandal to humane Nature Those who condemn it without more ado proceed to Sentence upon these following Considerations They tell you that it is First a short and transitory Enjoyment a fire of Thorns
Painfulness and very obstinate Resolutions but in this before us especially because here the propensions to Vice seem to be strongest and the Sollicitations to it more frequent and importunate than in any other instance whatsoever But still the greater the difficulty of this Conquest is the greater is its Commendation and the more just and glorious its Triumph And very necessary it is that every Man should rally his Forces and engage manfully in this War with himself Continency is allowed no positive Virtue and imports no more than a Man's governing and restraining himself so far as not to act contrary to his Duty It produces no fruit but consists in privation and a forbearing to act and therefore Virginity must always imply Barrenness This is the case of Continency considered abstractedly and in its own nature which at this rate is of no higher a Class in the scale of Virtues than the abstaining from Gluttony and Drunkenness or any other sort of Vicious Excess But if we consider it in a Christian and more exalted Sense then it imports a great deal more for thus there are two concurring Qualifications which make it a very noble Virtue the one is a settled purpose to continue in it pure and unblemished with a Chast Mind and mortified Affections no less than a Body holy and undefiled The other that this be done for Religious and Excellent ends to gain greater advantages of becoming Singular and exemplary in Piety and all manner of goodness For as St. August in says It is not the Single State that we commend in Virgins but their Abandoning the World and Consecrating their Souls and Bodies entirely to God Witness the Vestals of Old and the Five Foolish Virgins in the Parable whose Celibacy stood them in no stead at all And here I observe by the way how Absurd a Vanity and Popular an Errour that is which in common speech calls the Ladies who have no blemish upon their Reputation and who either are Chast in the Single Life or Faithful in the Married one Women of great Virtues and great Honour Honour For what Is Honour sunk so low that the meer not doing evil and not violating one's Duty in the most Scandalous instance must pretend to that name Why do we not by the same Reason style those Men of Honour who are under the same Circumstances Nay there would indeed be more Reason for this than the other because the manner of the World puts more Opportunities of offending in these respects and exposes Men to stronger Temptations than Women are liable to But in truth Honour is so far from being a Recompence due to the abstaining from evil that it is not every sort of good which when punctually performed can lay claim to it but as was said before those kinds and degrees of good only which bring advantage to the World and which besides their being beneficial have cost great toil and trouble and been atchieved with considerable difficulty and danger But besides how few of these Continent persons arrive even at a common and very practicable Virtue How many of them do we find scandalously tainted with other Vices and making up for this self-denial by indulgences to some more darling Humour or Passion Particularly how exceeding few are there who escape the Temptations to Vanity and Presumption and Spiritual Pride and while they take marvellous Content in their own perfections are very liberal in their Censures and Condemnations of other People Does not experience frequently convince us how very dear some Husbands pay for the Fidelity of their Wives who while they dispossess the Devil in one part of their Souls and preserve their Honour entire do yet erect a Throne for him and let him reign Triumphant in another If then this Virtue beget insolence and Malice Censoriousness and Imperious Pride it is like to turn at last but to very poor account And thus clogged will very ill deserve the name of Virtue whatever it might be allowed otherwise Not that I am over scrupulous or would stand with the Sex for a Complement and therefore provided the flattering them with this title of Honour will contribute any thing to the making them more tender of it and encourage the Modesty and Decency becoming their Sex and Condition I shall be content to promote the discharge of their Duty at any rate though it be by straining a point to gratifie an useful Vanity But to return It is likewise observable that Incontinency when simply and strictly considered like other faults which are what we call Corporeal and tending to gratifie the Carnal inclinations of Humane nature hath no mighty Malignity in its own single self it being only an excess of what is natural and not contrary to Humane nature but then there is a train of vices so black and hideous attending it and some or more of them so inseparable from it that the danger of being entangled in those snares is infinite and the consequence very fatal For this is one of those sins that never go alone but is accompanied with other Devils more and more wicked than it self tainted with base and villainous circumstances of persons and places and times prohibited and unpardonable Intrigues carried on and beastly satisfactions contrived by the wickedest methods Lyes and Tricks and all manner of Deceit Subornation and Forswearing and Treachery to all which we may add that which is by no means inconsiderable the loss of Time the distraction of Thought the interruption of Business and other unbecoming Follies which draw very great and just Scandals and insupportable mischiefs after them Now because this Vice hath every Quality that can render an Enemy formidable since it is both violent and deceitful and attacks us at once with open force and secret stratagems our Care must likewise be double First to arm and prepare our selves for the Combat and then to watch diligently the approaches observe its Feints and be well aware of those baits and wheedling Insinuations which are laid on purpose to decoy us into Ambushments and Ruine And the more these inclinations sooth and cajole us the more suspicious we must be and turn the deaf Ear to their flattering importunities Among other Considerations therefore fit to be opposed to such Temptations these that follow may not be improper to reflect upon That another person's Beauty is nothing at all to us what we can never call or make our own That it is no certain happiness even to them who have it but turns as often to their prejudice and is at least equally disposed to do so as to their Advantage That in short it is a flower always withering and in decay a very small and fanciful thing little else but the outward skin nay less than that the Colour and Complection of it only And therefore if in this we would admire the delicacy and skill of nature let us prize it here as we are wont to do those much more astonishing Beauties of the
much Suffering for any Man of sound Wisdom to wish none but sickly Palates will be fond of either Otanes one of the seven who had a joynt Right to the Principality of Persia quitted his Pretensions to the rest of the Competitors provided that he and all his Family might live quietly under that Government and be free from all Subjection except such as the old standing Laws obliged them to This was truly great neither to affect to command nor bear to be commanded and other instances of contemning Honour and Greatness we have several in Story for even Dioclesian divested himself of the Empire and Celestine quitted the Papacy so little have the Charms of Sovereignty it self been sound upon Tryal and so far from impracticable is the utmost pitch of the Virtue opposite to Ambition CHAP. XLIII Of Temperance in Speaking THough the government of the Tongue do not usually come under this head of Temperance yet all People I suppose will allow that there is not any instance in which Moderation is more useful and necessary and that this is so essential a part of Wisdom that no Treatise upon this Subject can be tolerably complete without it He that offendeth not in word the same is a perfect Man says St. James and the Reason is evidently what he gives there at large that the Tongue is all in all Good and Evil proceed from it Life and Death depend upon it Book I. Chap. 23. Which being formerly illustrated at large all that lies upon me to do more at present is only to lay down some short and plain Directions for our Conduct and good management of so very important a Member Let our Discourse then be sober and sparing the knowing how and when to be silent is a mighty advantage and contributes exceedingly to our knowing how to speak for he that is unskilfull in one of these Points can never be expert in the other To talk much and to talk well are Qualities that seldom or never go together and therefore one of the Philosophers made it his Observation that the most accomplished Men are generally they that say least Those that abound in words are commonly barren both in good Sense and good Actions like Trees which when they shoot in great quantities of Leaves bear little Fruit or lean Corn that runs all into Straw The Lacedaemonians of whom we have made so frequent mention for their noble improvements in Virtue and Valour were no less memorable for Silence and made this one part of their solemn Profession to Educate their Youth in a modest and reserved way of Conversation So justly so generally is this sort of Restraint approved and commended so necessary so prudent that Prayer of the Psalmist that God would enable him by his Grace to set a Watch before his mouth and keep the door of his lips An Emblem of this we have in the Mosaical Institution where among many Typical representations of Moral Duties this seems to be one That every Vessel was unclean which had not a Cover fastened to it And the wisest Author that ever wrote hath left us this Mark to distinguish Men by The Heart of Fools is in their mouth but the Tongue of the Wise is in their Heart A second Qualification absolutely necessary upon this occasion is Truth without this the end of Speech is utterly perverted and lost For Speech was principally designed to be assisting to Truth in bringing others to the knowledge of it by representing every thing in its native and proper Colours and discovering the mysteries of Errour and Deceit that being thus detected they may no longer have it in their power to mis-lead our Judgments For what indeed is Speech but a Key to our Thoughts An instrument of communicating what we feel and see and desire and so of transfusing our whole Hearts into the bosoms of them with whom we converse Now this makes it obvious to every considering Man that Fidelity and exact Truth ought to be an inseparable attendant upon every Word we utter for there is no other method of conveying our Intelligence no other Glass in which we can see one another's Souls and therefore it is as much as all the benefits of Conversation and Commerce and this noble Prerogative of Mankind is worth to take care that the Mirrour cast no false Reflections He that falsifies in his Discourse ought to be treated as a common Enemy detested as a Traytor to publick Society For if when once this Footing fails us we have no fresh ground to stand upon all Faith and Security is given up and we know not where to have Men nor what to make of them How vile the Sin of Lying is hath been declared before Chap. 10. They who practice it out of design are of all wretches the most profligate and despicable and they who do it in Raillery should consider how insolent a thing it is to banter and abuse the Credulity of Mankind and that Truth and mutual Faith are things much too serious and too weighty to be made a Diversion and sacrificed to the itch of an unmannerly Jest Thirdly Our Expressions should be Natural and Modest and Chast provoking no blushes offensive to none even the most nice and purged Ears our Discourse free from Vehemence and Contention for in such cases Men seem to be more concerned for themselves than for the Truth and to speak not so much the reason of the thing as their own Passions Speech was designed for a mutual Comfort and Improvement to inform and mend Men's Minds not to corrupt and seduce them And therefore as Artifice and Affectation is nauseous so Indecency and Lewdness and every thing that tends to Obscenity or Licentiousness is wicked and abominable Fourthly Our Discourse should be serious and significant profitable and advantageous not trifling and impertinent and vain The little Tattle of the Town what is done at the Court or the Park or the Play-House how People were dressed and how they behaved themselves repeating idle Verses scraps of Plays and little foolish Jests and telling frivolous Stories though they make up so very considerable a part of modish Conversation are yet to speak freely signs of a great poverty of Thought and have more of the Buffoon than of the Man in them He that provides no better Entertainment for his Company than all this amounts to is at a very low Ebb and shews that he hath spent a great deal of time to very small purpose How very little hath a Man to do that employs himself at this rate And what precious account does all that leisure turn to which hath been laid out upon qualifying himself for so noble and accomplisht a way of Discourse Under this head of Trifling and Impertinence I think we may very well reckon that Folly of entertaining Company with long accounts of our Selves and our own Affairs what Feats we have done or what Calamities we have suffered for of what consequence soever these