it hath been before observed that he that goes about to make the whole Universe and all the several parts thereof the business of his Enquiry as he shall find that there are many things therein that he cannot come at or make any discovery of so among those parts of the Universe that are objected to a greater discovery of our Senses the multiplicity is so great that a man of the most equal and firm constitution must despair of Life enough to make a satisfactory particular and deep enquiry into them But the Object in hand is but one it is Man and the Nature of Man I confess it is true that he that shall make it his business to take in as it were by way of a common place all those things that may be taken up under this consideration and follow all those Lines that concenter in this or almost any other the most single piece of Contemplation will make this Subject large enough and upon that account may be drawn in almost all things imaginable We find in the consideration of the Humane Nature a Substance a Body a Spirit We find the several Objects of his Senses Light Colour Sound and infinite more He that upon this account will take in the distinct and large considerations of these and the like Appendices to Humane Nature in their full amplitude will have a large Plain that will more than exhaust his Life before he come to the Subject it self which he designes Again there is an infinite multitude of collateral considerations that yet are relative to man hither comes all the considerations of Theology Physick Natural Philosophy Politicks the considerations of Speech Government Laws of History Topography of Arts of those Sciences that relate to the Senses of Opticks Musick and infinite more for all these have a relation to Man and are like so many Lines drawn from several Objects that some way relate to him and concenter in him and he that shall make it his business to follow all those Lines to their utmost shall make the contemplation of Man almost as large as the contemplation of the whole Universe When I say therefore the contemplation of Man is the contemplation of a single Object I mean when it is kept into those single bounds of Man in his own specifical Nature and under the physical contemplation of his Nature Parts and Faculties as they are appropriate unto him And then it is a Subject that we may possibly make some progress in its contemplation and conception within the period of the time that by the ordinary time of Life and the permission of necessary avocations a man may employ in such a contemplation And yet secondly though in this restrained notion the Subject seems to be restrained and single we shall find it no very narrow Subject but there will be business enough in it to employ our Faculty and to take up that time which either more necessary or more imporunate thoughts or employments will allow us and variety enough to entertain our thoughts with delight contentation and usefulness 3. The Third Commendation of this Object to our contemplation is this that therein we have more opportunity of certainty and true knowledge of the Object enquired into than we can have in any other Object at least of equal use worth and value Many excellent things there are in Nature which were very well worth our Knowledge but yet as hath been said either by reason of their remoteness from us unaccessibleness to them subtilty and imperceptibleness to us either are not at all suspected to be or are not so much as within any of our Faculties to apprehend or discover what they are or in case we have any conception that there may be something of that kind yet our Notions touching them are but products of Imagination and Phantasie or at best very faint weak ungrounded and uncertain conjectures and such as we can never prove to the satisfaction of others or our selves Our Sense is the best evidence that we have in Nature touching the existence of corporeal things without us and where that is not possibly to be exercised we are naturally at a great uncertainty whether things are or what they are Now the Understanding perceives or understands things by the assistance of Sense in a double manner 1. It either perceives them immediately as being immediately objected to and perceptible to the Sense as I perceive the Sun and the Stars by my sight I find that there is a Body hard or gentle or hot or cold by my Touch and accordingly my Understanding judgeth of them Or secondly though the Sense perceive not the Object immediately yet it doth represent certain sensible effects or operations and though by those effects or operations the Understanding doth not immediately conclude anything else to be but what the Sense thus feels or sees yet the Understanding sometimes by ratiocination and sometimes by the Memory doth infer and conclude something else to be besides what the Sense immediately represents either as the cause or the concomitant of it and doth as forcibly and truly conclude the thing to be and also sometimes what the nature of that cause or concomitant is as if it were seen by the Eye or felt by the Hand I do not see nor by any Sense perceive the quiet undisturbed Air yet because I do see that a Bladder that was before flaccid doth swell by the reception of that which I see not I do as truly and certainly conclude that there is such a subtil Body which we call Air as if I could see it as plain as I see the Water I do not see the Animal or Vital Spirits neither can they by reason of their subtilty and volatileness be discovered immediately to the Sense yet when I see that forcible motion of the Nerves and Muscles I do as certainly conclude there are such Instruments which the Soul useth for the performance of those motions as if I saw them I come into a Room where there is no visible or tangible Fire yet I find by my Sense the Smoke ascending I do as forcibly conclude that Fire is or hath been near as if I saw it because my sensible experience and memory tells me they are concomitant Upon the same account it is that when my Sense and sensible experience shews me that these and these effects there are and that they are successively generated and corrupted though my eye sees not that God that first made those things yet my Sense having shewed me these sensible Objects and the state and vicisstude of them my Understanding doth truly conclude that all this vicissitude of things must terminate in a first cause of things with as great evidence and conviction as if my Sense could immediately see or perceive him So that in the ordinary way of Nature and without the help of divine Revelation all our certainty of things natural begins at our Senses namely the immediate sense of the things themselves
the least inconsiderable Herb and these Signatures are bound to their natures by certain connatural instincts planted in them but still they want the active principle of Sense in them Now this Sense or Sensitive Faculty in Animals is of two kinds the external Senses and the internal The external Senses are five all which belong to the more perfect Animals and that of the Soul to all Animals viz. Seeing Heiring Tasting Smelling and Touching And it is admirable to consider that the great Lord of Nature hath so disposed of sensible Beings that although for ought we know there may be many more impressions or motions of external Bodies that we know not by their communication unto Sense because we have not Faculties receptive of them Yet the Faculties of the five Senses are adequate and proportioned to all those impressions of Objects from without that are conducible to the use and well-being of Animals in a sensible station or nature The internal Senses are of two kinds viz. 1. Such as concern perception of Objects 2. Such as concern the motion to them as useful or from them as noxious Those of the first sort have some adumbration of the Rational Nature as Vegetables have of the Sensible and they seem to be these the Common Sense the Phantasie the Estimative Faculty and the Memory The Common Sense or Commune Sensorium which receives the several reports of the several Senses by their several Nerves into that common receptacle or seat of this useful office the Brain where it distinguisheth the Objects of the several Sensories The Phantasie that in a way unsearchable unto us 1. Creates the 〈◊〉 Images of the things delivered from the several Senses to the Commune Sensorium 2. Compounds those Images into some things not unlike Propositions though confusedly and indistinctly 3. Makes particular applications of them one to another though still darkly and confusedly whereby it excites the Appetite either to prosecute their attainment or fly from them The Estimative Faculty which is indeed no other than the last operation or composition of the Phantasie before-mentioned whereby it concludes that this is a sensible good or a sensible evil that it is attainable or feasible or not attainable that though it be good yet sometimes it is not safe to be attempted by reason of the impendence of a greater sensible evil This seems to be the dark and confused shadow of the decision of the practical Intellect in Man The Memory which is an impression of the Image of some sensible Object made by the Phantasie which remains some time after the impression and by the return of a like Objedt again is sometimes revived and reinforced But how this Image is made where it is imprinted how conserved are things we cannot at all attain the knowledge of they are wonderfull though common effects of a most wise and stupendious Wisdom and Power that hath thus constituted even the Faculties of the Animal Nature Only it seems to me that these Images are not made in the Brain it self as the Pencil of a Painter or Engraver makes the Image in the Table or Metal but are imprinted in a wonderfull method in the very Soul it self For it is plain that Sounds and Voices are remembred and yet no real configurations are possible to be made thereof in the Brain for what Image can there be of a Sound Now as to that Faculty or those Faculties that concern the pursuit or flight of what is thus propounded by the Phantasie or Estimative Faculty they are generally two The Appetitus naturalis which bears some analogy to the Will in the Reasonable Nature and the acts thereof are either prosecution of the Sensible Object propounded if presented by the Phantasie and Estimative Faculty as good or else aversation from it if presented as evil This is the Faculty of Empire or Command for in conformity to the determination of the Appetite the motion of the Body follows The other Faculties that concern pursuit or aversation are the Passions the Satellites appetitus serving either in the prosecution of the good propounded as Love Desire c. or in opposition of the evil presented as Anger Revenge c. And thus far touching the Senses in Animals both External and Internal 2. The second superadded prelation of the sensible nature above the vegetable is the faculty and exercise of animal and local motion whereas Vegetables have naturally no other motion but that which is determined and natural and what is within it self as the motion of Attraction Digestion Nourishment Augmentation and Increase Animals have the faculty and power of animal motion which hath these accessions 1. It is or may be spontaneous for though the object moves objectively yet the faculty or power moves ab intrinseco and spontaneously 2. It moves the parts spontaneously the Leg the Eye the Ear or any other part which cannot be done by Vegetables 3. Again it can move the whole Compositum from one ubi to another at least in all Animals except those that are almost in the nature of Plants called Zoophyta or Plantanimali a which cannot be done by Plants who are mancipated and fixed to the place of their station or growth unless removed by an extrinsecal agent 3. The third superadded advantage of Animals is their Instincts It is true Vegetables have their instincts radicated in their nature as we have before observed yea even things Inanimate have certain simple instincts as in the motions of ascent of light bodies and descent of heavy bodies But the instincts of Animals are sensible instincts of a more noble kind and nature than those of Vegetables and such as seem to savour more of an active principle as sagacity of Brutes in taking their prey defending themselves providing against the inclemency of the weather care for their young building their nests and infinite more which are too long to name These are the superadded Faculties of the Animal Nature and proportionate and accommodate to their faculties are their organizations of their Bodies And in as much as there is great varieties in the temperaments dispositions faculties and uses of several Animals of several kinds their organizations are not only fitted to the common natures uses and powers of sensible Creatures but every several Species hath its several accommodation as well of his Organs as of his Faculties to the exigence use and convenience of his proper specifical nature Thus the ranks of the vegetable perfections are not only included within the rank of sensible Beings but these have greater perfections in what is common to both and superadditions of other more noble Faculties and Organs not communicable to the former The Vegetable Nature is indeed like a curious Engin but it hath but some simple and single motions like a Watch that gives the hour of the day or a Trochea with one Wheel But the Animal Nature is like an Engin that hath a greater composition of Wheels and more variety of motions and
The admirable accommodation of Faculties with subministring Faculties and Organs subservient appropriate and convenient for their exercise For Instance Local Motion is necessary to Mankind and accordingly he is furnished with Animal Spirit Nerves Muscles Tendons and Limbs admirably contrived and destined and fitted to Local Motion The Intellective Faculty is furnished with the organical Fabrick of the Brain and the subordinate Power of Sense Phantasie and Memory to assist it in its exercise while it is in the Body Facultati generativae prolisicae subministrans facultas seminificationis ac organa eidem deservientia appetitus naturalis voluptas quaedam alliciens organa generationi dicata distinctio sexuum sine qua juxta legem in natura post primam humanae naturae formationem insitam hujusmodi speciei propagatio fieri nequivit The Digestive Faculty furnishing the Blood the Blood increasing the Body and supplying the Treasuries of the Spirits the Spirits again supplying and maintaining the Offices of the Faculties So that not only the Blood but the whole Corporeal and Animal Nature is in continued motion and mutual subserviency I might be endless in this Contemplation but because it is evident to any Man that considers and I design a larger discussion of this Business when I come to consider the Parts and Faculties of the Humane Nature I shall not give farther Instances therein And the Use that I make of it is this That although it might be supposed possible that either Chance or Nature might in some simple narrow things produce very curious Appearances as the Configurations of Asterites of Crystals of Salts in their several shapes yet when in such a complicated Nature as Man is consisting of so many various Parts various in their position nature and use there shall be found such an exact adaptation of every thing one to another as to serve the whole and every part this in the primordial Constitution and Formation must needs be the Work of a most wise intelligent powerful Being that operates secundùm intentionem appropriationem intelligentiam 2. Let us come then to those Appendices and relative Respects of other things to the Humane Nature we shall easily find in it this Consideration also the Footsteps and Evidences of an Intelligent Nature in the Constitution of him by that admirable accommodation of things without him of different nature from him to his use and convenience In the Operations or Works of Intelligent Agents we may easily see that according to the degree or perfection of such Intelligence there is variety in their Work or Production An Intelligent Agent that is but of a narrow Intelligence as his Prospect is commonly short and weak so his Work seldom attains more than a narrow and single End But if the Agent be of a large and comprehensive Intelligence and Wisdom his ends are great and most times various and complicated and the same Operation or Work may have divers many 〈◊〉 Ends and Uses Almighty God therefore being of infinite Wisdom and Power foresees and effects great and various Ends in one and the same Work or Operation Take for Instance that goodly Creature the Sun What a complication of excellent Ends and Uses there are in that glorious Body It is the Fountain communicating Light to the Earth the Air and all the Planetary Bodies it is that which derives Heat and is the great Instrument of deriving Fruitfulness and Fertility to the inferior World it distinguisheth Times and Seasons by its Motion it raiseth and digesteth and distributeth the Watry Meteors for the benefit of this inferior World and infinite more advantages of this kind And therefore it is the narrowness of our Understanding that when we see one excellent End or Usefulness in any thing to conclude that God Almighty intended no other And therefore it is too hasty and vain a Conclusion to think that the glorious Bodies of the Celestial Host were made meerly for the service of Man and it is also folly and presumption to conclude that even the things of this inferior World though principally designed for the use of Man were meerly and only destined for the service of Man Almighty God hath the Glory of his own Greatness and the Communication of his own Goodness as the great End of all his Works Yea and we have reason to think that even in these inferior Beings of this lower World which are delivered over to the use and service of Men God Almighty had other Ends that possibly we know not nay possibly in the Effection of the least minute Animal Almighty God intended a Communication of so much of his Goodness and Beneficence to it as might give it a kind of complacency and fruition suitable to the capacity of its Existence though subordinate to other Ends. And yet not only in these inferior Existences of this lower World but even in the Fabrick Order and Oeconomy of the superior World there is to be found an admirable accommodation of them one to another and to this Steward and Tenant of Almighty God of this inferior World called Man 1. If we look upon the Celestial World we have an admirable accommodation thereof to the convenience of Mankind it presents to his View and thereby to his Understanding the most noble Spectacle of the Celestial Bodies their Order Beauty Constancy Motion Light conducting to the knowledge and acknowledgment of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God it gives him an account of the progress and parts and succession of Time these are advantages that no Irrational Nature can make use of But the Influence of the Heavens are a common Benefit to Man and all Sublunary Natures but yet the inferior World seems in a great measure directed for the benefit of Mankind some in common to him and the Brutes as the Air for Respiration the Fire for Warmth the Water for Drink the Earth for Fruit and Habitation But in this lower World there seems many things directed to the special use of Mankind for besides Domestick Animals especially allowed for his Food there are some that serve for his Employment Motion Exercise and Food as the Tillage and Planting of the Earth for his Food some for his Medicine as Herbs and Gums and Minerals some for his Clothing as the Furrs Wool and Skins of Beasts some for his Habitation as the Timber and Stone some for his Fewel as Wood Coals and Turf some for his Defence and Manufacture as Iron and Steel some for Commerce as the Metals of Silver Gold Copper the very Situation of the Seas the Magnes some for his Ornament as Silk and Jewels some for his Journey and Labour as Horses Oxen Camels some for his Necessity some for his Delight Infinite more Instances may be given whereby it will evidently appear that this lower World is accommodated to the use and convenience of Mankind in a special and remarkable manner whereby it may be evident to any considerate Man that the Formation of the World and
Salt Sulphur and Mercury the great constituent Principles of all Bodies others add two more And their evidence that they are so are because they find by their solutions by Fire some things which they call by these Names to be that whereinto Bodies are dissolved when for ought can be evidently made out many of these are not so much really in the constitution of the Bodies themselves as the very alterations or changes of them by the force and energy of that active Element or at least though after their solution they assume the shapes of Salt Sulphur and Mercury yet there are even in those Consistences very various Contextures differing extreamly in each Body from other though they seem to assume some analogy of shape And possibly there may be a thousand Constituents of different Natures from any of these supposed Principles in Bodies both before and after their solution by Fire or Heat The Aristotelians have excogitated another sort of Suppositions of Principles Matter Form and Privation And yet it is very difficult to conceive that any such thing should be as Matter undetermined by something called Form and as difficult to conceive what many sorts of these Forms are which they call substantial whence they arise what becomes of them whether some of those they call Substantial are any other than the various Modifications of Matter whether others of them are not some middle Nature neither Bodies nor Accidents but Powers of a different nature from Bodies Accidents or Qualities or Substances though not so obvious to our perception This Hypothesis therefore seems for the most part to be a kind of artificial contrivance not wholly taken from the natures of things but fitted to give some kind of explication of them and for the most part an Engine to guide our Conceptions as the Figures in Logick or the artificial Schemes for the finding out a Medium used by them Barbara Celarent Darii c. Napcas Cipinis vel Nipis Again if we look upon the Supposition of Epicurus and his Explicator Lucretius and his Advancer Gassendus how many things must be taken for granted that are not only perfectly inevident to our sense but altogether improbable The multitude of physically indivisible Atoms their strange Figures acommodated to their Motion Adhesion and Coagulation their declined Motions and the means of their Coalition And when all this will not serve to contain things within any possible certainty or specifical determination to patch up that defect certain Moleculae Seminales must be supposed to make up that Defect and to keep the World and its Integrals from an Infinitude and Extenâ—lesness of excursions every moment into new Figures and Animals and yet made up meerly by chance and by the contexture of those Atoms which have neither quality nor energy nor any thing else besides their small and imperceptible Moles to make them operative and that Local Motion which they there have but they teach us not from whence they have it Again If we look upon Des Cartes his Supposition who was not altogether content with the former but gave it some Correctives though the main Substratum be of Epicurus what colour of evidence have we of the various Configurations of his Atomes the grinding of them round by their mutual attritions the coalition of the Globular Atomes into the Heavenly Bodies the filling of Chinks and Interstices by the Ramenta of the greater whereby a Materia Subtilis is diffused through the Universe which is invisible performs most of those motions that we see in things that the Animals are only Engins and actuated by the mobility of this subtil matter These and infinite more artificial Inventions of his there are that neither Sense nor Reason could ever acquaint him or us with but they are an ingenious Creature of his own fruitful Invention wittily framed to explicate not so much the Nature of things but those Conceptions he entertained thereof and to reduce and range them into an Order contrived by him not by Nature This Excursion I have used to shew how great a difficulty there is for a man to have a suitable conception of the great Fabrick of the World with any tolerable certainty whereby it hath come to pass that the readiest and most exercised Wits have fallen into so great varieties of explication thereof and yet all of them so full of unevidence and incertainty so full of precarious and imaginary Postulata so full of unreasonableness and improbability and impossibilities in themselves and one with another that a man that is not imposed upon by the Veneration of the Authors or his own Phantasie cannot tell how to fix in any of them but must cry out upon them with the Comedian Probè fecistis incertior sum nunc quà m dudum Ye have mended the matter well I am now more in doubt than before Neither are we ever likely to attain any certain or satisfactory knowledge in the Physical Causes Effects and Appearances in their largest extent and latitude 4. The fourth commendation of an Object of Knowledge is that if it be meerly Physical or Mathematical it bears some proportion to the Intellective power neither too narrow and circumscribed into a small compass nor yet too full of multiplicity The former satisfies not the Understanding for it soon exhausts all that is in it and leaves the Understanding no work to exercise it self withal The latter surchargeth and oppresseth the Understanding with its multiplicity And upon this latter account it is that although the whole Universe and every part thereof are Objects full of excellency and worth yet the multiplicity thereof is so great and various that the Understanding falls under a kind of despondency of getting through so great a Task and those that have undertaken the full speculation of all the parts of the visible World have done it but superficially lightly and in Generals the time of Life and the Intellective faculty that moves but gradually and successively have not been sufficient for an exact account of all things visible And therefore they that have designed exactness and deep scrutiny into things have taken some one part of Nature for that purpose and even in those single Objects there is most commonly a connexion of such various Appendances or Incidents that they that have set themselves upon such seemingly narrow Enquiries have found it a business enough to take up a greater portion of Time and Enquiry than our short Lives will afford us as may easily appear by the great and large Tractates of them that have written concerning the little Organ of the Eye or the Visive Faculty the Magnetick Motions and Variations or some other single Organ or Faculty of the Reasonable or Sensitive Nature Among the many Objects of Knowledge there seem to be two especially which upon the most part of the before-mentioned accounts most commend themselves to our contemplation and enquiry namely the knowledge of the ever-glorious God and the knowledge of our selves
latitude such as are moral and supernatural Good 3. The Acts of this Faculty are generally divided into Volition Nolition and Suspension That division that herein better suits with my purpose are these Election and Empire 1. Election or choice and this in reference both to means and end for though the Schools tell us that Electio is only mediorum non finis this is to be intended of the general end or good at large and in its universal conception for when several particular ends are in proposal there is belonging to the Will a power of Election of these as well as of the means to attain them 2. The Imperium voluntatis over the Body and the Faculties We may observe in the humane as well as the animal Body two kinds of motions or exertions of Faculties some are stiled natural or involuntary such is the motion of the Heart the Circulation of the Blood the perception of the Senses when the Organs are open and the Object applied these natural though vital Faculties and Motions are not under the command of the Will immediately for whether I will or will not while I live my Heart beats my Blood circulates my Ventricle digests what is in it my Eye sees when open But there be other Motions in the humane and also in the animal Nature that are subject to the command of the Will in Man and to the appetite in Brutes as local motion which in Animals is under the regiment of the Appetite in Man under the regiment of the Will Now this Imperium voluntatis may be considered in relation 1. To it self It can suspend its own acting either of electing or rejecting 2. To the Understanding Though it cannot suspend its perception omnibus ad percipiendum requisitis adhibitis yet it may suspend its decision or determination or at least its obsequium to such decision 3. The Passions which are as it were the Satellites voluntatis and follow the command of the Will where the Will acts according to its power and authority 4. To the animal Spirits and the Vessels in which they are received when designed to Motion namely the Nerves and Muscles those are all subject to the Empire of the Will as to Local Motion of the whole Body or any part thereof when the Spirits Nerves and Muscles are in their due and natural state 5. To the sensual Appetite And indeed herein is evident both the Empire and Sovereignty of the Will and also the visible discrimination between the Humane Nature and the Animal or Brutal Nature and its preference before it In the animal Nature it is evident that the sensual Appetite is that which hath and exerciseth the sovereignty and dominion over the spontaneous actions of the animal Nature that commands the Foot to go the Mouth to eat and all other the spontaneous motions in order to a sensible good But in Man the sensual Appetite is Regimen sub graviere regimine the government of the Appetite is under the government of the Will and controlled by it at least where the reasonable Faculty is not embased and captived by ill custom or disorder And this appears two ways 1. Sometimes the very motion of the Appetite it self is restrained by the Empire of the Will so that a man doth not appetere that sensible good which otherwise he might or would because he will not and this is the most natural and noble regiment of the Will over the sensual Appetite 2. Though it may fall out that the sensual Appetite may appetere bonum sensibile yet the Will may and doth controll the empire of the Appetite in the execution of that appetition As for instance A man sees delicious fruit and he desires it in so much that were there not a controll over the empire of his Appetite it would command the Hand to reach it and the Mouth to eat it But the contrary command of the Will supersedes the command of the Appetite the Appetite desires it but the Hand is forbidden by the Will to reach it Now if any man shall say this contradiction appears not only in the reasonable Nature but even in the sensible The sensible Appetite is checked in its execution oftentimes by sensual Fear as in Dogs and Horses and other Brutes yea sometimes by the remembrance of a former suffering for the like attempt to gratifie his sensual Appetite and yet they are destitute of any superior faculty of Will to interpose a prohibition upon the Appetite I answer this is true for in such cases the impendent Fear is either present or in memory and so expected and it being of a sensible evil hath the same influence upon the sensual Appetite as the present good and therefore if the evil feared or impendent be a greater sensible evil than the good it over-rules the Appetite to aversation as the Fish that loves the bait yet feareth the hook which it discerns as a greater sensible evil the very Appetite is thereby determined to aversation But the controll of the Will upon the Appetite in the reasonable Nature is many times and indeed most often done not upon the account of a sensible evil felt or feared which of it self were sufficient to determin the Appetite but sometimes upon the account of such hopes or fears as fall not under a sensitive notice as of the command or prohibition by God yea many times upon a bare Moral account of the indecorum unreasonableness unseasonableness or utter unfitness of the thing it self without any other motive of fear either of a present or future sensible inconvenience thereby which Moral consideration can no way move the sensible Appetite were it not for the Will which being a rational Faculty is moved by it And this is all that I shall say touching the two great Faculties of the Soul the Understanding and Will I shall not add any thing here touching Passions or Affections of the Mind 1. Because they are but a kind of appendices to the Will the Satellites voluntatis those of the concupiscible kind being as it were the flowers of the motion of Volition those of the irascible kind the flowers of the motion of Aversation 2. Because the Passions for the most part are found in the sensible Nature namely those of love hatred delight grief expectation and fear and therefore I shall not here treat of them 3. I come now to consider of those rational Instincts as I call them the connate Principles engraven in the humane Soul which though they are Truths acquirable and deducible by rational consequence and argumentation yet they seem to be inscribed in the very crasis and texture of the Soul antecedent to any acquisition by industry or the exercise of the discursive Faculty in Man and therefore they may be well called anticipations prenotions or sentiments characterized and engraven in the Soul born with it and growing up with it till they receive a check by ill customs or educations or an improvement and advancement
Particles were partly those Ignei spiritus and partly those Humores primogenii that were interspersed in Nature or possibly the constituent Essentials both of the semina themselves and of the Individuals produced by them Again 2. They might be thus far natural that the immediate Instruments of the conjunction of these Particulae seminales might be the Heat or Influence or Motion or Agitation of the Heavenly Bodies or what other natural Instrument the Divine Power might employ in their Coagmentation 3. They would be thus far natural that when these Particulae seminales were conjoyned together and made up into their Moleculae seminales and when they had received their Signature their Energy by the Divine Fiat they would naturally produce their Effect viz. the production of an Insect when they had obtained a convenient Menstruum to lodge it and the kindly Heat to ripen them this would be as natural as any Operation of Heat or Cold or other things are natural which though they had their first existence by the Supernatural Power and Will of God yet when they are in their existence they move and act according to that nature which is put into them which is the Law of their Being given them by Almighty God But the Virtue that gives these Moleculae seminales their Energy of Productiveness of Life and Sense their Determination in their several species and Ranks that mints and stamps them as it were with their Esse specificum seminale is the Institution and Fiat of the Divine Will and Ordination So that if there be at this day any semina of Insecta animalia ex non insectis which gives them their several determinate species and natures though I am not of the mind of scotus that they have an immediate Creation by God yet I am not of the mind of Beregardus who thinks they are meerly natural and made up and put together without the Pre-disposition Ordination or Signature of the God of Nature as the first power communicated to the primogenial natures of Animals and Men to have a Vis Seminativa and Prolifica was in the first Creation of Mankind communicated to them by virtue of the Divine Institution and Benediction though the way of exerting that Power when produced was natural But possibly much of what is in this Chapter is needless if in truth the individual natures of Insects were at first created by God without any pre-existing semen as we are sufficiently taught Gen. 1.20 25. and that the Seminal and Prolifick Power was given to them as other Animals and consequently the seminia viventium were subsequent and not antecedent to the first Institution of the Animal Nature and an effect thereof CAP. VI. Supposing the Production of Insects were totally spontaneous equivocal and ex putrido whether any Consequence be thence deducible for the like Production of perfect Animals but especially of Men. IT is true that Insects and those equivocal Generations have an admirable perfection in their kind not much unlike to those that we find in the more perfect Animals and indeed they are so much the more admirable because their little and almost imperceptible moles renders their distinction of Faculties and Organs the more curious and artificial They have their several Faculties the Senses of Sight Hearing Touch and Taste they have the digestive egestive and other parts of the Nutritive Faculty and though their individual production may seem equivocal and of no univocal Seed of the same kind yet they have the Generative Faculty and propagate their species as well as perfect Animals and have therein distinction of Sexes as appears by frequent experience notwithstanding the doubt or contrary Opinion of Aristotle and although their Phantasie is more lubricous and sickle than perfect Animals yet it is evident that they have a Phantasie as appears by their Motions and little Operations and as they have Phantasie so they have Memory as appears by the Returns of Bees and Pismires to their homes from great distances And as they have these Faculties of Life and Sensation so they have Organs accommodate and admirably fittted to those several Faculties namely to Nutrition Augmentation Generation Sense Local Motion Phantasie Appetite which are so far from being contemptible in respect of the smallness and petiteness of these little Animals that indeed in some respect they are the more admirable as a small Watch is an evidence of greater skill and artifice than a greater or as a small Picture drawn to the Life commends the skill of the Painter sometimes more than a great Draught But yet for all this we must not think that these little Animals are of an equal perfection with the greater and nobler Caesar's Image drawn upon a Cherry-stone is a piece of great curiosity but not of an equal perfection to his lively Statue in Brass or that a Fly is of an equal perfection with an Eagle Therefore I shall not fetch Arguments against the like spontaneous Productions of the greater Animals from any contemptible valuation of these smaller and these little Models of sensible Life for certainly they are curious and elaborate automata in respect of their admirable minuteness and accuracy But yet upon other Reasons it seems utterly inconsequential that because these smaller Particles of sensible Nature may be thus spontaneously produced therefore these greater Animals may be so for it is apparent that in things of an equality of perfection there is by the Laws and fixed Rules of their several Natures several manners of their productions If we should compare Vegetables among themselves some will arise ex surculo as well as ex radice or ex semine others will not if we compare Sensible Natures among themselves that seem to have an equality of perfection as some sorts of Brutes and Birds it will be hard to say which have the perfecter Nature yet the production of the latter are ex ovo the former ex verme the former oviparous the latter viviparous in the ordinary course of their natural production and as at this day the former is not producible ex Ovo so the latter not producible without it The several natures of things have distinguished them as in their kinds so in the manner of their production and whatsoever the perfection of Insects sponte orientia may be there is no Consequence to be drawn from the same to other more noble Animals But again as there is no Consequence to be drawn from the one to the other so there is in the very nature of the one kind and the other and in the natural order of their production a great disparity and disproportion so that in truth by the very Constitution and Frame of their Natures the perfect Animals that we see only produced by the conjunction of Sexes and univocal Generation cannot by any course or consistency in Nature without the Supposition of Divine Power and Ordination arise spontaneously And that appears 1. In the disparity of the natural Productive
or the sense of those effects and operations which after by the help of the Understanding are carried up to the discovery of things not perceptible by Sense immediately Now there may be many things in Nature unto which we can have neither of these accessions of Sense How many Stars are now discovered by the Telescope which were never before known because not perceived by Sense And how many more there may be which are not visible to us by that help we cannot yet know till that discovery We cannot know what the extent of the Universe is whether there be any Worlds without the compass of this whether the Heavenly Bodies are inhabited and with what Creatures We cannot know the Nature Constitution Faculties of created and separate Intelligences nor the manner of their Ubi Motion Intellection mutual Intercourse or detection of their Minds These things are out of the reach of our Sense either mediately or immediately and consequently without the help of Divine Revelation we can never upon a natural account come to any certainty in them or the most we can otherwise know is by considering the reflexed acts of our Understanding whereby we know many acts of our own minds and Soul which are not perceptible to our external Senses and upon that account we may think that 〈…〉 their perception may be something analogical But Man is an Object of greatest vicinity to himself and hath thereby and by other contributions the best opportunity to know and understand himself with the greatest certainty and evidence And yet it cannot be denied that notwithstanding this great proximity of Man to himself yea and notwithstanding the many and great Essayes Attempts Enquiries and Observations that have been made in all successions of Ages by men of excellent Parts Learning and Industry we still remain and are like still to remain ignorant of many things of importance concerning our selves The great and wise God whose Glory it is to conceal a matter having lodged many things in the Humane Nature and Fabrick and Constitution thereof so secretly and so closely that notwithstanding the Experience and Observation of near 6000 years and the search and industry of the best Judgments in all Ages and the close proximity of Man to himself there are very many things in our Nature whereof we neither can and probably never shall be able to give any account to our selves or others with any evident nay with any tolerable certainty as if the Divine Wisdom meant hereby to give to the Children of Men an instance to keep them humble that cannot find out the certainty of what they hourly most intimately converse withal and an indication of his own profound and infinite Wisdom that can thus keep secret those things which in regard of their proximity to us we have great opportunity to know And of this nature are many things which we know to be but we cannot give our selves any sufficient explication of the manner or reason of them We are certain we have a vital active Principle in us by which we see understand remember which we call the Soul But whence that Soul comes or how and when and in what manner it is united to the Body whether it be extended with the Body or indivisible and in every point of the Body how and in what manner it exerciseth its nobler acts of Intellection and Volition or how far forth it stands in need of the Organs actually to exert any of those operations or how far forth it doth or may exert them without it how or by what means the Species not only of sensible Objects but even of Notions of the Mind are preserved in the Memory without confusion and dissipation notwithstanding lapse of time and intervention of infinite variety of Objects whether it be the same individual principle that exerciseth the acts of Intellection and likewise of Sense and Vegetation and if it be what become of these Faculties subservient to a temporal Life in the state of separation of the Soul where it is that the exercise of Sense is performed whether in the Brain or by the Soul by the mediation of the Spirits in the extremity of the Nerves and if the former how the Species of Visibles are carried through those dark Caverns between the Organ and Cerebellum supposed to be the Seat of the common Sense These and many more difficulties scarce explicable with any sufficient certainty do occur in the little Shop of the Fabrick of Humane Nature We must not therefore think that because of this nearness to our selves all the Phaenomena of our Nature can be rendred as evidently explicable as we do or may understand the Fabrick of our Hand by Anatomical Dissection But though this vicinity of our selves to our selves cannot give us the full prospect of all the Intrigues of our Nature yet we have thereby and by other opportunities much more advantage to know our selves than to know other things without us and by that opportunity of knowing of our selves to know the truth or falshood or analogy of very many things without us which otherwise could not be so well known or explicated 1. We have hereby an opportunity to know the Constitutions Frame and Order of our Bodies It is true the great advance of the practice and skill of Anatomy hath laid open to ocular inspection the Fabrick of the Bodies as well of Brutes and Birds as Men and therein they seem to be equally obvious to our knowledge But a Brute or a Man are another thing when they are alive from what they are when dead Anatomy can give us the Position Frame Situation Figure and connexion of all the several Integrals of the Body of Man or Beast but it is the living Mans observation of himself that must give account of those Vital motions that are in the Body when living as the Pulsations of the Heart the Circulation of the Blood the Communication of the Parts the Congruity or Disagreement between my Nature and other things variously qualified The Humor that separates divides attenuates and digests the Nourishment the several exertions of the several Organs relating to their several Functions the things that impede or advance the vital or sensible operations in a man what impressions are made upon the Blood and Spirits by the several passions of the Mind what things increase or advance the Spirits what disorder or discompose them the immediate and agil subservience of the Spirits to the Empire of the Mind or Soul These and infinite more touching the Body are discoverable by Observation and by no other Observation so well as by a mans Observation of himself 2. We have hereby an opportunity to know much more of the Nature Operations and other things relating to our Souls than we can touching other things or Natures There hath been much Dispute among Learned men concerning the manner of the Intellection of Spirits and Intelligences and by others touching the knowledge of Brutes touching their
speculative habits and fits and moulds and accommodates a man to a conformity to the End of his being And these be the Reasons that have especially put me upon the search and enquiry into this Subject MAN I am not without excellent helps and patterns in this Inquiry nor without the due fruits and effects that it hath had upon the Minds of them that have been exercised in it Galen though he spoke darkly and doubtfully of the Soul being destitute of much of that light which we now have yet upon the bare contemplation of the structure of the Body and the parts thereof in that excellent Book of his De Usu Partium resolves the whole Oeconomy thereof into the Power Wisdom Goodness and Efficiency of the Glorious God and is transported both with the admiration of the Divine Wisdom appearing therein and with indignation against the perversness and stupidity of Epicurus and his disciples which would attribute this one Phaenomenon to Chance And had he or should any else apply himself to the search of that Intellectual Principle in Man his Soul he will find a greater evidence of the Divine Wisdom Goodness and Power as will easily appear in a little consideration thereof CAP. II. Touching the Excellency of the Humane Nature in general ALthough I intend a more distinct Consideration of the Humane Nature and the Faculties of the Humane Soul and the Parts of the Humane Body yet it may be necessary before we come to the discussion of the origination of Mankind to premise something concerning the Nature of Mankind and its preheminence and excellence above all other sublunary Creatures that we may have a little tast touching that Being whose origination we inquire This Consideration will be of use to us in the enquiry touching the origination of Man to evidence that neither Chance nor surd or inanimate Nature could be the Efficient of such a Being but a most Wise Powerful and Excellent Author thereof I shall not at large discuss those Faculties and Organs which he hath in common with Vegetables and Brutes but those only that belong to him specifically as Man and those also but briefly The Corporeal Beings of this lower World are divided into these two ranks or kinds such as are Inanimate or not living and such as are Animate or living Life according to Aristotle in 1. De Anima cap. 1. is described by its effects viz. Nutritio auctio diminutio quae per seipsum fit and the lowest rank of such things as have life are Vegetables for though Minerals have a kind of analogical nutrition and augmentation yet it is such as ordinarily non fit per seipsa but rather by accession and digestion from external Principles and coagmentation The Principle from whence this Life flows in all Corporeal Natures that have it is that which they call Anima or at least vis Animastica The Faculties or Operations of this Anima vegetabilis are these 1. Attractio alimenti 2. Fermentatio assimilatio nutrimenti sic attracti in succum sibi congenerem 3. Digestio vel dispersio alimenti sic assimilati in diversas partes individui vegetabilis 4. Augmentatio individui vegetabilis ex unione consolidatione succi vegetabilis diversis partibus individui 5. Conformatio hujusmodi particularum unitarum specificae naturae ejusdem individui cujus est augmentatio ut in trunco ramis cortice fibris foliis fructu c. 6. Seminificatio propagatio ex semine vel partibus seminalibus 1. Attraction of aliment 2. Fermentation and assimilation of the nourishment so attracted into a juice of the same kind with it self 3. Digestion or dispersion of the aliment so assimilated into the divers parts of the vegetable individual 4. Augmentation of the vegetable individual from the union and consolidation of the vegetable juice to the divers parts of the individual 5. The conformation of these united particles to the specifical nature of the same Individual which is augmentation as in the trunk of a Tree the bark fibres leaves and fruit 6. Seminification and propagation from the seed or seminal parts These seem to be the process of the Vegetable Nature Soul and Life 2. The next rank of living Creatures is that which hath not only a vegetable life and a vegetable principle of life but hath also superadded a life of sense and a sensitive Soul or Principle of that life of Sense which nevertheless as one specifical Principle exerts the acts as well of the vegetable as sensitive life And this nature 1. Includes all those powers and faculties of the Vegetable Nature as Attraction Assimilation Digestion Augmentation Conformation and Propagation or Seminification 2. It includes them in a far more curious elegant and perfect manner at least in the more perfect Animals As for instance the first assimilation of the attracted nourishment in Vegetables converts it into a watry humor or juice but the assimilation thereof in Animals rectifies this alimental juice into Chyle and then into Blood The propagation of Vegetables is without distinction of Sexes but that of Animals usually with distinction of Sexes and many more such advances hath the animal nature above the vegetable in those faculties or operations which for the main are common to both 3. It superadds a greater and higher perfection to the animal nature by communicating to it certain essential Faculties and Powers that the vegetable nature hath not And those are these 1. Sense It is true that Campanella in his Book De Senfu rerum and some others that have written de Perceptione substantiae attribute a kind of Sense to all created Beings and therefore much more to those that have a vegetable life And in some Vegetables we see something that carries a kind of analogy to Sense they contract their leaves against the cold they open them to the favourable heat they provide teguments for themselves and their seeds against the injury of the weather as their cortices shells and membranes they seem to be carried with a complacency in the propagation of their kinds as well as Brutes and therefore many of them being impeded therein they germinate again though later in the year And some Plants seem to have the sense of Touch as in the Sensitive Plant and some others which seems to be an advance of the Vegetable Nature to the very confines or a kind of contiguity to the lowest degree of those Animals that are reckoned in the rank of Sensibles But this notwithstanding we deny a real and true sense to Vegetables indeed they have a kind of umbra Sensus a shadow of Sense as we shall hereafter observe that Sensibles have a kind of umbra Rationis a shadow of Reason but it is only a shadow thereof 2. There are also in their natures by the wise God of Nature implanted even in their vegetable natures certain passive Strictures or Signatures of that Wisdom which hath made and ordered all things with the highest reason even
inquiry and such whose first composure and origination requires a higher and nobler Constituent than either Chance or the ordinary method of meer Natural causes and concurrences and that it is such a piece as in its first constitution and ordination requires an Efficient of infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness This is the end and scope of my present Inquiry Now to give a brief Inventory of the Excellence of the Humane Nature I shall observe as near as I can this order First I will briefly consider those Excellencies that he hath in common with the vegetable and sensible nature Secondly I shall consider those specifical or appropriate Excellencies that he hath above the former both vegetable and animal nature Under the Second general I shall consider Man singly with relation to himself and then with relation to other things without him In relation to himself I shall briefly consider these particulars 1. The excellency of his Soul or intellectual nature in its nature faculties acts and habits 2. The peculiar excellency of his Body 3. The peculiar excellency of the Compositum consisting of both his former essential parts In relation to things without him I shall consider him with relation 1. To God 2. To Mankind 3. To the other integrals of the World and therein 1. Of their serviceableness and accommodation to him 2. Of his dominion and soveraignty over them and the means and instruments thereof This is the brief Scheme that I intend of those specifical and appropriate preheminences that the Nature of Man hath above other visible Creatures First therefore touching those Excellencies that the humane Nature hath above the vegetable and animal Nature I shall subjoin these ensuing Positions 1. There is no excellent vegetable or animal Faculty in the vegetable or animal Nature as such but it is found in the humane Nature such as are attraction nutrition digestion conformation of parts digested proportionable augmentation generation sensible perception common sense estimative faculty sensible appetite locomotive faculty and animal motion I meddle not herein with all those smaller sort of Faculties which are peculiarly appropriate to Vegetables or Animals as swiftness sagacity strength and special artifices which belong not to them in the common nature of Vegetables or Animals but by certain specifical Instincts or Faculties because though it may be some of them are not found in the same kind and degree in the humane Nature yet they are such as are abundantly recompensed by that art and ingeny which appropriately belongs to the humane Nature 2. There are no Organs in the sensible Nature which yet are more perfect than those of the vegetable Nature subservient to the Faculties of Life and Sense which are wanting in the constitution of the humane Body at least in substance and equivalence 3. Those very Faculties and Organs subservient unto them in the vegetable or sensible Nature which are found in them are lodged in the humane Nature in far more excellency and perfection than they are in the vegetable or animal Nature So that if the Faculties or Organs subservient to the vegetable or animal Life in Man do differ in their state or composure from those of Brutes it differs for the better as obtaining a more exquisite perfection usefulness beauty and contexture than those of Brutes as may appear in the Hand of Man compared with the Foot of Beasts or Birds the Foot the Leg the Thigh of Man with those of Beasts and the like It is true the constitution of some Faculties and Organs of Sensibles is more accommodate to their fabrick and use than the like Organs of Man would be to the use of Brutes but simply comparing one with another the Organs of the humane Body are more curious and excellent than the Organs of the bare animal Nature And from hence it comes to pass that the full knowledge of the humane Faculties and Organs subservient to the animal Life in Man comprehends in effect all the like Faculties and Organs in the animal Nature though differing in some particular textures and positions with a proportionable advance by the access of excellence of the humane Nature 2. As to the specifical or appropriate Excellencies of the humane Nature above the most perfect Animals they come next to be considered It is true that Animals in proportion to the length of their Life attain their complement of their specifical perfection sooner in proportion than the humane Nature The animal Soul sooner expands and evolves it self to its full orb and extent than the humane Soul Therefore the Horse that lives naturally about thirty years comes to his full growth and perfect exercise of its animal Faculties in four years but Man that lives not ordinarily above seventy yeas comes not to the ripeness of his Intellectual Life 'till two and twenty or three and twenty years at least nor even to his full growth 'till nineteen or twenty So that what we say concerning Man in relation to the actings of his Mind must be applied to that state and age wherein his Soul hath fully as it were evolved it self and its Organs fully mature and disposed for the actings of his Soul He is long ripening but then his maturity and the complement thereof recompenseth the flowness of his maturation Now the Excellencies appropriate to the humane Nature are as before observed of two kinds 1. such as immediately concern the humane Nature it self or 2. such as are extrinsecal but yet relating to it Those things that are immediately residing in or part of the humane Nature come first to be considered And they are three 1. His Soul or intellectual and volitive Principle 2. His Body or corporeal part 3. The Compositum or Coalitum of both those Principles which complete the humane Nature The Soul comes first to be considered and therein these four things 1. It s Constitution or Nature 2. It s Original 3. Its Faculties 4. It s congenite Habits or rational Instincts 1. Touching the Constitution of the Intellectual Soul of Man I shall not in this place enter into a large discourse concerning it but reserve that consideration to its proper place only in general it is 1. An active principle 2. It is a substantial principle 3. It is not corporeal or material 4. It is not corruptible or mortal 2. Touching its Original whether it be by traduction or creation or participation I shall not here dispute but reserve it to its proper place for a fuller disquisition But whether the one way or the other it had its original there is no inconsistency but that it hath those essential qualifications above-mentioned 3. Touching its Faculties they are two the Understanding and the Will And here I shall not concern my self in the Inquiry whether the Faculties are the same with the Soul it self or the same one with the other and only distinct in notion whether the Will be any more than the complete or ultimate act of the Understanding determined
and Industry and gives us a powerful conviction of our Ignorance that the things we know in this little narrow obvious part of Nature the Body of Man is the least part of that we know not touching the same But when we yet consider how small a part of the Humane Nature is that which is the Corporeal part and how little we know with any tolerable certainty touching the more noble Parts Acts and Operations of the Humane Nature the Principle of Life Sense and Intellection we have still reason to conclude that this little narrow near Subject of our Knowledge is yet very difficult for us actually and fully to comprehend and furnisheth our search with more Materials than we are possibly able to exhaust with all our Industry Care Study and Observation When I consider those difficulties that occurr touching the Production of that we call the Soul whence it is what it is what power it is that performs the processus formativus that digests disposes models the prima stamina naturae humanae that acts with most admirable skill dexterity infallible order and in the most incomparable way of Intelligence and yet wholly destitute of those Organs whereby we exercise the operations of Life Sense and Intellection That incomparable accommodation of all parts and things fittest for use for time for convenience Again when I consider those various powers of the Sensible Nature that Regiment that it performs and exerciseth by the Spirits Nerves and Muscles the admirable powers of Sensation of Phantasie of Memory in what Salvatories or Repositories the Species of things past are conserved Again when I consider the strange powers of Intellection Ratiocination Reminiscence and what that Thing or Nature is that performs all those various operations And when I consider how little how incertain how contradictory those Sentiments of Mankind have been touching these things wherein nevertheless they have searched and toyled Age after Age I must needs conclude That if we had no other subject of our search and enquiry besides our selves we should have for ought I know for infinite Ages a continued stock for our discovery and when we had learned much yet still even in this narrow Subject there would be still somewhat to be learned and we should never be able actually to overtake the plenary discovery of what would remain Sic rota posterior currit sed in axe secundo And if this one small near piece of Nature still affords new matter for our discovery where or when should we be ever able to search out all the vast Treasuries of Objective Knowledge that lyes within the compass of the Universe So that the new Discoveries that have been made in Natural things is not a sufficient evidence of the newness of the existence of Mankind because of that inexhaustible Magazin of Natural Causes and Effects which possibly will store Mankind with new Discoveries unto an everlasting continuance 2. And the same that is said for the redundance of matters intelligible and cognoscible in things Natural may be also applied to things Artificial There are these things that render Artificial Inventions prodigiously fertil and various 1. The variety of the materials of things that may be applied to Artificial ends and uses as we have Iron Brass Wood Stones Sounds Light Figuration Tactile qualities some things of a more active some things of a more passive nature some things diversified in degrees of heat cold dryness moisture various Elements Meteors and infinite variety of these Materials we have which may be the material constituents or ingredients into Artificial Structures Engins Motions or Effects 2. The variety of the Apprehensions and Fancies of several Men in the destination and application of things to several ends and uses and this arising in them partly by the various texture and frame of their very temper of their Brains Blood and Spirits partly by variety of Education partly by Necessity partly by Accidental Emergency by this means possibly the same Material is variously managed into various Artifices according to this variety of Phantasy or Imagination As take the same Wool for instance one Men felts it into a Hat another weaves it into Cloth another weaves it into Kersey or Serge another weaves it into Arras and possibly these variously subdiversified according to the phantasy of the Artificer For it is most certain that there is not greater variety in the figures and complexions of Mens Faces and Features and in the contemperations of their natural Humours than there is in their Phantasies Apprehensions and Inclinations And hence it is that for instance the texture of Zeuxes or Apelles inclines him to the invention or improving of Painting Archimedes to Mechanical Motions Euclid to Geometrical Conclusions and hence it must necessarily come to pass that according to the variety of Men that either casually or industriously apply themselves to Artificial Discoveries or Inventions there will ensue variety of Inventions That Invention that did arise from the Genius or temperament of the Phantasie or Imagination of Apelles would probably never in the same individual Invention have been found out before him though the World of Men had lasted millions of Years before him because perchance in that long Period no Man had ever the same Syntax of Phantasie or Imagination that he had and consequently though some Artificial Inventions are as it were of that common congruity to the general Phantasies of Men or seem to arise upon a common sutableness to the use or exigence of Mankind as digging planting ploughing sowing making of Apparel and Houses yet some have that particular respect or cognation to the Phantasie of this or that particular Man that they would never have been found out till such a Man had had his being in the World and consequently the Invention was not found sooner because the Man to whose Phantasie this Invention was accommodate was not born nor lived sooner 3. The variety of Application and Combination of several Materials of Artificial things in their several Artificial Complements For it is very plain that even where things are finite and determinate in their number yet they arise to a strange and prodigious multitude if not indefinitude by their various Positions Combinations and Conjunctions The Letters of the Alphabet which arise from the several apertures and conjunctions of the Tongue the Teeth the Palate the Lips the Throat are but 24 in number yet various combinations of these Letters are the formal constituents of all the Words and Languages in the World And yet all the Words and Languages in the World do not amount to the hundredth part of those other articulate Languages that might be made out of the remaining combinations of the Letters of the Alphabet which are not in use in any or all the Languages of the World The general division of Lines in Geometry is into streight and crooked but the various combinations and positions of these two sorts of Lines would make more Figures of
will gather life and the form of an Insect 4. As the Animal vivum thus communicates a Sensible Nature to Insects produced from it so doth the Cadaver or dead Body Hence come generally Worms which in the heat of the Sun sometimes turn into Flies and according to the Tradition of the Ancient and Moderns Bees grow out of the dead Bodies of Cows Wasps and Hornets of Horses which nevertheless some attribute to a refiduum of those Seminal Particles of the very Insects which these Beasts devour with the Flowers and Herbs where they are lodged And to maintain that general Supposition before insisted upon That Viva sentientia non generantur ex non vivis sentientibus they say That even in the Cadaver there remain certain Animal Spirits tanquam in vase which serve for the production of Animal Natures of this base and low allay And so in all those productions of Insects ex animale vivo vel cadavere the Semen of that Insect is a Vital and Animal Principle though it be not immediately at least of the same kind And because these Productions are not immediately of the Seminal Particles of the Insect but of a living nature of another kind therefore always the Productum or Insect is of a different baser and more imperfect nature than the Producent And this is the Sum of what is observed by Licetus de Sponte ortis and Kircherus ubi supra viz. Lib. 12. Mundi subterranei But yet though much of this be very true and that Insects are not therefore sponte nata as people think yea they are never sponte nata ex non viventibus yet I do doubt that it may be found by experience that some sorts of Insects do arise from Vegetables at least of a very exalted nature for the truth is that some sort of Vegetables seem to be in the next degree to the lowest sort of Insect Animals as may appear in the Plant called the Sensitive Plant and some others And therefore it is not impossible but some sort of Insects may arise immediately out of some sort of Vegetables as the Gurgulio that ariseth in the Wheat the Wivel that riseth in the Malt and the Hippuris or Horse-tail and the Liburnus or White Vine that Kircher himself mentions in the same 12 th Book Sect. 1. Cap. 9. to grow into an Insect in the Water and those Instances in the same Chapter of Franciscus Corvinius that in every Vegetable had observed a proper Insect bred in it and living upon it and the experience of the growing of Moths out of the Seeds of Lavender and Worms in Rose-Cakes these experimented Observations seem to correct the universality of the Assertion that Non nascuntur Insecta animalia ex non animalibus though I think it may be universally true that they are not produced ex non viventibus they are always the production of the Semen or Seminal Particles of an Insect or of the Parts of an Animal or Cadaver animalis or of that which is or was vegetable Yet some there are that think that these Insecta animalia that seem to be produced immediately ex herbis stirpibus arboribus vegetabilibus or Animals of another kind yet the first Seminium of these Insecta are either the Semina or the Seminial Particles of Insects of the same Species percolated through the various parts of Vegetables or Animals In so much that Gassendus that inquisitive Naturalist seems to think that the very Lice and Fleas and Worms in a Man are but the Productions of the several Seeds of Animals of the like kind Cum in eodem homine ex sordibus capitis Pediculi ex sordibus barba Alae inguinis Ricini ex intercutaneo humore Cyrones oriantur ita de caeteris quonam alio id referamus quam ad diversa semina quae à diversis sive plantis sive animalibus proliciantur sese ad diversas partes quatenus congruunt recipiant accommodántve inter nutriendum I do not here take upon me a distinct and exact Discourse touching production of Insects it is one of the most abstruse curious and various Inquiries in Nature There be many that have busied themselves on purpose in it to which any one may have recourse as Cardanus in his Book de Subtilitate and scaliger his Animadversions thereupon Gassendus in Physicis sect 3. l. 4. cap. 1. Kircher l. 12. sect 1 2. Aldrovandus per totum Fortunius Licetus his Book De Ortu Sponte nascentium Vossius De Origine Idololat lib. 4. cap. 65. seqq All that I shall say farther in it is but this First that it is most certain that many of those productions of Insects which Men ordinarily take to be spontaneous are yet in truth univocal from Insects of the same species their formal Seeds or Seminal Particles Secondly that it is not certain that any production of Insects is spontaneous or not from the Seed of other Animals that were of the same species for we are not certain but that the seminia or Seminal Particles of these Insects may be percolated or derived by divers Maeanders and long obscure passages into or through the Bodies of Vegetables or Animals of another species Thirdly that it is very probable that they are so traduced by these experimental Assays that have been either experimented by Observation or by Art whereby it is rendred evident to Sense that their production at this day may be and often is of the semina or Seminal Particles of Insects of the same kind The Consequence whereof is That the production of all these little Particles of Sensitive Life as well as of the greater Animals though at the first it were ex non genitis by the Power and Fiat of Almighty God yet since that time it may be probable they have their propagations univocal Ex semine vel seminio praeexistentis Insecti ejusdem speciei vel formato vel analogo This Consideration may assure us That the production at least of the generality of Insects which seem to be spontaneous is truly seminal and univocal though possibly upon a severe disquisition it may be found that some are meerly spontaneous and equivocal Productions ex putri whereof I shall give a farther account in something that follows especially in the next Section CAP. V. If it be supposed that any of those Insects at this day have their Original ex non genitis or spontaneè whether yet the same may be said a Natural or Fortuitous Production I Come now to the Second Particular which is this That admitting there were any such production of Insects at this day whether the same were purely Natural Wherein I shall briefly say 1. That it seems very probable that the species of Insects were at first in their first Creation determinate and certain and although since partly by degeneration partly by various mixtures their species are changed and multiplied even as the perfect Animals in Africa are by a mixture
of species yet they were at first determinate 2. That it seems the production of the first Insects was like to that of perfect Animals they were not produced ex semine or per processum seminalem whether ex Ovo or ex Verme but were produced in the complement of their specifical and individual existence For it is much more suitable to Reason and to the nature of things that the Animal should have an antecedence to the Seed and that the semen should be rather the effect of an Animal at first than an efficient or according to Plutarch's Discourse that the Hen should be before the Egg rather than the Egg before the Hen. 3. That yet if we should suppose that in the first production of Insects at least they should arise ex praeexistente semine or that at this day they should arise de novo yet bare Matter were not possibly sufficient for its production without some Seminal Principle that might determin the Insect to its kind and advance in it that formation and organization of Parts and effect those admirable Faculties of Sense and Imagination which we see in them For it were exceedingly above the bare activity of Elementary qualities though the most active as that of Heat to raise so curious and admirable a Fabrick as the Bodies of those little Animals much less the Faculties of Life Sense and Imagination And if it were possible that some of the qualities and dispositions or modifications or temperament of Matter could arrive to the production of any such little sensible Being yet it could never be contained nor contain it self within any determinate species or kinds but as the modifications temperaments and qualities of Matter are infinite and various according to its various Mixtures and Combinations so the Productions would be ever irregular monstrous and never colligated or contained in any certain species It remains therefore that in the first production of Insects whether at this day or in the first eduction of their species if they were not produced in the complement of their individual and specifical nature they must necessarily be produced ex aliquo semine congruo determinante materiam And certainly the Constitution of such a semen is as I have before observed a work of great Wisdom Intelligence and Power no way less than such a Power that must have made an Individual of the same kind in his complete existence For the semen of every thing contains in it the small idea of that Nature which it is to produce which is as it were minted and stamped upon it and contains an admirable power of evolving and dilating it self and bringing forth that admirable Fabrick and that singular Conformation of Parts and those wonderful Faculties of Life Sense and Imagination and the several Organs and Operations belonging to it Some there are that have said and with very great truth That the smallest Animal in the World sets forth the Wisdom and Excellence of the great Architect of the World more conspicuously than the Fabrick of the greatest Whale or Elephant as the smaller an excellent Watch is if it have all its parts motions order and constancy it more sets forth the skill of the Artist than a greater Fabrick When a Man shall see in that Animal that well near escapes his sight by reason of its smalness as the Acarus the Cyro or Hand-worm yet he shall plainly by the help of a Microscope behold in it all the conformation of its little Limbs useful for its being all the Operations of Senses and Organs thereof the several Faculties Offices and Parts subservient to it the several Viscera that serve for the exercise of Life and Sense it must needs render the Skill of the Author thereof admirable But yet again when possibly the Seminal Principle of this little Animal bears it may be as small a proportion to it as the Insect it self doth to greater Animals it may be a little imperceptible Egg and yet in that little Body all the Ideal parts of this Animal and that Principle that immediately conforms the several Faculties and Organs of this little Animal The Power and Wisdom that conforms such a little semen is no less wonderful than if it had immediately conformed the Animal without the intervention of such a Seminal Particle And therefore most certainly the Conformation of these little Moleculae seminales if any be antecedent to the production of these Insects is a work of intelligence choice election design and that of a most wise and intelligent Being and cannot be the production either meerly of Chance as the Epicureans would have it nor of that which little differs namely an ignorant unknowing unelective Principle for such is barely Nature unless they that use that denomination mean by it Almighty God And when I assert that these Moleculae seminales antecedent to the production of any living or sensible nature if there be any such are produced by Almighty God it is not my meaning that they are therefore immediately created or immediately put together or compounded by the immediate Finger of God if I may use that Expression to render the sense I intend But it is sufficient that the great and supreme intellectual Being having in his infinite Wisdom the Prospect of all things hath so set and ordered the Motion of Second Causes to bring together and mingle the constituent Materials of these semina and he by his Almighty Fiat hath annexed to such Compositions and imprinted upon them the stamp and efficacy of a Seminal Principle it will be equally the Work of Almighty God if these Compositions be brought together by the Motion and Heat of the Sun or by the powerful Motion and Determination of various kinds of Ferments some possibly originally created and dispersed in the Earth Air and Waters others accidental arising from the corrupted and mingled Matter of dissolved Animals and Vegetables whereof I shall in due time God willing give a more distinct Account as if they were immediately created out of nothing But the Mint the Stamp the Signature the Seminal Efficacy of this Molecula seminalis is the Intention Election and Fiat of the glorious God and can never be the bare production of a surd unintelligent nature So that although it should be granted that the excrescence of those Insecta animalia is not at this day from the semina insectorum but that both in the first production of them in Nature and the yearly or daily production of them now they were ex seminibus non ex insectis decisis yet those seminia or seminales moleculae were not meerly natural as Nature imports a surd production of things but were the Work and Intention of the great and glorious God of Nature So then we may hereby see what would be purely natural in these semina what not 1. It were thus far natural that the material Particles thereof possibly might have an existence in Nature before their Composition whether these
Summer will remain fruitful and produce the Insect this Spring and possibly some time after so that they are in the next degree above Vegetables and have a nature very analogal to them But these things are not so in greater Animals of an univocal generation this also appears in the great disparity of these degrees at least of perfection in the perfect Animal above that of Insects of a spontaneous production For though as before is said these little Animals have Faculties conformable to the Sensitive Life so that we may plainly discover at least in many of them the Faculties as well as the Organs of Sense Phantasie Memory Common Sense Appetite Passion Local Motion yet the more perfect and univocal Animals have greater strength and perfection in these Faculties their Phantasie and Memory more exact their Appetite more perfect and free if I may so call it they are capable of Discipline which these smaller Animals are not There is greater variety complication and curiosity in the state frame and order of their Faculties and a greater distinction and variety of operation in them than in the smaller Pieces of Nature There are more Wheels more variety and curiosity in their motions more variety of ingredients into the Constitution of the Automata of the more noble Animals than in the Insects that are sponte orta so that for the Constitution of their Souls the Principle of their Faculties and Motions there is required a more curious elaborate and elevated Composition and Fabrick than in these minute Animals And hence it is that though it be not only possible but frequent that these Insects and minute Animals may thus spontaneously arise yet it hath never been known so according to the setled Laws and Order of Nature It is impossible these greater and nobler Animals can arise spontaneously nor otherwise naturally than by the mixture of both Sexes and a Semen formatum and prolificum received and united in utero foemineo and impregnated as it were with that Specifical Idea and Formative Power derived from the Parents and those other accessions which may elaborate rectifie and advance the Soul and its Faculties and the Body and its Organs to their due proportion and perfection And therefore there is no parity Reason in the production of Insects and perfect Animals nor any Consequence to be drawn from the spontaneous production of one to the like production of the other in any natural course without the intervention of a Supernatural free Cause effecting the same besides and out of the road and course of Nature And what may be said upon this account against the Consequence of the spontaneous production of other Animals from the spontaneous production of Insects may with much more advantage be said against the Consequence of the production of Mankind by any natural spontaneous production because the perfection of his nature and the specifical excellence thereof doth exceed the greatest excellence of other Animals far more than the noblest Animals exceed the Insects And therefore as the spontaneous production of these Insects no way concludes the like production naturally possible in greater Animals so if it were naturally possible and de facto true that the greater Animals themselves were sponte producibilia producta it were not at all conclusive nor deducible from thence that Mankind were producible naturally upon the like account The nobleness of the structure of the Humane Body the great curiosity and usefulness of most of his Organs especially of his Tongue and Hand the curious and useful configuration and disposition of his Nerves and Brain the admirable variety and quickness of his Phantasy the great retentiveness of his Memory but especially the admirable power of his Intellect Reason and Will give him a far greater specifical perfection above the most perfect Brutal Nature than that hath above the meanest Insects And therefore certainly according to the ordinary Observations in Nature and the Rules and Methods observable therein requires the noblest and most advanced Method to produce it that Nature can afford But against these Reasons it may be and is urged That all these Observations and Inferences are bottomed upon the state and course of Nature wherein we see things are in the state of things already setled but in the first production of things it might be otherwise and must be otherwise if we admit an Origination of Mankind ex non genitis And though in the ordinary course of Nature as now things are constituted the production of Mankind is ex semine formato ab utroque parente deciso that his nourishment is per venam umbilicalem that it cannot be otherwise now but in utero foemineo that the state of Infancy now requires those adventitious helps that are above remembred Yet in the first state of Humane Production all these Suppositions must be laid aside as unaccommodate to that state another Seminal Principle another method of Nutrition another state and habit of the Foetus must be and may be supposed in the first production of Mankind than now is to be found in the World wherein the order of things is setled in a regular Method If it should be supposed that a Mouse or a Rat were produced ex putri we cannot suppose any such Semen or Vena umbilicalis or that it lived upon the Dams Milk all which are notwithstanding supposable and necessary when that equivocal Animal afterward propagates its kind I answer That as it is true that Mankind and other Animals had an Original and an Original in quite another way than now it is and ex non genitis so it is unquestionably true that those Processes Principles and Methods which now serve in the production of Humane Nature or other perfect Animals are no way conceptible or applicable unto the first production of Man or Animals And therefore I must not only grant that these Modes of Production Nutrition c. are utterly ineffectual and unapplicable to the first Origination of Humane Nature But I must suppose quite contrary that in truth it is impossible they should be the Modes or Order of that first Origination But it must be remembred whom it is that I am here contending against namely not against those that do and that truly referr the Origination of Man to the Divine Power and Will and a Supernatural production but against them that are the great Venerators of established Nature that think it below their Gravity and Wisdom to recognize any other Efficient but what they find in Natural Causes and Effects nor any other Rule of things but what they see that take their Measures of their Conceptions and Sentiments from what is obvious to Sense and the common Observation of things as they now appear and for the most part frame all their Conclusions accordingly And therefore that which I herein contend for by these Arguments is this That a Man that duly considers the natures of things and makes the course of Nature and the Observation
Vocal Command given out to the Matter but the secret Command and Determination of the Divine Will governed the Matter into an immediate conformable Production according to the Idea residing in the Divine Understanding He spake and it was done be commanded and it stood fast This best became the Majesty and Sovereignty of the Lord of all things CAP. III. Concerning the Production and Formation of Man HAving taken the former brief Survey of the History of the Creation and Formation of the rest of the Universe I shall now proceed to what I principally intended in the discussion of that History namely the Formation of Mankind Gen. 1.26 And God said Let us make Man in our own image after our likeness and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth so God made man in his own image in the image of God created he him male and female created he them and God blessed them and said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fishes Touching the Creation of Man I shall observe these things 1. The Efficient of this first Production of Mankind was Almighty God by the counsel and determination of his own Will The Creation of Man is ushered in with a Prologue unlike the Creation of other things viz. by a kind of deliberation not as if the Divine Wisdom stood in need of counsel advice or concurrence of others or of a mora deliberativa with himself for known unto him were all his Works from the beginning and by one simple instantaneous and indivisible Act he foresees what is fit to be done and judgeth and determineth the same but it is added as a Mark of Attention and an Elogy of Prelation of this Work of the Creation of Mankind above the rest of the visible Creatures Some of the Ancients have thought this Deliberation was real and to have been made with the superior World of Heavenly Intelligences Nec si fas sit ita loqui Deus quicquam fecerit donec illud expenderit in familia superiori and it should seem that the Opinion of Plato in his Timaeus That Almighty God did advise with the Dii ex Diis or the Intelligences or Angelick Natures and used their assistance in the Creation of the Bodies of Men though he himself formed their Souls seems to be derived from the inspection of the Mosaical History or Tradition of it whereof he gave us his Sense or Exposition that this faciamus hominem was by the concurrence or subordinate cooperation of Angels Others with far greater evidence do think it was the Deliberation and Conclusion of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity And some again interpret it to be only a Majestick Expression touching Almighty God more regali in the Plural Number but touching these Conjectures I shall say no more but only this That the first Origination and Production of Man was by the immediate Efficiency of Almighty God not as if God Almighty used any Manual or Physical Plasmation of a Man as the Statuary makes his Statue or as the Poets feign Prometheus moulded up his molle lutum into the Humane Shape and animated him by diffusion of Fire into him fetcht from Heaven but by the Word or Determination or Fiat of his Omnipotent Will Man was formed and made 2. The constituent Components out of which he was made were of two kinds 1. His Corporeal and Animal Nature was the same with the Matter of other Terrestrial Animals namely the Elementary Matter whereof Earth was the predominant 2. His Spiritual Constituent as I may call it though in union with the Sensible Power it be his constituent Form was a Spiritual Substance created and infused by Almighty God Gen. 2.7 And God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul This Text gives us briefly 1. The Matter of his Corporeal and Animal Constitution the Dust of the Ground or as elsewhere Red Clay 2. The Nature or Kind of this other constituent part the Breath of Life a Vital Spiritual Intellectual Substance or Nature 3. The Union thereof to the Body and Animal Nature breathed into him 4. The result from that Union Man became a living Soul the whole Composition taking denomination from his nobler essential Constituent And this short History gives us the best account that can be of the true Nature of Man namely that he consists of two essential constituent Parts 1. His corporeal and animal nature which though it were not only gradually but specifically different from and advanced above the Brutal Nature both in the Elegance and Usefulness and Majesty of his corporeal Fabrick and in the excellency and perfection of his animal Faculties as in due time shall be shewn Yet in his essential part he seemed to have a nature in some way common with them both being material and both their Faculties of the Animal Nature directed and subservient to a Life of Sense and therefore corruptible and mortal in it self 2. His Intellectual Nature which is spiritual immortal created immediately by Almighty God that as in his Animal Natureâ— he was the highest of living corporeal and visible Creatures so in his Soul or Intellectual Nature he seems to be constituted in the lowest rank or range of Intellectual and Immaterial Beings by this means he seemed to be Nexus utriusque orbis I have before observed in the Order of Natural Beings with which we are acquainted that there seems to be an admirable gradation in things and the lower rank of Natural Existences have some rough draughts and strokes and shadows of those perfections which are in the superior Minerals are a degree below Vegetables yet they seem to have some shadow of the Vegetable Life in their growth increase and specifick configurations The lowest degree of Life seems to be the Vegetables yet in many of them and their Faculties they seem to have some kind of rough strokes or draughts of the Sensitive Nature and the highest advances of the Vegetable Nature seem to come up to the confines and borders of the lowest Form of Sensible Beings and to participate of somewhat of Sense which appears not only in the natural production of Insects out of the finest parts and effluxes of most Vegetable Natures but also that some such things there are that seem in their very nature of Plants to have a kind of lower connexion of the Animal Nature in them as appears in the Sensitive Plant or Planta modesta and those Canes in the Kingdom of Angola that are filled with a Worm growing from and continuous with it called Trombe Again in the Animal Province there are divers sensible Insects both aquatil volatil and terrestrial that seem to be in the very next Rank of Nature to Vegetables and
Fish playing and Birds of several kinds some flying some swimming some perching yea various Flies and Worms and Insects and all contribute to the beauty and ornament and variety of the entire piece though each hath a particular beauty of its own So in this great and glorious Frame of the Universe not only the Celestial Bodies but all the Animals and Vegetables even to the least Fly or Worm or Flower or Herb contribute to the beauty glory ornament and variety of the whole and make up one common demonstration of the admirable Wisdom of that great God that made it valde bonum And certainly under this Consideration it is apparently evident that Man contributes no small portion of beauty and ornament to this goodly Frame of the Universe For if we should suppose that all the Integrals of the inferior World were as now they are only destitute of the Creature called Man it would soon appear that it wanted much of that beauty and comeliness and perfection which it now hath by the accession of this excellent Integral of the Universe which though it hath its residence in the lower region thereof yet in the common compute and estimate of the whole it contributes to its beauty and integrity The second Accommodation of every thing is to some other part or parts of the Universe and this though it may be single or a respect only between some one single part and some other single part of Nature yet for the most part we shall find every thing in Nature hath an accommodation unto very many other things the Wisdom of Almighty God being multifaria sapientia hath admirably evidenced it self in giving almost every thing in its nature a complexed and complicated accommodation to various other things of differing kinds and natures This is more eminently conspicuous in the Heavenly Bodies for Instance the Sun is accommodated to the use and convenience of the Planetary Bodies and of this inferior World and of every part thereof by his Position by his Light by his Heat by his Motion it procures Generation for the replenishing of the Earth raiseth Clouds and Vapours to irrigate and water it it occasioneth Winds to move and communicate those Irrigations it gives variety of Seasons measures of Times and infinite more accommodations to other things If we come lower to the Elementary World the Air is accommodated as a fit medium for the derivation of Light and Influence from the Celestial Bodies it is the vehicle of the Meteors the means of Respiration the food and life of the vital and animal Spirits and many the like accommodations If we consider of Animals we shall find admirable accommodations in them one to another and especially to Man the Horse high-spirited yet very docible fitted for swiftness carriage and agility by the make of his Body his Neck his Mouth his Back his Hoof the Ox patient painful strong fitted for draught the Camel fitted for strength and a natural Saddle for Burthen the Cow for yielding Milk the Sheep for Cloathing the Beasts and Birds of greatest use being most commonly made tame and affecting a spontaneous subjection to Man among the Vegetables some are for Food some for Medicines some for Smell some for Tast nay that seemingly most abject part of Nature the Insects even the worst as well as the best of them have their accommodation to other things some for Food to the more perfect Animals as Flies Worms c. some for Medicines both for Men and Animals nay the very venemous Insects are accommodated to the salubrity of the Earth and Waters collecting the unwholsom Juyce of either into their own consistency and many that are poisonous and hurtful yet carry with them Antidotes and Remedies as Vipers Scorpions and divers others Although in the lower World there are various accommodations of things one to another yet the chief and ultimate accommodation of things seems principally to terminate in Man The Grass of the Field is accommodate to the use of Animals for their food and so are the Insects for the food of Fish and Fowl but these in their last particular accommodation are for the food or other use of Man On the other side Man is accommodate to the convenience and use of the Vegetables and Animals but not in a way of Subservience or Service but in a way of Regiment Order Empire and Protection which he is enabled to exercise over the Creatures of greater strength and bodily force by the advantage of his Faculties wherein he exceeds them Thus he is accommodate to the Vegetable Nature by Planting and Husbandry to the Animal Nature by subduing the unruly and hurtful by the disciplining and managing the docible by protecting the domestick by providing for their wants The accommodation of Brutes to Men is an accommodation of an Inferior to a Superior the accommodation of Man to Brutes is an accommodation of a Superior to an Inferior an accommodation of Regiment and Protection The third sort of Accommodation is of every thing unto it self either in relation to its proper Species by propagation of its kind or in relation to its individual nature which is that which I principally mean to speak of We may observe at least in every Animal 1. An accommodation of Faculties suitable to his nature use and convenience which are principally these Cogitation Sensation Phantasie or Imagination Appetite and power to Move it self though in various degrees of perfection 2. That all these Faculties are terminated in a sensitive Life or Life of Sense and go no farther 3. That all those Faculties are exactly fitted with Organs proportionate to their Faculties and the specifical perfection of them the Organs subservient to the Faculties of the meanest Insect are as exquisitly accommodated and fitted thereunto as the Organs of a Horse or an Elephant are accommodate to the specifical Faculties of that Animal 4. That the wise God hath proportioned Objects of the Appetites of every Animal exactly suitable to those Appetites and a connatural prosecution and dexterity in the assecution of them so that no natural Desire or Appetite is in vain or notional only but really fitted and accommodated with an Object proportionable to it 5. That every Animal hath its highest complacency and contentment in the attainment of the suitable Object of its Appetite and this is its commensurate Happiness the Fox or the Lion or the Otter hath no greater dexterity in the getting of his Prey nor greater contentation in his acquest than the Bee hath in getting Honey or the Spider in catching his Fly These things being thus premised we have therein generally included the natural Method whereby we may by the Light of Nature search out the true and special End for which we have reason to believe the great and wise Efficient made Man It is true that some things Man hath in common with the rest of created visible Beings as that he is a corporeal Being hath Life and Sensation and is a
to these Faculties suitable Objects answering those Vital Faculties to Sensitive Nature his Beneficence hath communicated those Faculties of Sense as well as Life and then communicates to them a farther efflux of his Beneficence by communicating to them the Objects grateful and useful both for Life and Sense thus his Beneficence is communicated to them per modum boni sensibilis but to Man his Beneficence is communicated not only per modum boni vitalis sensibilis which yet he enjoys as other Creatures but per modum boni intellectualis voliti First by giving him those nobler Faculties of Intellection and Will and then by communicating to those Faculties Objects suitable to those Powers or Faculties namely Intellectual Truths to his Understanding and Moral Rational and Divine Good to his Will and among all those vera bona that are communicated to these Faculties by the Divine Beneficence God himself his Goodness Truth Will Perfection are the chiefest verum and the chiefest bonum So that no Creature below Man is capable formally to know to love to enjoy God as the chiefest Truth and chiefest Good And this also seems to be another End of the Creation of Man that being made a Creature endued with Understanding and Will he might be receptive of the Effluxus of the Divine Beneficence in a nobler way than the other visible Creatures of this lower World 3. As under the first Consideration Man is more eminently an objective manifestation of the Divine Glory than other visible Creatures and as under the second Consideration Man is more receptive of the Divine Beneficence than other visible Creatures So upon farther examination we shall find that Man was made in a capacity to be a more active Instrument to serve and glorifie his Maker than other visible Creatures which was another End of his Creation specifically different from the End of other visible created Natures which will appear by the farther consideration of those two great distinguishing Faculties his Understanding and Will I shall not go about to make a large Description of those Faculties or the Operation but only observe so much touching them as may reasonably evidence the preference that Man hath therein above the inferior Animals and the Inferences that arise thereupon touching the End of Almighty God in the making Man And first for the Intellective Faculty As in Animals the Faculties of Sense internal and external especially the Visive Faculty placeth Animals in a rank of Being far above the insensible Creatures and accommodates them exquisitly to a Life of Sense so the Intellective Faculty placed in Man puts him into a rank of Beings far above the most perfect Animals and accommodates the Humane Nature to an Intellectual Life And the preheminence of this Faculty above the Faculty of Sense will appear if we consider the Operations thereof I shall instance but in two namely intellective Perception and intellective Ratiocination or Discourse 1. For the intellective Perception the Understanding perceives many things which are not perceptible by Sense or sensitive Phantasie or Imagination for Instance it hath the perception of Substance or Being abstracted from all sensible qualities it hath the perception of the truth or falsity of a Proposition it perceives the Conclusion and the Evidence thereof in the Premises and many more intellectual Objects which never did nor can fall under the perception of Sense or Imagination And although we cannot clearly understand all the Operations of the Brutal Phantasie because we are distinct from them and they have not the instrument of Speech intelligible by us to express their perceptions yet we may know that this is true by our selves for we may perceive that we do perceive these Objects not to be perceptible by our Faculties of Sense but by some other Faculties distinct from that of Sense or sensitive Imagination Again in those Objects that are objective to Sense the intellective perception discovers somewhat that is apparently unperceived by the Sense or sensitive Imagination for Instance the Heavenly Bodies the Sun Moon and Stars are equally objected to the view as well of Animals as Men but yet by the help of intellective perception Man perceives that in those Objects which neither the Brutes no nor Man himself by the bare perception of Sense or sensitive Phantasie doth not cannot perceive The perception of Sense gives us the Sun no bigger than a Bushel and the Stars than a Candle cannot discover an inequality of their distance from us judgeth the body of the Moon to have as many changes in figure and quality as it hath various Phases or Appearances the Sun really to set the Limb of the Heavenly Horizon to be contiguous to the Earth but the intellective perception finds the quantity of the Sun and Stars bigger than the Earth and by the Parallaxes and Eclipses finds the Stars more distant from us than the Sun and that than the Moon perceives distinctly their several Motions Orders Positions and makes distinctions and computations of Time and Duration by them and over-rules and confutes the perception of Sense and Imagination by another kind of perception above the perception of Sense 2. Touching Ratiocination or Discursive Operation the precedure thereof is above the reach of the sensitive Phantasie though this seems to carry some weak and imperfect Image thereof For Instance sometimes not only the media discursûs and the processus discursivus are out of the reach of Sense but the very subjectum discursûs is imperceptible to Sense such are that processus discursivus of the Understanding touching complexed Notions or Universals touching the abstracted Notions of Being Substance Entity and transcendents in Metaphysicks such are also the discursives of moral good and evil just unjust which are no more perceptible to Sense than Colour is to the Ear and yet touching these Subjects the Intellect forms Discourses deduceth Illations and Conclusions Again in matters Mathematical and Physicall though in the concrete and in their subjects they are objective to Sense yet the media and processus discursivus whereby the Understanding makes Conclusions and Inferences and Illations touching them are of a range and kind quite above the range of Sense or sensitive Imagination thus upon certain data or postulata in Geometry the Intellect forms Conclusions which though Mechanically and Experimentally true yet are elicited by a Processus discursivus quite above the activity of sensitive Phantasie And though matters Physical Bodies and Tangible qualities and their several powers manner of production and divers other things relating to them are sensible Objects yet the Intellect useth a Processus discursivus whereby it investigates Truths and draws Conclusions that are quite above the scantlet of Sense or Phantasie ascending up from the Effect to the next Cause and thence to the next and thence gradually to the First Cause of all things So that though oftentimes the foot or root of the Discursus intellectivus be bottomed in some sensible Object perchance
he will live he must eat and if he will eat he must labour Though by the Fall of Man his labour is fuller of toyl and vexation yet labour and industry was part of his duty and employment in the very state of Innocency As he hath a busie office and employment committed unto him namely to be God's Vicegerent and subordinate Officer in the Regiment of the Vegetable and Animal Provinces so he is under a necessity for his own preservation and under an advantage for his own profit and convenience industriously and vigilantly to exercise the Province committed to him Thus the infinite Wisdom of Almighty God chains things together and fits and accommodates all things suitable to their uses and ends 5. And yet farther there seems to be found in the Humane Nature certain Affections that carry it on effectually to this employment his love to himself his safety his convenient supplies wealth and plenty invite industry and pains and a complacency and delight attends the acquests of honest industry and pains 2. Hitherto we have seen this part of the End of Man's Creation namely to be a subordinate Rector of this inferior World a Tributary King thereof by Investiture from God himself which Investiture was conferred upon Man in his first Creation Gen. 1.29 and again renewed after the Fall and Flood Gen. 9.3 Psal 8.6 Thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands thou hast put all things under his feet But there is yet another Office another End in the Creation of Man with relation to this inferior World and the Furniture thereof Almighty God in the goodly Frame of this World hath manifested the exceeding greatness of his Wisdom and Power as in the Heavenly Bodies the Sun the Moon the Stars the Elements the Meteors the Minerals the Vegetables the Animals they all make up a most magnificent and stately Temple and every Integral thereof full of wonder and bears the Inscription of the infinite Wisdom Goodness and Power of the Glorious God yet still all these are but passive receptive and objective reflections of the Goodness and Glory of God there is not a Grass in the Field not a Tree in the Forest nor the smallest insect Animal the Fly the Worm but bear an Inscription of the incomparable Wisdom Power and Goodness of the Glorious God But yet these cannot actively glorifie their Maker they understand not their own original nor their own excellence the noblest Cedar in the Field nor the vastest Elephant in the Indies nor the goodliest Whale in the Ocean have not the sense of their own excellence nor from whom they had it nor can actively and intentionally return Praise and Glory to their Maker for they want an intellective Principle to make those discoveries or returns 6. The Glorious God therefore seems to have placed Man in this goodly Temple of the World endued him with Knowledge Understanding and Will laid before him these glorious Works of his Power and Wisdom that he might be the common Procurator the vicarious Representative the common High Priest of the inanimate and irrational World to gather up as it were the admirable Works of the Glorious God and in their behalf to present the Praises Suffrages and Acclamations of the whole Creation unto the Glorious God and to perform that for them and as their common Procurator which they cannot actively intellectually and intentionally perform for themselves It is true the whole Creation doth objectively and according to their several capacities set forth the Honour and Glory of their Creator and cry Blessing honour glory and power be unto him that sittteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Revelat. 5.13 and the Psalmist Psal 148. calls upon them all to perform that duty But Man above all visible Creatures is able to perform that duty intellectually and intentionally and fitted to be the common Procurator and High Priest of unintelligent Creatures intelligently on their behalf to present all their Praises and Acclamations to their common Creator Lord and Sovereign I have now done with those Ends for which we may reasonably conjecture Man was made First in relation to Almighty God that he might actively Know Love Serve Honour and Obey Him Secondly in relation to others of Mankind mutual Beneficence Justice and Charity Thirdly in relation to the inferior Creatures to be their subordinate Regent under God and to be the common Priest for the rest of the visible Creation to present their Recognitions and Praises to their Maker I now come to consider what we may reasonably conjecture might be the End of the Wise and Glorious God in the Creation of Man in relation to himself The former Ends were such as were terminated without him either to God the rest of Mankind or the unintellectual Creatures but this Enquiry is touching that End that is terminated in himself the former were Ends of Office or Duty this of Fruition or Enjoyment And in this Enquiry I shall first proceed Negatively to shew what this End is not and then Affirmatively as far as the Light of Nature and natural Reason will dictate for in this Discourse at present I go no farther what it is or may be reasonably concluded to be As to the former or Negative Procedure 1. Therefore I say the proper peculiar end of Man in point of fruition is not a sensible fruition or a Life of Sense but somewhat that is higher nobler and of another nature It is true that as Man agrees in the animal Nature with other Animals and consequently hath a Life of Sense as well as they therein they participate of one common end but that which we are enquiring concerning is the specifical peculiar End of Man appropriate to and designed for him as such and therein it is that we affirm the end of his fruition is not the end of a sensible Being but of a Nature specifically and vastly different from it And this I shall prove and also illustrate by these following Reasons and Conclusions 1. As I have before observed the Method of search and enquiry into the specifical or peculiar end of any Existence is by observing the specifical and peculiar existence of Faculties of that Being for we have reason to think that the specifical and peculiar end thereof is somewhat that bears a specifical proportion to those Faculties and Excellencies thus we reasonably conclude That since the Animal Nature hath a specifical and peculiar excellence and faculty above Vegetables namely the faculty of Sense that therefore its proper end of fruition is not a bare fruition of a vegetable Life or the commensurate Good thereof but a Good that is superior and accommodate to the Life of Sense And upon the same account we may conclude That since the Excellence and Faculties of the Humane Nature are of a higher Make and Order than that of Sense namely an intellectual Faculty therefore the peculiar end of the Humane Nature is not
terminated in a Life of Sense or a fruition of that Good which is not only proportionate or accommodate to a sensible Life or Nature but in a fruition of something answerable to the eminence and nature of an intellective Faculty Now it is apparent to any considerate Man that the Operations the Objects the Delight of the intellectual and rational Faculties of Understanding and Will lye higher than the Faculties of Sense and have little communion with them The very contemplation of natural Causes and Effects if we went no higher are not in order to a sensitive Good but often deprive us of it the contemplation and action of moral Virtues are above the reach of Sense tranquillity of Mind peace of Conscience perception and fruition of the favour and love of God the satisfaction of the Understanding in that contemplation the motion and tendency of the Will towards it as its chiefest Good These are things that delight and please the Intellectual Nature if not basely and grosly immersed in and prostituted to the Animal Nature are more grateful sapid and delightful to the Mind than the best Apparatus or Provisions of a sensible Good 2. Again it is apparent that the very excellency and preference of the Intellectual Nature doth render the fruition of the Good of Sense less good less satisfactory than it is to the Brutes the Good of Sense is so far from being the specifical or peculiar end of Man that the very Make Texture and Order of his nobler Faculties renders it not only incomplete but deficient and less competent to him than if he had not this excellency of Faculties which are specifical to his Nature And therefore certainly it can never be that Good that is the appropriate end of fruition in Man for it is less good to the Beasts and that even upon the very account of the excellencies of his Faculties I shall give many Instances hereof The fruition of the delights of Sense in the Beasts are more entire simple and unallayed than they are in Men because it is apparent that in the Intellective Nature there is something that checks controls and sowrs the fruition of Sense namely the Conscience which hath oftentimes a contrary motion and checks the inferior Faculties of Sense even when it oftentimes cannot control it it chides and allays the contentation of sensual Delights so that even in Laughter the Heart is sorrowful but the Brutes have no such correction of their Delights in fruition of Sense but are entire in their enjoyments Again it is a great perfection of the Humane Nature that it hath a more fixed strong and compact memory of things past than the Brutes have A Brute forgets his fruitions when they are past hath not the sense much less the memory of any faults or follies committed by him and therefore his present fruitions are not sowred with the remembrance of those better seasons of delight that he once had But Man hath ever a remembrance of what is past he remembers his faults and follies and what sensible advantages he lost by this or that inadvertence oversight or folly if his prosperity or fruition were formerly greater it depreciates his present enjoyment so that the excellence of his memorative Faculties makes his present enjoyment faint weak and tastless Again Man hath a more exquisite sense of present incumbent evils than the Beasts have as his fruition of the sensible Good he enjoys is not so entire as the Beasts so his sense of any incumbent evil is more sharp quick and galling than that of the Beasts and thereby his present sensible contentations are sowred and allayed When Haman had all the sensible Honours Wealth Affluence that the Court of the greatest Monarch in the World could yield him yet the want of a bow from Mordecai sowred all his enjoyments and made him sick for the want of it And when Ahab had all the Honours and Provisions that a Kingdom could afford him yet the want of Naboth's little Vineyard rendred all his enjoyments tastless And this Consideration is easily improveable if we consider that the very state and condition of our sensible Life hath many more distastful and sharp ingredients than the brutal Life hath and the greatest sensual Contentments in Man are commonly haunted with more than one of these displeasing Guests The Beasts have no sense of reproach dishonour disgrace which yet sit close upon Men especially of great Spirits and Enjoyments The Diseases and Distempers in Man are ten to one more in number and sharper or longer than in Beasts and any of these render the best sensual Enjoyments either tastless or vexing Again and most principally of all the rest the Brutes have little prospect to the future if any at all their provisions for things to come as for the Winter for their Young and the like seem not so much acts of distinct knowledge or foresight of the future as certain connatural Instincts alligated to their nature by the wise and intelligent disposition of their most wise Creator And hence it is that they have no consideration or fear of death till they feel it and if they have a good Pasture at present they are not solicitous how long it will last or what they shall do after they are not tormented with fears of what may come because they have no anticipations or suspitions of what may be in the future and by this means their enjoyments are sincere unallayed with fears or suspitions they fear not death because they are not sensible of their own mortality till they feel themselves dying But the case is quite otherwise with Man the excellency of his Faculties and the impression of Experience and Observation gives him a foresight of many things that will come and a strong suspition of many more that may come and by this means he anticipates Miseries and becomes twice miserable first in fears pre-apprehensions and anticipation and then again in the actual undergoing of it and if those suspected and feared evils never overtake him yet he is equally if not more miserable than if they did For his pre-apprehensions and suspitions renders them as sharp as if they were felt and many times sharper by the apposition of the most hideous and aggravating circumstances that his thoughts and fears can fashion And this very advantage of anticipation and foresight which is a perfection and excellence in Man above the Brutes saddens his Joy galls and frets his sensual Contentment and upon the very account of his own excellency and perfection renders the fruition of a sensible good utterly incompetible to be that end of fruition which the wise God designed for him Thus when he hath Wealth and Plenty he is under a thousand cares and fears sometimes of false Accusers sometimes of Thieves and Robbers sometimes of Fire and Casualty and while he is rich and plentiful in fruition he is poor and miserable by anticipation If he be in Health and Strength whereby sensual Goods