case the window of Momus were very necessary for it How ever it be the soul is not content after this manner only to agitate the spirits and the humors in the passions she also causeth those parts to move which are capable of a voluntary motion as being those which are the most powerful to seek and imbrace good and to repel or flye evil and to speak truth this motion of the spirits is often a succour very useless to the soul and which serves rather to shew her precipitation and blindness then to obtain what she proposed to her self for when they cast themselves into the face she fancies to her self that it is she her self that runs thither and when they retire themselves to the heart it s she also who hides her self there although she be already at the place where she would arrive and that she abandons not that wheene she thinks to estrang herself and what benefit is it to a Creature for the spirits and the blood to goe to the encounter of an agreeable object since neither the soul nor the body come nearer to it nor are any more united to it and that the sences only are they which ought to make this union we may say the same of the resistance she would make to those ills which present themselves for what relation is there betwixt the spirits and an injury and what effect can they make to drive back an ill which most commonly is only in opinion which sometimes is no more or which even is not yet made But it is not thus with voluntary motion for indeed here the hands draw and take what 's useful the body is carryed towards what is lovely it truly keeps a distance from what 's ill and flyes or drives away what incommodates it It s true that there are some of these motions where the soul deceives it self aswel as in that of the spirits how many lost steps ridiculous postures and idle words are there in Passions to what use are these several motions of the head those different figures which the forehead the eyes the nose and the mouth form There may be some relation with the design which the soul proposed since its certain that in shame she casts down the eyes as if she would hide herself that she lifts them up in Anger as if that served to repel an injury and that in scorn she lifts up the nose as if she would drive away what she disdains But it s easie to perceive that herein also she deceives her self and that the blindness and trouble in which she is causeth her to use means which benefit her nothing to the obtaining of what she desires 'T is not that she is therefore to be condemned in all these motions there are many which happen without any design of hers which although they are not against her intention yet she is not the cause of them 't is but by a certain necessity that they follow those motions which the soul inwardly excites for we cannot with reason say that she proposeth in anger the hinderance of respiration and of speech the inflammation of the face and the sparkling of the eyes But these are effects which follow the agitation of the spirits which impetuously cast themselves on the exterior parts as we shall say hereafter By this discourse we may not only perceive what the causes of those motions which the Passions excite are but also which those are which make moral Characters and which make the corporal For those which the soul imploys by a clear and distinct knowledge to obtain the end she pretends in every Passion make the moral Characters and those which she useth by a pure instinct or which happen without any intention of hers form the corporal Characters For these latter are of two sorts the one are by the command of the soul the other are by necessity as you will see more particularly in the following discourses CHAP. II. The Characters of Love LOVE is not only the Spring of all the Passions but even of all the good and of all the ill which happens to men without it there would be no Sciences in the world Vertue would be without followers and Civill society would be but an imaginary good it is that which breeds in us the desire of fair things and makes us possesse them and by a wonderful incantation changeth and transformeth us into them to it we owe all the good things we possesse it may give us those which we want and if it drive not from us the ills which necessarily accompany this life at least it sweetens them nay and even renders them pleasing makes them the instruments of our felicity But this is it also that corrupts vertue ruins society and renders art despicable And if it hath truely brought into the world these excellent things it seems it is only to drive them out again That noble vigor which incites the minde to fair actions that divine fire wherewith they say the soul is clothed and which naturally raiseth it towards Heaven languisheth and dys under the weight of base and terrestrial things upon which this Passion fixeth it In short its this that forms all the tempests which agitate our life there would be no grief no fear nor no despair were there no love and who ever will neerly consider all the passions will easily beleeve that they are but several motions which it causeth and different figures which it assumes Now as there are but few objects which can reach the soul which are not able to move this passion And whereas Riches Honor Pleasure and in a word all Goods whether false or true may raise it we will not here disimbroile this Chaos and our design gives us not leave to speak of any other kind of love but that which beauty begets in the appetite Neither is it a slight enterprize notwith standing the helps those great men of the times past have given us and what endeavour soever we have already made to discover its origine yet are we constrained to confesse that there is somewhat in it which is divine whereto our spirit cannot attain and the same poverty which we finde as they say at its birth happens also in our thoughts when we would speak of it so that were it necessary to observe all the effects thereof we might sooner count the waves of the sea then the motions it causeth in the soul neither doth heat produce or corrupt more things in the world then love causeth both good and evil actions In effect its the instrument of that divine Art which Nature hath provided to preserve her most exellent works without it long since we had no more spoken of Families of Peoples or of Common-wealths and those which were esteem'd the most flourishing had been but the Assemblys of a sort of wild savage beasts had not love sweetned and civilz'd them for it s it that forms us to a civil life which is the true
sometimes retire towards its Center in a word make all the motions which are to be observed in the Passions It is not then necessary that the will be separate from the understanding and that there be a space betwixt the two to cause the motion of which we speak agitating it self in it self and driveing its parts towards the Idea of good which is represented it by the understanding it unites it self to it as much as it can and so canseth the Passion of Love it is just so with the sensitive appetite for although its principal organ be far from that of the imagination we must not beleeve that these two faculties are quite shut up in these parts they disperse themselves through the whole body and are alwayes joyned together as we will more at large shew in the discourse of Joy So that the motion which is there made is like that of the will and in the one and the other Love is but a motion of the appetite which directly carries it self towards the Idea of good and unites it thereunto which is not effected in the rest of the Passions as we will make it appear You have now seen what Love is in general whence its easie to observe its differences by the differences of those objects which may move it for as there are goods of the minde of the body and of fortune and as every of them is honest useful or delightful its certain that although the motions whereby we Love all these things are of the same nature and that in general they have the same end which is to unite the appetite to what is good yet are they different between themselves because these goods are different so there is a Love of Riches Pleasures Honours and Vertues in a word as many as there are kinds of false or true goods so many sorts of Love there are of which we have here no intention to speak because the greatest part of those kinds are comprehended in the vertues and the vices of which we shall treat hereafter And because we have restrained our selves to that Love which beauty breeds in the appetite This Love may be defined a Motion of the appetite by which the soul unites it self to what seems fair unto it So that all the diversity that there is betwixt this definition and that of Love in general consists in beauty wherefore we have two things to examine First what beauty is in the second place why it causeth Love but because this search is extreamly high and difficult and that it may break the connexion of this discourse we have remitted it to the end of this Chapter to speak of the effects which Love causeth in the humors and in the spirits PART 3. What that Motion is which Love causeth in the Spirits and in the Humors SInce that the motions of the spirits and of the blood are in the Passions conformable with those which the Soul feels in it self There is no doubt but that Love uniting the appetite to the Idea of the good which is represented to it produceth also in the spirits a certain motion which seconds its design and renders this union the more forcible but as the sences serves us but little to know the difference of these motions the understanding must supply their defect and must by discourse shew us what this motion of the spirits is which is the most uniting since 't is that which ought to accompany this Passion to which end you must suppose two things to be most true The first that the Heart is the chief organ of the sensitive appetite The second that the Brain is that of the imagination now as the Idea of good is formed in the imagination and the motion of the spirits begins at the Heart the soul must of necessity having a design to unite them to the good it hath conceived transport them from the place where they begin to move towards that where they are to meet this object And because this first birth of Love is from the inward union of the appetite whereof we have spoken the first motion which the spirits also suffer must drive them to the brain where it seems this union ought to be for the Idea goes not out of the Faculty which produceth it as hath been showen and forasmuch as the spirits carry with them heat and blood from thence it comes that the imagination of Lovers is heated and afterwards brings forth so many fair productions and sometimes too extravagancies if the motion and heat be too violent we may say besides that the paleness which is so common to them partly comes from the transport of the spirits which are within the brain which forsaking the face leave it without heat or splendor but if the beloved object be presented to the sences then do the greatest part of these spirits run to the outward parts colouring them with the blood they draw along with them and which is the purest of the veines as we will shew you anon It s true there are Passions which mingle with this and often cause a contrary motion to that whereof we have spoken in the humors But we shall consider here only the effects proper to Love and not those he borrows from others so that we may conclude that the first effect of Love upon the spirits is to send them out of the heart and to transport them to the brain and to the exterior parts But this is not enough we ought to observe whether in this motion they move either with liberty or with constraint that 's to say whether they dilate or restrain themselves For these seem to be the two first differences of local motion now as there are but two encounters which may oblige the soul to restrain the spirits in their Motion to wit when either she repels or flyes from what 's ill because in the one she hath a care of fortifying her self and to that end to gather and reunite the spirits and in the other the flight is not made without a compression which precipitates and confounds them together its evident that there are none of these motions in this Passion which considering nothing but the goodness of its object it sees no enemy which it would assault or that it ought to fear so that it agitates the spirits with liberty it dilates them and seems to open them the better to receive the pretended good and so the more perfectly to unite it thereunto Let 's go on and see whether this motion be unequal and whether it be made with that vehemency which happens in impetuous Passions It s certain that anger moves the spirits and the humors with more confusion and disorder then Love by reason of divers and often endeavours which the minde is forced to make to drive out the ill and that it is like those Torrents whose waves precipitate themselves one upon the other and make a stream full of boylings and foamings but that Love makes
moves it self and that infirmity looseth the speech or if we do speak it is with pain and stammering whereto the quantity of humors also contributes which through Desire fill the mouth for it hinders that the tongue cannot so easily turn it self and that it strikes not the voice clearly Besides the distraction we now speak of is also a cause that Lovers hear not half what others say and that their discourse is commonly confused extravagant Even the sighs wh ch every moment cut one another owe their first original to that great attention of spirit which diverts the soul and makes it lose the remembrance of the most necessary actions of life for sending not spirits enough to cause respiration the lungs beat but slowly and the heart draws not that help which is expected from their service forasmuch as they furnish not it sufficiently with air to temper that fire which this Passion kindles and that they discharge it not often enough of those fumes and vapors which the agitation of the humors raiseth there Now after this disorder hath continued some time and that at last it might ruine all the natural ceonomy the soul being urged by necessity awakes again and seeks to supply its defect by these great and extraordinary respirations and indeed sighs are principally begot at the issue out of some thought which hath forcibly detained the minde and not whilst it was employed therein The face grows pale whether it be that the spirits retire within the brain as we have already said or because that in the progress of this Passion the stomack grows weak and the blood changeth for since that the diversion of the spirits diverts also the heat vertue which ought to pass into the stomack to cause digestion you must not wonder if it become languishing if the aliments change into crudities and if the blood it makes be impure since that the last concoction corrects not the defects of the former But what helps forward this disorder is the continual ardor which this Passion kindles in the blood and the several agitations which Fear Grief and Anger at every moment excite for that dissipates the spirits and makes the faculties become languishing and the humors enflame and corrupt themselves which at last grows to that Erotick sickness which the Physitians place in the ranck of folly and fury The blood being then in this condition retains no more nether its vertue nor its natural colour It becomes useless to the nourishment of the parts and no longer communicates that pleasing vermillion which formerly it bestowed upon them and so they must needs become pale lean and withered By the same reason the appetite is lost because that the beloved object occupying all the thoughts of the Soul takes away its care of all the functions of Life the spirits being also diverted no longer bear into the stomack that sentiment which causeth the appetite In fine the disorder which is in the humors and in all the natural parts hinders this from performing its function Sleep being the rest of common sence of the spirits seldom happens in violent Passions detaining the Soul and the body in a continual agitation but Love endures it less then the rest because that besides the tempest it raiseth it at last corrupts the blood whose vapours are sharp and which consequently want that sweet humidity which Iulleth the Senses It s true that langour and weariness sometimes procure it because the soul knows that life cannot subsist without it and that after so great a dissipation of spirits its necessary to repair them to which end it gathers them together and stays them For although this moist vapor which commonly provokes sleep happen not here as we said but now yet must we not beleeve that sleep can come by no other means it hath two ordinary and natural causes the vapor which stops the passage of the spirits and the soul which binds and stays them now here being no vapor to produce this effect necessity obligeth the soul to labour it alone of her self But this sleep is interrupted with dreams which continually agitate the minde forasmuch as the imagination which in that condition loseth not the liberty of working and being full of those images which Passion suggests turns over continually confounds and augments them so that they always present to it things greater then in effect they are and afterwards form in the appetite more powerful motions then the true objects would do The remembrance or the unexpected arrival of the beloved party swels the heart and the pulse because the soul dilates the organs to receive the good and to send forth spirits to its encounter a great difficulty upon this occasion is proposed to wit whether Love have a kind of pulse proper to it alone for that some have vaunted the discovery of this Passion by the beating of the arteries But without stopping at the contests which are formed hereupon we will boldly say that there is no more reason to give one which is proper to Anger and to Grief then to Love That the heart can no less resent the motion which this Passion causeth in the appetite then it can that which the others excite and that the organs moving conformably to the intention of the minde this part must be otherwise agitated in Love then in other passions since it hath a diffent designe from what the others have It s true its hard exactly to discover this difference because men have made no just observation thereof and perhaps it is impossible to make it for that the heart is shut up in the Center of the Body and that it suffers motions which it communicates not with the arteries yet amongst such kinds of pulses as have been observed we may yet find some one which particularly belongs to Love To understand this you must know that the heart hath many motions which are common to several Passions for it dilates it self in Joy in Hope and in Anger and contracts it self in Grief and in Fear and in Despair in some it goes quick and with violence in others slow and languishing and its certain these general differences cannot all alone mark those which are proper to every Passion but as Physick teacheth us that there are twenty kinds of simple pulses and that they may diversly mix the one with the other every Passion may finde in this great variety that kind which is proper to it thus the pulse of Anger is not only great and lifted up or quick or frequent or vehement but it is composed of all these differences That of Fear is quick hard unequal and irregular That of Joy is great rare and slow That of Grief is weak little slow and rare and as they say these are the kindes of pulses which are proper to these Passions we may also observe in the same manner one proper to Love and indeed therein the beating of the arteries is great large unequal and irregular it
is great and large because the heart opens to receive the good which presents it self as was before said it is unequal and irregular by reason of the several Passions with which this is continually traversed for as we do not here speak of that simple and imperfect Love which is yet but in the soul but of that which is compleat and finished and which hath already made impressions on the body it is impossible but Desire and Fear Joy and Grief should at every moment confound themselves with it whence consequently happens the unequal motion of the heart and of the arteries and this is chiefly to be observed at the remembrance or unexpected arrival of the beloved person For after this first elevation which is made at this encounter it changeth a hundred wayes it appears little and languishing and immediately returns to its first vehemency from swift and light it becomes slow and heavy and all at once it reassumes its first quickness which it loseth again in an instant and passeth thus from one difference to another without order and without proportion There are but very few Characters which remain to be examined whose causes are not very evident For the disquiet comes from the divers agitations which the soul feels the shiverings and the ardors follow the flowing and ebbing of the Spirits forasmuch as Fear and Grief which retire them within take away from the exterior parts the heat they had even as Joy and Hope restore and augment it and as Boldness and Anger gather the spirits together strength also encreaseth as it diminisheth when Joy dissipates or Grief stiffles them There remaines no more difficulties to be found but in the Syncopes and Extasies which sometimes happen to Lovers but we have already shewed that Love could not alone cause Syncopes nor faintings but that it must be Grief Despair or Joy For the Extasie its true it may proceed from Love yet we must observe that the word hath divers significations the Physitians often take it for an extreme alienation of the spirit such as those have who are frantick or mad sometimes for that strange disease which they call Catoche which all at once takes away the use of sence and motion and keeps the body stiffe in the same posture in which it surprised it there are some who beleeve that the true Extasie is made when the soul doth no action in the body whether it dwell there or that indeed it issue forth for a time as it happens in those which are possest and in those who are ravished by the spirit of God but that whereof we speak is nothing else but a certain ravishment of the soul which takes from the body the use of exterior sence and motion the imagination and the understanding not forbearing to operate which happens by a strong attention which binds the soul to the beloved object which makes it lose the care of all animal functions and which imploying all the spirits in that thought hinders them from flowing to the organs of sence and motion and this ravishment may sometimes Pass to such an excess that the vital faculties may receive no more influence from the soul so that respiration will cease and that there will be onley natural vertue to sustain life PART 5. Of the nature of Beauty in general and why it begets LOVE ALthough the Senses were given to the Minde to help it to know things yet it seems that those things which are the most sensible are the least known And I know not whether it be a grace or an artifice of Nature to bring those things neerest our Senses which ought to be furthest from our Mindes and by that exteriour knowledge to recompense the little progress we might make in that which was true and essential However it be it s most evident that we are sensible of nothing in the world more then of Beauty nor nothing is more difficult to be known the greatest men who have been most sensible of its effects were ignorant of the Causes thereof and we may say that it hath made them lose their Reason when they were but touched with it and would have discoursed of it For some have said that it was a just proportion of the parts others that it was the form of things in fine that it was the splendor and glittering of Goodness it self But this last definition is equivocal and metaphorical and the other cannot be applied but to the Divine beauty which is the source and model of all Beauties forasmuch as in the Unity and infinite Simplicity of God there can be no proportion or form That we may therefore steer a more certain course then what hitherto hath been followed and that we may not wander in so vast and difficult a matter we must consider that things are not esteemed fair but as they fall under a very distinct and exact knowledge So that there are only the objects of the Understanding and of Seeing and of Hearing to which we allow Beauty because that all the Knowing faculties are those which most perfectly judge of their objects and are the least mistaken in them And these same objects which we judge Fair are also esteemed Good for we do not onely say A fair minde a fair speech or a fair colour but they may be also called good But the objects of the other Senses and all the other powers may onely be stiled Good and can never deserve the title of Fair for it were a ridiculous thing to say that heat or humidity sweetness or bitterness were fair Whence we must necessarily conclude that all what is Good is not Fair but all that is Fair is good and therefore that Fair is a species of Good Now as Good is not good but as it is agreeable the Fair since it is good must be agreeable to something and therefore if what is fair serve but for an object onely to the knowing faculties we must necessarily conclude that Fair is that which is agreeable to the intelligent faculties as good is agreeable to what ever it be Now because Knowledge hath no other object but the essence and the truth of things Beauty must needs be of that kinde and the objects must be the fairer where the essence and the truth are best exprest for which cause Souls are fairer then Bodies and the Understanding which knows interiour things is more capable to judge of Beauty then the Senses which know onely the exteriour Whence it also happens that Beasts are seldom moved by Beauty because Sense onely works in them in stead that in Man the Understanding concurs to his action and penetrates further into the Nature and Essence of its objects And we experiment in our selves that those things which we do not greatly heed and whose nature we do not well know seem less fair unto us and that its onely for Masters in an Art to judge of the beauty of a work because they alone have the true knowledge thereof
but also as we have already shewed in our discourse of Love that this complacency is no true pleasure and that the Daemons which are capable of that acceptableness cannot be touched with Joy which yet they ought most perfectly to have if it come from knowledge alone we must then stick to the common opinion and with it say that Pleasure is a motion of the appetite since its good which moves that part of the minde and that pleasure hath no other object but the same good Yet this raiseth another difficulty for if it be true that the soul ceaseth to move when it arives at the end whereto it tended moving to possess a good the possession ought to be the end and term of its motion So that the pleasure which comes alwayes after the possession is rather a rest then a motion of the appetite and yet if we were agreed that possession is the aim and end of the motions of the minde we would say that that onely ought to be understood of those which it employs to arrive thereunto for although it bear it self not towards the good it possesseth it hinders it not from agitating to taste it again and from being ravished in the enjoyment it hath had but to speak more exactly possession is not the last end which the soul proposeth it is the enjoyment which is the perfection and accomplishment of the possession For it is certain we possess things which we enjoy not and we may say that the good renders it self master of the Soul when it presents and unites it self unto it but that she becomes mistris of it when she enjoys it After all this we can never say that rest is the end which the soul proposeth to it self since the end is the perfection of things and that there are some which must be always in action to be perfect Now the soul is of this kinde she never tends to rest unless out of weakness and it is therefore necessary that Joy and Enjoyment be in motion let us then see what an one it is To discover it we must observe that Pleasure and Joy are never formed in the soul till after the good hath inspired Love therein for as the first motion of the appetite towards good is to unite it self thereunto and Love consists in this union it is impossible that any man should fancy any other motion which could be posterior to that and therefore if Pleasure be a motion of the soul towards good it ought to presuppose love always come after it Now as this Love always precedes it follows not that it must always accompany it there may be obstacles which may hinder the appetite from moving to form this Passion and grief perhaps may be so great that it may employ the whole soul that it will not admit the least ray of Joy but it s also certain that if there be nothing which retains the appetite it always goes from Love to Pleasure because the soul unites it self to good but to enjoy it and it is impossible it should enjoy it but by Pleasure and to speak truth enjoyment is nothing but pleasure which we finde in the possession of good and according as enjoyment is more perfect it is also the greater and the more excellent What motion can the appetite then suffer in pleasure and enjoyment beyond that of Love whereby it unites it self to what is good certainly it is a thing very difficult to conceive how these actions should pass into a power which is quite blinde and hid in the bottome of the soul they must be extreamly obscure and what light soever the minde can bring they suffer themselves to be seen not without a great deal of trouble yet since we have engaged our selves to shew the difference of the Passions by the difference of corporal motions we must necessarily to know what Joy is finde in sensible things a kinde of motion which may resemble the agitation which the Minde suffers in this encounter As it happens then in the Passion of Love that the Appetite carries it self towards the beloved object that it runs thither and unites it self thereunto we may say that this motion is like to that of fluid bodies which run toward their centre and think to finde their rest there but because when they are there they for all that stop not they return and scatter themselves on themselves they swell and consequently over-flow So after that the Appetite is united to its good its motion ends not there it returns the same way scatters it self on it self and over-flows those powers which are neerest to it By this effusion the soul doubles on the image of the good it hath received mixeth and confoundeth it self with it and so thinks to possess it the more by doubly uniting it self thereunto Nay even as the Appetite swells and thicks by this reflux it cannot contain it self within its bounds and is constrained to distil it self into that faculty which acquainted it with the knowledge of the object sharing with it the good it hath received and by that means making all the parts of the soul concur to the possession thereof wherein perfect enjoyment consists For since the soul hath no other end but perfectly to possess the good and that perfectly to possess it it must have the knowledge of that possession the Appetite having no knowledge cannot alone make it enjoy what it loves the Imagination and the Understanding must contribute and then after they have proposed the good to the Appetite and that the Appetite is united thereunto it returns to the one and to the other and gives them an account of what it hath done to the end that by uniting their functions the soul may unite it self to its good in all its parts and that it may make for it that circular motion which is natural to it and wherein the accomplishment and perfection of its operations consists as the Platonick Philosophy teacheth After all if it be true that the Soul and the Spirits work in the same manner in the Passions we may not doubt but that the motion which the soul suffers in Joy is such as we have said since that of the spirits is altogether like it For after Love hath carried them to good they scatter and over-flow themselves on the organs of the Senses as we are about to make known So that we cannot miss in saying That Joy is an effusion of the Appetite whereby the Soul spreads it self on what is good to possess it the more perfectly I know that the definition of Aristotle is quite different from this for he says that it is a motion of the Soul which suddenly and sensibly puts it in a state agreeable to Nature But the place where he proposeth it shews sufficiently that he had no intention to render it very exact treating in that place but with Orators and not with Philosophers And truely whoever will neerly examine it will finde nothing less
them towards Good for when they can go no further they must either stop or return to their source or disperse themselves They cannot stop themselves since they follow the then-disturbed agitation of the soul they cannot return to the heart since nothing but the presence of Ill can constrain them thereunto They must then overflow and disperse themselves And the Soul which employs the same motives for the motion of the Spirits as for her own takes care to make them move so that they may be the more united to Good as we have before said For by this effusion they dilate themselves in their organs and occupying more room they think to touch the Good in more of its parts But where can they disperse themselves To understand this you must remember that Good toucheth not the soul but by its presence and that it is Knowledge onely which renders it present Now this Knowledge is made by the Understanding and by the Imagination or by the Senses And as the Imagination is seated in the brain and the Senses in their particular organs so Good must be in the one or the other of them and consequently Love must carry the Spirits to those places and Joy disperse them in the same precincts For if Good be onely in the Fancie and that it toucheth not the exteriour Senses all the Spirits arrive at the seat of the Imagination and disperse themselves in the brain But if any of the Senses possess this Good then the Spirits which ran thither disperse themselves also on their organs and carry thither heat redness and vivacity This effusion augments the Pleasure of the Minde by reason of that sweet and temperate heat which runs thorow the parts which flatters and tickles them So that those Pleasures which are accompanied with this corporal agitation are greater and more sensible then when they are without it Nay even after the emotion of the Appetite hath ceased the agitation of the Spirits continuing leaves the soul in a certain confused Joy which comes not from the object which at first touched it but from that tickling which the Senses made known unto it as a thing conformable and convenient for their nature And this makes me believe that all those secret Joys which we feel without knowing a reason of them come from the same cause and that there must necessarily be something which disperseth the Spirits and which inspires Pleasure in the soul whether it be the knowledge it hath of the tickling of those parts or whether that all the differences of the motions which it employs in every Passion being known unto her she sees this to be fit for Joy and at the same time forms a delightful object as we said it happened in that love which is out of inclination You will perhaps say that this effusion of Spirits may often be without Pleasure That Anger which casts them into the face that Grief which draws them to the diseased parts and that the Fever which drives them everywhere with impetuosity afterwards disperseth them and causeth the same alteration which Joy imprints on the body and yet that the Soul is then sensible of no pleasure But we may two ways answer this First it is true that the most delightful objects are often diverted by little griefs from making an impression in the soul This motion of the Spirits which is so secret and which the Senses can scarce discover ought to be far less powerful against great obstacles which cause these troublesome encounters But supposing they did cause pleasure it is so weak and so light that it is stifled by the least sensible inconvenience For it is an observable thing that although it seems that the Sensitive Appetite at the same time cannot suffer contrary Passions it is not absolutely true since we evidently know that the tongue is pleased with agreeable savours whilst the heart is full of bitterness and grief And the reason of this is that the Sensitive Appetite is not shut up in one part onely as the most part of the other faculties are it is dispersed thorow all the organs of the Senses and we may say that its stock and root are indeed in the heart but that its boughs and branches are extended thorow all the body For it s a general and necessary power to all the parts of the Creature and it must have been communicated to all that Motion might not be far off from knowledge and that the Soul might not languish in expectation to possess a good or flee from an ill when they were once come to her knowledge Nature having made for the appetite what she made for the pulse whose principal organ is the heart and yet which forms it self in all the arteries where even it is sometimes found different from that which agitates the heart Which being so Pleasure may be in one place and Grief in another although they are in one part incompatible But it is also true that when Passion is raised in the Centre and source of the appetite that which is in the little rivulets is very weak and seems to vanish although the Spirits cease not to agitate in those places where it was formed whence these secret feelings of Pleasure follow which often steal themselves from the knowledge of the understanding nay even of the imagination This is the first answer which may be made to the proposed objection now for another which pleaseth us more as being better fitted to our designe for we will show how every Passion hath a particular motion of the spirits and that then if the effusion be in others as well as Joy there must be some difference which renders it fit and particular and which is not to be found in the rest We must then confess that Anger Grief and Terrour and divers other exterior things may disperse the spirits but by violence and as a tempest which scatters the rain and transports it here and there with impetuosity in stead whereof Joy sweetly disperseth them and makes them distil on the parts as a sweet dew now this causeth many different impressions on the Senses For the spirits which are driven with force which precipitate themselves one on the other cause a troublesome sentiment to nature and rather provoke it then flatter it but those which disperse themselves as themselves and sweetly insinuate themselves into the parts tickle and content it Considering that in those Passions which have ill for their object the spirits keep themselves united contracted to assault or flee from it whence it is that they are piercing and offend the parts they light on but in Joy wherin they dilate themselves to embrace the good it must needs blunt their point and make them lose the impetuosity they had before So that what effusion soever there is in Anger and in Grief its never accompanied with pleasure because it is not like that which is with Joy to avow this we must onely consult the countenance of
good action or when we consent to the will or advice of another to signifie by this casting down that she submits herself to the good which by reason of its excellency and because it always communicates it self with some empire can never be but with some submission and allowance it must needs be I say by the reason of contraries that when she perceives any ill she who hath a natural aversion from it which in its presence always disquiets its self and with which she can never have any society or communication must also make some outward motion which represents her impatience and the endeavor she makes to estrange herself from it Now he that shall consider the shaking of the Head which we speak of will easily confess that there is none which can better express her averseness her disquiet and the care she takes not to unite herself with it for aversion causeth the turn away of the Head impatience makes the change of posture and those contrary and redoubled motions make it appear that she will not unite with it since union in natural things is always made by a simple and uniform motion if there be no obstacle which hinders it Besides this it will be nothing difficult to declare why Anger produceth the same effect since it hath the same object which the rest of the Passions have and that it cannot consider its enemy but as a vexatious ill for the which it hath an aversion and whereunto it will ever witness the hatred it bears and the impatience it hath to revenge it self In effect this shaking of the Head is a kind of threat whereby we intend to fright people and which is not made use of in fight or when we come to blows threatnings being then useless as hath been said As for the other motion of the Head upwards Why we lift up the Head it is but little observable in this Passion unless when it would witness the scorn which it conceives of advice given it or of the designs and threatnings of the enemy In effect it is a Character fit for Scorn for him to whom we propose a thing which he slights usually to lift up his Nose to witness thereby that he rejects and repels it as unworthy of his esteem and care Finally Why we turn the Head Anger often causeth a man to turn and lift his Head on one side chiefly when he cannot or will not be revenged For when we receive an injury from a powerful person and have not the power to demand satisfaction we cause our resentment to appear by that action which is familiar to children that have a courage after they have been ill used as also those who form a design to revenge themselves when their enemy is absent or far off Because those are not then in a capacity to execute their revenge by reason of their weakness nor these by reason of the absence or far distance of him who hath offended them On the other side when for some certain consideration a man will not revenge himself although he may as when we esteem the injury not very considerable or that those who have done it deserves a more severe chastisement we content our selves with this motion of the Head to cause some fear in them And certainly it is in the rank of those actions which serve for threatnings whereby the Soul intends a displeasure or an apprehension in those who have offended her making them believe that those slight punishments are but the beginnings of a greater vengeance as hath been said However it be she intends thereby to make known that the injury toucheth her and that she means to retort it but that she retains this Passion and gives it not the liberty to go further for it turns the head to witness aversion it lifts it up to signifie its endeavor and presently brings it into its first posture to shew that it hath no more to do and that its enough for it to have witnessed its courage and resentment Some perhaps may say That we often perform the same action when we finde a thing to be excellent as when we would declare that a thing is well done that a man hath some eminent vertue that Wine is extreamly good To which we must answer That there is a great deal of difference betwixt these two For besides that in this we never turn the Head it is not thrown but as we have said it is rather drawn and raised up neither falls it again so soon as in Anger because its admiration which causeth this motion which raising up the Soul and keeping it in suspence to consider the wonder she incounters disposeth of the organs conformable to the condition she is then in Whereunto must also be added that the subject of admiration which here occupies the Mind is but mean for when it s very great it not onely causeth a man to lift up the Head on one side but he lifts it up altogether he opens also his Eyes and his Mouth raiseth and extends his Arms and all his parts take such an extatick figure which usually accompanies those great transports and raptures of the Soul as shall be said elsewhere But let us conclude this enquiry which to many may seem of no use or too much scruple and let us see whether Anger may be lulled asleep and whether it affords any release to the Mind whilst the Body is at rest We cannot doubt but that if Sleep can hardly insinuate it self in those Passions which are least violent it is as it were impossible that it should ever surprise this which is altogether in excess and vehemency The calm it is accompanied withal cannot agree with the tempest it raiseth and whether it be formed by the intermission of the Soul which knits and stops the spirits or by means of those sweet vapors which digestion sends up which like pleasant clouds tempers the heat of the Brain and shuts the passage of the sences we ought not to expect that any of these causes should produce it here wherein there are none but sharp and burning vapors which heated Choler causeth to rise up in the Brain and wherein the Soul is so powerfully agitated that far from being able to stop the Spirits she cannot retain even herself Yet this ought to be understood of the time when this Passion is in its rage and in its greatest ardor for when it is a little appeased it suffers sleep to benum the sences to repair those losses which its watchings and labour hath caused But what rest soever it affords it forbears not to preserve in the Soul and in the Humors the remains of that storm which Anger had raised in them For it is commonly disturbed with a thousand kinde of Dreams which sometimes represent fires and burnings sometimes threatnings and Combates and Victories now the cause of all these Dreams comes either from the imagination which being still full of those species which Passion had
there left and feeling also if we may so speak the shake which the desire of Vengeance had given it it insensibly suffers it self to be carried away and so continues its first designs which it always causeth happily to succeed being no longer conducted by the Sences nor by Reason nor taking any other counsel but such as self-love and Pride which Anger brings along with it affords it For it is from thence these advantages come which a man who sleeps upon his wrath believes he receives in all his Dreams it seems to him that he is alwayes the stronger of the better address he never sees his Enemy but he represents him unto himself either weak or submitting and he in them undertakes no combate but he comes off with the Victory and in Triumph But it may also happen that the Soul may be altogether in a calm and that no remains of the trouble which the Passion had before brought may stay behind and yet all these illusions will not forbear to happen and then it is no longer a continuation of its first designs but a new motion which the Spirits and the Humors raise in the fancy for whether their agitation subsists after that of the Soul the impression of the motion preserving it self longer in these bodies then in the Appetite whether by reason Choler being separated from the mass of blood cannot so soon resume its just place both are able to form all these violent Dreams which we have spoken of The difficulty is to know how this may be done since these things touch not the sences which are benummed nor consequently the imagination which works onely on those images which it hath thence received And were they even at liberty there is no likelihood that they should know what passeth thus in the secret of the Veins What then is it which can raise in the Soul all these Chimera's and Phantasms which have so much relation with that Motion which the spirits then suffer and so much resemblance with that humor which is in disorder We must certainly confess that besides this exterior knowledge which the Sences afford her she hath another which is interior and secret which Nature hath inspired by means whereof she sees and knows all what is done in her organs and that with that light she who is present with all the parts easily observes what is done in them and afterwards communicates it to the imagination which is as it were the center of all her knowledge But forasmuch as this is obscure and confused she instructs not this Faculty clearly and affords it onely a general view of those objects which concern her it 's for the same reason also that she forms no perfect images which respect things as they are but which onely have some relation and agreement together So when choler is moved although the Soul distinctly knows not the nature nor the species yet she knows it to be a humor which is hot and ardent and upon the report which she hath made thereof to the imagination this fancies to it self sparkling colours flames and burnings which have a conformity with that general notion which she had received of them And because that she also knows that this Humor serves Anger and Boldness to destroy the Enemy which they assault seeing herself in such a condition as in these Passions she useth to be in she presently thereupon proposeth such objects and designes and so forms Enemies Assaults and Combates We may say as much of the agitation which remains in the Spirits after the esmotion of the Soul is at an end For observing it during sleep she who knows that it 's the motion which in Anger she makes use of reingageth herself afresh in this Passion and sleeping reassum the desires and designs of revenâ—â— which waking she had already given over She doth the like also proportionably when the other humors are irregular when the spirits finde themselves agitated with the motion of some other Passion in a word it is thus that she forms all Dreams which come from the good or ill disposition of the body as we have shewed in the Treatise of Love out of Inclination There remains two effects onely to be examined concerning which we must consult Physick for it is from her we must learn What Pulse there is in Anger and in what disposition the Heart and the Lungs are when it is kindled in those parts As for the first All Physicians are agreed That the Pulse herein is great high quick frequent and vehement and that the violence of the heat and force of the vital Faculty are the principal causes of all these differences But although all this be true yet we may say that this kinde of Pulse is not proper and particular to Anger since it is also to be found in Boldness as we declared treating of that Passion and that certainly there must be somewhat which hitherto hath not been observed which distinguisheth it from this there being no probability that these two Passions should diversly agitate the Soul and the Spirits without causing also in the Heart and in the Arteries different motions It is therefore certain that in both of them the pulse is great and high but in Boldness it is full and extented and we may feel the Artery under our fingers which swells every way instead that in Anger it puts all her endeavor forwards and without enlarging it self it darts it self outwardly making the pulse thereby high which seems rather streight then large And certainly as the Spirits follow the design of the Soul which throws herself out of herself to assault the Enemy their sally must needs be made as hers is from the center to the circumference and that if the Arteries are to be restrained as it is necessary and as we shall hereafter demonstrate it ought to be by the sides that the Spirits may be left at liberty to dart themselves forth but there is no question to be made of this effect nor of its cause if we remember that Grief and Boldness are here mingled together and that at the same time both of them agitate the Heart and the Arteries with a motion proper to them for if Grief ought to restrain it that Boldness at the same time might open it they must be streightned in some of the parts and enlarged in others in pursuit whereof the Pulse appears high without being extended as hath been said yet we must observe that it is principally so in the motions of Anger or that when it is in the ardor of Vengeance or that it turns into Fury this contraction is no more felt but it is found to be altogether large and full as it is in Boldness or whether the sence of Grief be stifled or its effect suspended by the violence of other Passions or whether the Soul which is then as it were out of herself minds no longer her preservation and without having a care of sheltering her self she blindly
was to be added But as they are actions common to the Minde and to the Body and Physick and Moral Philosophy must help one the other to discourse exactly of them it happened that those who have undertaken it could never employ them both and that those who could have done it have had other designes which have hindered them from discovering to us the nature of these things whose good or ill use causeth all the felicity or mischief of our lives In effect if they are well regulated they form the Vertues and preserve Health but if they grow to excess they are the source whence the disorders of the Soul and of the Body deduce their origine And whoever would consider the great number of Sicknesses which momentanily assault the life of Man and the several ways whereby she customarily loseth her self will finde but few whose first cause was not some one of the Passions of the Minde So that we may say that the most profitable parts of Wisdom and Physick have not hitherto been discovered and that if I have endeavoured to give them any part of my cares and of my small labour I have not so much strayed from my Duty and my Profession as some may imagine To conclude what success soever my Undertaking have it in my opinion deserves some approbation or at least excuse and indeed Reader I must have both to oblige me to pursue it In a word if thy judgement be favourable it will afford me both very much glory and very much pains ERRATA In the Epistle dedicatory page ult line 6. for leave read learn l. 8. for love read have In the Book p. 7. l. 14. for ever read even P. 13. l. 25. for Maintica read Maintion P. 32. l. 4. for other read others P. 48. l. 22. for enlights read enlightens P. 99. l. ult for diffent read different P. 103. an accent upon Catoché P. 133. It would be c. P. 149. l. 24. for thicks read thickens P. 192. l. 14. for ardors read orders P. 226. l. 27. for graceful read grateful P. 260. l. 25. for venters read re-enters P. 272. l. 2 for general read generous P. 282. l. 21. for Theorictus read Theocritus THE CHARACTERS OF THE PASSIONS CHAP. I. What the Characters of the PASSIONS are in generall NATURE having destin'd Man for a civil life thought it not sufficient to have given him a tongue to discover his intentions but she would also imprint on his forehead and in his eyes the images of his thoughts that if his speech happened to belye his heart his face should give the lye to his speech In effect how secret soever the motions of his soul are what care soever he takes to hide them they are no sooner formed but they appear in his face and the disquiet they cause is sometimes so great that they may be truely called tempests which are more violent at Shore then out at Sea And that he who advised a man to consult his glass in his anger had reason to beleeve that the Passions are better known in the eyes then in the soul it self But that which is more wonderful those actions which spring from vertue and vice discover themselves in the same manner And although the goodness or malignity they have seem to have nothing to doe with the body yet they leave with it I know not what kind of images And even the soul not perceiving what it doth disposeth the parts in such a manner that by the plight and posture which they take we may judge whether its actions are good or ill Neither can the understanding work so secretly but the senses must perceive it If it elevate its thoughts if it recollect it self the looks grow fixed the car hears not in fine there is a general suspension of sense and motion And whether it be that at the same time the soul cannot intend such different functions or that the inferiour part respects and wil not divert its Mistris we know that this is imployed when the other operates not It s a most certain thing that the body changeth and varies it self when the soul is moved and that this performs almost no actions but it imprints the marks thereof which we may call Characters since they are the effects of them and that they bear their image and figure Now because the first Rule of Physionomy is grounded on these Characters and that it maketh use of them to discover inclinations assuring us that those who naturally have the same air and the same countenance which accompanies their moral actions are inclined to the same actions The designe which we have undertaken makes us here propose the particular Characters of all the Passions and after them of Vertues and Vices But first we must know wherein these Characters consist and what are the causes of them The Characters of Passions and of habits being the markes of the motions and designs of the soul are also its effects as is already said but because there are also two sorts of effects those which are performed in the soul and those which are effected in the body there are also two kinds of Characters the one Moral the other Corporal For if you consider a man in anger Violence appears in all his actions his words are full of threats and injuries he crys out he runs he strikes reason and remonstrances offend him and he knows no friends but those who favour his passion On the other side his countenance is inflam'd his eyes sparkle he wrinckles his forehead his words are fierce his voice is terrible his lookes are frightful and his whole behaviour is furious These then are two kinds of effects and two sorts of Characters the one whereof consists in moral actions and the other in the change and alteration of the body Now we must see what these actions are and what this change is for all moral actions cannot be used for Characters otherwise some would be Characters of themselves since Passions and Vertues are moral actions To take away this difficulty you must observe that the essence of human actions consists in the inward emotion which the object forms in the appetite and that all those things which are done in pursuance thereof are but as rivolets running from the same spring So anger is nothing but a desire of Vengeance and in the pursuit of that emotion the soul produceth exterior actions which may serve to this purpose as threatnings blows and other violences which we call Characters because they express and discover the alteration and interior motion of the appetite But there is also another thing to be here considered and it is that when we speak of Passions of Vertues and of Vices we are not to conceive them as qualities or simple actions but as compleat qualities and actions which are accompanyed by many others and yet which all tend to one principal end which the soul proposeth For although love to speake properly is but a simple
of all its effects is the powerful impression which beauty makes in the minde so that in making it appear how the objects of other Passions cannot make it so strong and deep it will also be manifest why it s of a longer continuance and why it keeps the minde more intent then any of the rest It s a certain truth that there is a secret knowledge in us of those things which serve for our preservation and its likely that this knowledge is gotten by means of some Idea's which nature hath imprinted in the bottom of the Soul which being as it were hid and buried in its abysses excite and stir up themselves at the coming of those which the sences present and so beget in the appetite Love or Hate Desire or Aversion Now as there are but two things which serve to preserve us the seeking of good and the flying from evil its evident nature inclines rather to seek good then to shun ill and as there are also goods which are more excellent profitable then others she hath a greater care of those of higher then of these of a lower value she forms a more exact Idea and makes a stronger and more profoud impression of them which being granted you cannot doubt the preservation of the species being a more general and more excellent good then all others which respect only a particular good but that it hath oblig'd nature to give the soul a more efficacious knowledge a more ardent desire of that then of any other thing whatsoever and but that consequently she hath powerfully imprinted the Idea of beauty since its the mark which makes that good known and that charme which excites the soul to its possession so that exterior beauty entring the imagination and meeting that general Idea which nature hath graven therein unites it self therewith awakens and excites that secret and powerful desire which accompanies it and applyes it to the object it represents unto it thence is that strong attention which fixeth a Lovers minde on the person of the beloved and which causeth in him after the Love of silence and solitude the disgust of all other divertisements which were most delightful to him and all those visions which a solitary life inspires in a soul agitated with Hope and Fear in a word wounded by the cruellest of all the Passions We are now to enquire the source of that high esteem which we make of the beloved object for from thence issue all the respects the submissions the services and the greatest part of the dialect which Lovers use and truly its a strange thing and almost incredible were it not dayly observed to see Kings submit their crowns and their power to the beauty of a slave the wisest men to adore a vitious person and the most couragious to subject themselves to base and feeble mindes worthy of nothing but contempt whence can that powerful spell proceed which makes us lose the knowledge of what we are and of what we love and makes us have so ill an opinion of our selves and so advantagious a thought of what we love we need not doubt but the imagination is the chief cause of this error As it hath the power to enlarge the images it receives and to cloath them in the new fantasmes which disguise the things and make them appear quite otherwise then they are it sets on the image of that beauty which is represented unto it what it useth to do in dreams or on a light Idea which it hath from the humor which is agitated it forms a hundred several Chimaera's which have a conformity with that humor for the imagination receiving the image of the beloved object forms it self on the model of that general Idea of beauty which nature hath imprinted in it adorning it with the same graces she confounds it therewith and so makes the beloved person appear more perfect then in effect it is and we may further say that herein it happens as in the sickness of the minde where the particular error which disorders it changeth and corrupts all the thoughts which have any relation to it those who are at distance from it remaining still enough reasonable forasmuch as a Lover may preserve his judgement free in those things which do not concern the person beloved but as soon as that is interested he becomes a slave to his passion and judgeth of things according to that pleasing error which it hath inspired into him in effect it s a wonder that a deformed face and which we should have judged such should presently appear full of attractives as if the imagination had painted it or at least had blotted out all its defects But the paint or the perfection it gives comes from that Idea wherewith it s filled and which nature hath affoorded to oblige it to enquire the greatest good which can happen to it However it be the soul being abused in the judgement it made of beauty and taking it for a most excellent good whose possession ought to render it more perfect wholly submits to it and considers it no otherwise then as a Queen who is to command it For good hath that property that it communicates it self with Empire and renders it self master of those that receive it forasmuch as it is a perfection which is in stead of act and form as the thing which receives it is in stead of power and matter Now it s a certain maxime that the form renders it self master of the matter otherwise it could not receive perfection And consequently beauty must have that predominant quality that the soul which is touched with it must subject herself to its Empire thence followes all those submissions and respects all those termes of servitude and of captivity which are so common with Lovers whence its easie to draw the reasons of the principle we have established let 's now examine the means Love hath invented to possess the good it tends to Although Love may subsist in the only union which the appetite makes with the Idea of the beloved object we may further say that this union and this Love are not perfect Love stayes not there but always seeks really to unite it self but by the communication of thoughts and by the actual presence which the sences require the soul in a manner going out of her self by speech and the sences serving for channels by which the objects flow into the imagination so that the soul beleeves that by means of discourse she strongly unites her self to the beloved person and that it unites it self to the soul by means of the sences Whence it comes that Lovers wish they may continually see hear and entertain those they love even the kiss wherein they place their highest felicities hath no other end but to unite their soul to the beloved object So that only those parts by which it seems most to communicate it self give and receive it as the mouth because its the door of the thoughts
them proportionably and cause also by their knowledge a greater satisfaction and a greater pleasure It is not but that often less perfect things do more content the Senses and the Understanding but this proceeds from the error which their ill inclinations give them which commonly come from the temper from custome and from weakness of spirit Now forasmuch as knowledge is a good which respects not onely the faculties which exercise it but also all others to which it may be profitable because that the Senses were not given to the creature for themselves but for the preservation thereof and that reason is a light which lights not it self alone but also all the other vertues which are in man hence it is that the knowledge which the Senses the understanding have of things which in som manner are useful to the creature perfects these faculties because that being destined to its service they at last attain the end whether they tend when they operate for it and in that respect they acquire a perfection which in some sort is more excellent then that which respects them onely being their last end and the mark nature proposed for them even thence it is that the eyes esteem fair all which makes the goodness of asiments known and the colour of the wine or even of the water is for the same reason more pleasing for a thirsty man to behold then the fairest green of the fields In a word all what the understanding and the imagination know of seeing and hearing being the observers of what is profitable or agreeable is esteemed fair and perfects these faculties forasmuch as their perfection consists to know what is for our use it is thus that corporal beauty ravisheth the soul and the Senses because it is the mark of that interior power which ought to render us more perfect and it s principally in this sence that we may truely say that beauty is the flower and splendor of goodness But before we shew how this power ought to render us more perfect we must observe what we have already said of these powers for there are those which respect the nature of man in general and others which are proper to the sexes These have their particular dispositions which make the male and female beauty and which being nothing but the instruments which they are to use in the performance of their functions are also the marks which make known whether they may be well or ill done for certainly a male beauty is nothing else to our Senses but the mark of a good constitution of the active power in generation in the same manner as a female beauty is the signe of a passive power to all that is necessary for the performance of that function Now as generation is the most natural and most excellent of all the operations which are common to creatures for that it in som manner renders them eternal it in som sort also approacheth the Divine perfection and renders them like their cause and principle we cannot doubt but nature hath imprinted in them a most powerful desire and also endued them with a knowledge which may serve to this inclination its true that this knowledge is obscure and hid and that it is to be found in our selves without the help of discourse and even without our thinking of it and indeed it is in the same rank with that which nature hath inspired in all the things of the world who know without understanding what is useful for them for even in the actions of the Senses and the Understanding we perceive that there are objects which are more pleasing to us then others the reason whereof is unknown to us and we have nothing to say but that there is in our souls a certain spring of Understanding or rather that it is the Spirit of God which hides it self in his works and drives things to that end which is fit for them For as an Artist manageth the action of natural things to the end he pretends as we must ascribe all that order which appears in the artifice to his knowledge and not to the things he useth which are incapable of that knowledge so in all the things of nature where we perceive so many marks of admirable wisedom we must not beleeve that it is from them that it proceeds but that it is the Spirit of God which flowes in their effects which gives the order and the motion and which guids them to the end which he hath prescribed for them However it be it is by this obscure and hid knowledge that corporal beauty presenting it self to our Senses the soul knows it for the mark of the natural power of that Sex wherein it is at the same time that secret and powerful desire which it hath to perpetuate its species awakens and forms in it that Love which afterwards agitates it with so much violence Yet do I know very well that an ill-favoured person may cause the same motion in the soul and that it is not always true that beauty is the certain mark of the perfect disposition of the powers which serve for generation and to conclude that it may affect those who are of the same sexe to whom this motive is useless But as for unhansomeness we have shewed in the Treatise of the Love out of inclination that although that this Passion seems not to draw its origine from Beauty yet there is in the soul a certain Idea of perfection contrary to that which the Senses represented which causeth this admirable charm For the two other Objections which remain we must confess that Nature suffers defects in particulars because she doth not always finde the matter obedient whence it happens that there are parts which remain imperfect and because we often abuse the gifts she bestows employing them in things contrary to the end which she proposed her self There is amongst men another kinde of Love which corporal beauty also may move but whose motive is different from that whereof we speak for it respects not the sexe but all the species which being to have its vertues and its powers ought also to have those corporal dispositions which are to serve it Now these dispositions are natural or acquired The natural are those which come from our births and which render men capable of the functions of the Understanding for as all what is in Man is destined for the service of that faculty which is mistress of all the rest since it cannot know things but by the intermission of the Senses and the Senses cannot operate if their organs are not well disposed of necessity the parts of the body must have some proportion and agreement with the Understanding and then the Soul which sees by this secret sentiment of which we have spoken that it is the mark of humane perfection pleaseth it self in this object and forms that love which unites it to the good it knows 'T is thus that well-form'd men are
confusion our life it would indeed rather be a continual flood of ills then of yeers the Senses would rather serve for gates of grief then of knowledge knowledge it self would pass for an affliction of spirit and vertue for a grievous servitude It s pleasure onely which sets a price on all things and which renders them delightful at least they appear not good but by so much as it is found mingled with them and did not the soul hope to encounter it in all it acts it would remain languishing and immoveable it would be without action and without vigor and we must speak no more of life of happiness or of felicity Certainly to see the effect it causeth as mistris and despencer of all good things calling back those which are past making us sensible of those which are not yet rendring even melancholy tears and dangers pleasing we must confess that with reason Nature is called the great Magician and that pleasure is the most powerful charme she useth to produce her miracles In effect it s a charm which makes all the ills which assault us vanish which lifts us up beyond our selves which changeth us into other men and from men transforms us into Demy-Gods but we often use it as a poyson which quencheth all that is Divine in our Souls which renders our mindes brutish and makes us like even inferiour to beasts For although the pleasures of the body are of themselves innocent and that they were given us for inticements to the most necessary and most noble actions of life yet when we pervert their use and when we do not render them obedient to reason they rebel against it pull it out of its throne precipitate it in dirt and mire and stifle all the seeds of vertue and understanding which are born with it Neither is there any thing wherein wisedom hath more been imployed then to seek the means whereby to shun so dangerous an enemy who flatters at its admittance and afterwards causeth every where trouble and confusion which fills the Soul with blood and flames the Body with grief and infirmity and leaves nothing behind it but repentance We will not propose the counsels and advice she hath given on this subject we should bring hither all those lawes which Physick Morality and Religion have prescribed at least there are but few which were not made either to prevent or correct the disorders which sensuality may cause yet we think to second its design by shewing the deformity which the excess of this Passion produceth in the Soul and in the Body The Picture of voluptuousness cannot be made without representing many figures besides that there are joys which have no commerce with the body and which are to be found in the highest part of the soul those of the Sense are so different amongst themselves that as many pleasing objects as there are which may move them we may say that there are also as many several sorts of Pleasures And truely whoever would designe the portraicture we undertake according to the order of the Senses and describe the pleasure which every of them may be sensible of the invention and the composure could not be ill but we may not use it without prejudice to other designes wherein we are to imploy the same touches and the same colours which this requires for if we stayed to express the Characters of Pleasure which is in tasting and touching we must necessarily also describe those of Gluttony Drunkenness Impudency and so of the rest whereof we should make particular Tables wherefore without parcelling these things we will chuse what is common to all Pleasures dividing this discourse into two parts the one of which shall treat of a serious Joy where laughter is not to be found and the other of a laughing puft up Joy which is nothing but the Passion of Laughter Joy is not amongst those Passions whose beginning is weak and whose progress is vehement it hath all its force and greatness from its birth and time serves for nothing but to weaken or diminish it as soon as it enters the Soul it transports it and carries it out of it self and the ravishment it causeth is sometimes so violent that it takes away the use of the Senses makes it forsake the cares of life and often lose it but although it come not to this excess yet it is alwayes known by that puft up impatience which appears in all its actions that it hardly can contain it self within its bounds that it makes escapes and endeavours to goe out For the thoughts and words of a contented man are not to be stopt he dreams onely of his good fortune he speaks continually of it and if he be not interrupted he hath nothing in his heart which he carries not on his tongue he discovers his most secret designes and so makes his joy an enemy to his rest and to his contentment If he is silent you must entertain him with discourses onely which favour his Passion how divertising soever others are to him they are importunate he breaks them at every moment and it brings in alwayes somewhat of his transport 〈◊〉 or at least his little minding of them seems a signe of his scorning them or a reproaching that they interrupt his Pleasure But if you speak of the subject which begot them if you admire his happiness if you witness a fellow-feeling with him then how angry or severe soever he be he becometh complacent he caresseth embraceth and often by ridiculous civilities and favours he forgeteth the respect he owes or loseth that which is due to him The first that comes to him is made his friend and his confident he takes counsel of him he follows his advice and it often happens to be a childe a servant or an enemy whom he trusts with his secret and with its conduct In this blindness he approves all what is proposed to him to the advantage of his Passion Whatever vanities he nourisheth whatever successes he flatters himself withal there is nothing in his opinion which he ought not to believe and may not hope as if all things were to respect his pleasures He believes that there are none which dare traverse them he sees the dangers which every way inviron them without startling at it and with a blinde confidence he believes himself secure when his loss is often most assured So that we may say that there is no man so credulous with so little appearance so bold with so much weakness nor so unhappie with so much good hap He would make us believe he were content he perswades it himself and in the mean time his desires betray his designe and his contentment for they are irritated by the enjoyment and carrying themselves onely towards those goods which he hath not they render those useless which he possesseth and even of his joy cause the subject of his disquiet Pleasure hath that property that although we enjoy it it forbears not to make
it self desirable so that it is never content and that it is rather weary of the good which entertains it then fully satisfied therewith But we have spoken enough of the trouble it moves in the Minde let us see what it causeth in the Face There are some pleasures of which we may say the Soul is jealous which it seems she would possess in secret and which she dares not communicate to the Senses But what care soever she takes to hide them she cannot do it so well but she must discover something her retreat renders her suspected and when she would hide 't is then she the more discovers her self For the looks become fixt and staid all the body is immoveable the Senses forget their functions in fine there is a general suspension made of all the animal vertues And although at first we might doubt whether it proceeds from astonishment or grief which often produce the same effects 't is afterwards discovered by a certain gloss which remains on the face and by I know not what sweetness which it leaves in the eyes and by a light image of smiling which appears on the lips that these troublesome Passions have no share in this transport and that it comes from that inward joy which ravisheth and as it were inebriates the soul But when Pleasure hath the liberty to disperse it self abroad and that the Senses bear a part and that the Minde and the Body seem to enter again into commerce and intelligence then it is easie to know the agitation which is made in the soul by what appears in the exteriour parts You see on the face a certain vivacity a pleasing disquiet and a laughing boldness Pleasure sparkles in the eyes sweetness accompanies all their motions and when they happen to weep or to cast forth some dying looks you would say Laughter confounded it self with Tears and that Jollity mixed it self with Languishings The Forehead is in this calm and serene the eye-brows are not lifted up with wrinkles nor with clouds and it seems as if it opened and every way extended it self The Lips are red and moist and are never forsaken by smiles and that light trembling which sometimes happens to them would make one think they danced for joy The Voice becomes greater then ordinary sometimes it is resounding and it never goes out but with earnestness for there is no Passion so talkative as Joy how barren soever the Minde be what heaviness soever there be on the tongue it makes one speak continually and nothing but its own violence sometimes stops the mouth and at once cuts short the speech To conclude all the face takes an extraordinary good plight and from pale melancholy and severe which it was before it becomes ruddy affable and pleased The rest of the body is also sensible of this alteration A sweet heat vapor sheds it self thorow all its parts which swells and gives them a lively colour even they become stronger and do their actions more perfectly then they did before In effect of all the motions of the Minde there is none more a friend to Health then this so as it be not extreme It drives away sickness it purifies the blood and the spirits and renders as the Wise man says our yeers flourishing As soon as it enters the heart it swells it with great beatings it lifts up the heart by long respirations In the Arteries it causeth a large and extended pulse And yet although all these motions are made slowly and without vehemency those of the other parts are made with precipitation and vigour The head and the eyes are in a continual agitation the hands move without ceasing we go we come we leap we cannot stay in one place But it sometimes also happens that the violence of this Passion takes quite away the use of Sense and Motion it quencheth natural heat it causeth syncopes and in a moment bereaves one of life Let us then examine how it can produce so many effects so contrary and so wonderful PART 2. Of the Nature of JOY SOme perhapes may think it strange that Joy which speaks so much of it self hath not as yet told what it was but you may much more wonder that Philosophy which promiseth us the knowledge of all things falls short in this although there be nothing which endeavours more to make it self known then Pleasure It penetrates to the bottome of our soul it environs it on all sides it sollicites it by all the wayes of its knowledge it is the end of all its desires the crown of all its actions and yet for all that its nature is unknown to it and the greatest understandings which have enquired it are not agreed under what kinde it ought to be placed For some have said that Pleasure was nothing but the rest and tranquillity of the minde others that it was a Passion in which the Soul operated not and amongst those who have ranked it amongst actions some did beleeve it proceeded not from appetite but from knowledge In fine there having been some who not daring to put it in the rank of other Passions have said it was the principle of them others that it was their gender or their first species Had we not banished from our designe the wrangling and the Criticisms of the Schools we should be obliged to examine all these opinions and to seek in their ruines foundations whereon we should build the definition and Idea of Pleasure But since we have not that liberty and that we should render delight importunate and unpleasing by the length of the discourses we should use without advising with any we will consult the thing it self and see whether it will discover it self to us after having hid it self to so many excellent spirits We say then that we need not doubt but that Pleasure is a motion of the mind and that its impossible to conceive a calm and rest in the tempest which it raiseth in our thoughts in our spirits and in our humors as those things doe not move of themselves it must be the minde which agitates them and she gives her self the same shake which she imprints in them For it is evident that effects being like their causes the motions of the body which are the effects of the minde ought also to be the images of the agitation she gives her self I know well that the Schooles will not call these agitations true motions but that stops us not it will suffice that they are such as the soul can have that pleasure is one of that order But yet as she hath two parts which may be moved we might doubt to which of the two Pleasure belongs for although all the world confess it is a Passion and consequently a motion of the appetite yet it seems that there are some which are proper to knowledge since the Senses and the understanding finde a complacency in the objects which are conformable to them even before that the appetite is moved
them for I cannot imagine that Nature who is so regular and so uniform in all its other actions should forget it self in this that she would give several causes to one effect and that it being true that all kinde of Laughter hath somewhat that is common the soul should have no general motive for so common and general an action We must then endeavour to discover it and if we do not succeed use the same excuses which the difficulty of the enquiry afforded those who made it before us since perhaps there is nothing in nature whose knowledge is more hid then that of this Whereunto that we may attain we must first consider that we never laugh but when the soul is in some manner deceived and surprised as may be seen in all the ridiculous actions which Aristotle calls deformities without grief since they are all against the custome against the expectation and against the sence of the Wise It is the same thing in the unexpected encounter of a pleasing thing and in an injury which we receive from a man we did beleeve ought not to offend us in the good or in the ill which happens to those who are worthy of it For there is therein every way somewhat which by its novelty surpriseth the minde which is to be found even in tickling whence it comes to pass that we laugh not when we tickle our selves because we are not new nor strange to our selves Yet this surprise must be light for if it be violent it astonisheth the minde and so powerfully averts it that it cannot go to the outward parts to make them move So that objects which are very wonderful and extremely pleasing move us not to laughter but to ravishment and extasies as terrible ones cause fear and astonishment 't is not that we say that the lightest surprise is that which moves laughter the more it is onely to be understood in comparison of that which astonisheth or ravisheth the minde for it is evident that the greater so as it do not disturb and carry away the spirit will cause the more vehement laughter making not only the muscles of the face move but even those of the flanks and brests as in its place hereafter This surprise must also be pleasing and those ridiculous objects must produce some kinde of Joy in the soul It is manifestly sensible in facetious things and in the encounter of friends and we never seek the occasions of laughing but for the pleasure we think to finde therein And although we may doubt of that Laughter which indignation scorn and anger sometimes move yet we will shew that nevertheless there is still somewhat which affords contentment either true or feigned for it is certain there is a lying and dissembled Laughter wherein effectually there is no sensible pleasure and in which we onely feign we receive some which is very common in flattery and complacency Often even although the object be pleasing the soul will finde in it more pleasure then it is capable to yeeld and so moves and as they say tickles it self into a Laughter But what I esteem most considerable to understand the nature of Laughter it is that we seldom use it alone and that the most part of those objects which powerfully excite it in company move it not at all in a solitude so that it seems company affords somewhat to its production that the soul will make it appear that she is surprised which would be needless were there no witness of what she would do so that she ought not to move Laughter when we are alone And if in company there happen a pleasant surprise which moves it not it is because she will not make it appear as when there is somwhat that displeaseth her or when prudence or dissimulation hinder it Yet must we not believe that she makes use of laughter as a mark taken at pleasure such as those are which proceed from our choice and invention but as a natural mark which hath a necessary connexion with the emotion she represents To know what this connexion is and the particular reason which obligeth the Soul to use this motion rather then another to mark the surprise she is in you must suppose that in all surprises the Soul retires and reenters her self the encounter of an unthought-of thing opposing it self to the liberty of her thoughts and forcing her to recollect her self the better to discern the presented Object and then if she intend to make her condition known she must according to the Law which proportions the organs and the effects to their causes stir up in the outward parts some motion like unto that which she suffers and consequently cause the muscles to retire towards their origine as she retires and recollects her self in her self Now because the Minde may be surprised by troublesome objects as well as by pleasing ones this retraction of the muscles may be as well with grief as with joy and indeed you see that in Tears the lips and some other parts of the face retire in the same manner as in Laughter Whence it is that there are persons in whom it would be difficult to discern at first sight the one from the other so like they are to one another which hath made some think that Nature who begins our life with crying and tears made an essay and designed these touches which were to be perfected in Laughter which is never formed before fourty days after birth Yet as we can never say that the retraction of the lips which accompanies grief is a true Laughter so we must thence conclude that Laughter consists not in the simple motion of the muscles but that there is also a certain air which Joy sheds over the face and which causeth the principal difference However it be Laughter being principally destin'd for conversation the objects which particularly respect it are those also which the most easily cause Laughter Such are the actions and facetious words which comprehend all what is uncomely and deformed light hurts purposely done or received out of folly cheats of small consequence jeers in a word all deformities without grief for all these things move Laugher forasmuch as they mark the defects of those qualities which are necessary for conversation as of a good grace of decency of advisedness of kindness and of the rest the Minde finding it self surprised when it sees contrary actions to those vertues which are the foundations of society and of a civil life All the difficulty which there is herein is to know why the Soul would have the surprise it suffers in these encounters appear for it seems as if it were a defect which she would do better to hide then to discover In effect it is a badge of Ignorance to suffer our selves to be surprised with a Novelty as it is a mark of Malice to be pleased at the defects of others Whence it is that Wise men laugh seldomer then others because that they are
neither Ignorant nor Malicious that few things are new to them and that they easily excuse imperfections Yt if you consider that Man is naturally a lover of himself that he always pretends excellency and superiority we will not think it strange if seeing the defects of others he seeks to testifie that he is exempt from them and so would make you believe by the surprise and astonishment they give him that he is more perfect then they are Now if a man laugh at his own defects it is the same as when he is angry with himself for the trouble which these Passions involve the Minde in hinders it from discerning the objects which move it and make it esteem that strange which is its own However it be this reason is general for all ridiculous deformities and for all things which we scorn It may even sometimes be applied to that laughter which Anger and Indignation move forasmuch as either of them supposing some injustice either in the offence received or in the good or ill which we see happen to those who are unworthy of it the Soul which testifies the astonishment it causeth would also silently perswade that she is not capable of those ill actions and that she is too just to do good or ill to those who deserve it not And it is evident that in this thought she findes her self tickled with some secret joy which accompanies this pretended excellency but it is small by reason of the displeasure which goes along with these Passions the thought of the present ill stifling it even almost at the same time that it is formed whence it also happens that this Laughter is light and of a short continuance Now if in these encounters we are sensibly touched with any pleasure we need not doubt but that all the objects which cause Laughter are not pleasing as we said at the beginning of this Discourse All the difference which there is therein is that the Pleasure which follows them hath divers principles To some it comes from self love and from that proper excellency which the soul is glad to make appear to others it comes from the love of benevolence and respects society which requires the communication of goods and pleasures For when we laugh at the sight of a friend with caresses and complacencies we endeavour by that natural language to perswade that the persons the actions and the words are pleasing to us and that we esteem them either by reason of the excellency they have or for the pleasure or profit they afford us You will perhaps say that all these conditions are not in Tickling since that in stead of moving Joy it causeth Sorrow That there are few persons which apprehend it not and therefore that it is not likely that Laughter which comes from it should be accompanied with pleasure and that the soul should use it for a mark of that pleasant surprise which she is sensible of But if these Reasons were good we must banish Pleasure from all the Passions the object of Love would no longer be pleasing because that is pungent and unquiet and that there are but few who fear not to be found therewith We must even say as much of Joy since it causeth faintings and that we fear the excesses thereof and that sometimes it causeth death I must confess that Grief mixeth it self with these Passions but as a stranger having no share in their birth or preservation they owe both the the one and the other to Pleasure and when that is no more then they must necessarily dy Whatsoever we will believe we cannot doubt but there is Pleasure in Tickling since it is never made but by a delicate touch which flatters the Senses For we cannot say that that kinde of Touching can hurt them since it provokes sleep and that by harder pressing the parts we harm them not On the contrary you must allow it for granted that the soul is pleased with that kinde of touch and that it is ranked amongst the caresses since we never expect displeasure from those who tickle us but esteem them always as our friends So that Laughter which accompanies that motion is a witness that the soul will return the pleasure it receives and that the person which moves it is grateful to her Perhaps also that that excellency whereof we have spoken contributes somewhat thereunto forasmuch as the sense of Feeling being the mark of the good or ill quality of the Minde and that accordingly as that is more perfect men are also more sprightly as Physiognomy and experience teach us Man by a natural instinct is pleased with Tickling and forms a Laughter to signifie the perfection of his Senses and of his Minde This then is the nature of this Passion whence in my opinion it is easie to draw the motive of ridiculous objects for although it seems we have the same Sense with those who have placed the ridiculous amongst new and pleasing things and that the same absurdities which we have observed in that opinion are to be met in ours yet if you observe what we have said you will see a very great difference because that we add to novelty a circumstance which they have omitted to wit that the soul will witness the surprise which that novelty gives her so that there are new and pleasant things which do not make us laugh forasmuch as the soul intends not to discover the sence it hath thereof so when we are alone and fancy some merry matter we usually do not laugh at it but onely when we relate it because then the minde designes to witness the surprise it caused I know well it will hereupon be said that we often laugh alone and that there are objects which are so powerful that they draw Laughter from the wisest and most solitary men and that it is common for Fools to laugh in the same manner But this Truth destroys not that which we have established forasmuch as all this happens from the errour of the Imagination which diverts it self from the end Nature had prescribed it And there are few effects in the Passions wherein the same disorder may not be For Example the Voice which was given to creatures to shew forth the motions of their Soul doth often go away through the violence of Grief Even there are persons who speak and complain when they are alone and yet it is against the institution of Nature who destined the voice and speech for instruments of society and to serve for that communication which creatures ought to have together Now all this proceeds from the disturbance the soul feels and which makes it wander from the way it should keep And without doubt the laughter which is observed in doatings comes from the same source the Imagination forcing ridiculous objects which afterwards move the Appetite to produce Laughter For although it be difficult to comprehend how she can figure any pleasant thing amongst the griefs those evils produce and
that Reason which is sometimes at liberty in these encounters sees nothing which contents it that she even confesseth this Laughter to be forced and yet that she cannot hide it it is nevertheless very true that there is still a secret pleasure either in the superiour part of the soul or in the sensitive For the alienation of the Minde takes away from frantick persons the sense of ill and giveth liking to the Ridiculous Chimera's which are there formed to move Laughter So that if Reason be not hurt the Pleasure must be hid in the Senses and unwittingly to the Understanding it causeth that commotion there The Imagination discerns not always exactly the Pleasure which the objects form in the particular Senses either because it is distracted or surprised or because the impression they make is secret although still the spirits the humours and the bodies agitate themselves powerfully So the first motions of Passions happen in the Minde unawares and there are divers things which move us which we can hardly say whether they are troublesome or graceful we must not then wonder if we sometimes laugh without knowing the cause thereof it is sufficient if the Senses have a confused and secret knowledge to stir up afterwards that motion in the Appetite for there is so strong a connexion between these powers that the one is no sooner touched by the object but the other resents it In this precipitation the Soul hath not time to discern what it doth and the parts are sooner touched then she is advised of it and she is not then able to stop the shake which she hath given her self the spirits and the humours having received the impression thereof whose impetuosity cannot be so suddenly stayed And hence the difficulty comes to hinder Laughter when it is vehement although it be a voluntary action in the same manner as it happens in other Passions wherein the Soul suffers the same violence as he who runs into a precipice for although he gave himself that motion it is no more in his power to stop it he must abandon himself to the swinge he hath taken and to that steepness whence he hath precipitated himself What remains of most importance is to know why of all creatures Man onely laughs since it appears that other beasts also may be surprised with Novelty and it is not impossible but that they may have a designe to shew how sensible they are thereof since they make other things known by their voice and by their actions But as there are but two motives which oblige Man to witness the surprise which ridiculous objects cause to wit his own excellency and civil society it is certain that the first is useless to beasts who are never touched with glory or with vanity And for Society it is so imperfect amongst them that it respects but the necessities of the body to which indeed they work in common but yet it is but for their particular interest so that there is no communication of the pleasure which every one resents considering that the novelty of agreeable things surpriseth them not to speak properly no more then they do men who are quite stupid because they do not discern whether things are new or no considering them but as if they had always been present although for to know them new we must imagine they were not always so And it is for that reason that children laugh not before the fourtieth day for the Soul which is as it were wholly buried and as it were drown'd in the great quantity of the humors they have is capable of no knowledge but acording as humidity diminisheth these lights encrease and so by degrees she gets the power of laughing beginning by a smile and after being capable of vehement Laughter Perhaps some will say that the excellency wherewith man flatters himself and the love of society can no more reach a childe at forty days old then other creatures being not of a condition to minde either of them therefore that they then are not more capable of laughing then beasts are if there be no other motions but those for laugher But it is not necessary exactly to know those things for which we have a natural inclination for desires being born with us carry us also by the pure instinct of nature to the enquiry of those goods and from the time that our soul hath the liberty to act she produceth actions which shew the secret fence she hath of her own excellency and of her being destined to a civil life Now as beasts are capable of neither of them they have also no share in this instinct whose sourse is hidden in the intellectual parts of the Soul and can come from no inferior power for although there are some kinds of Laughter which seem wholly to depend from the sensitive as that which comes from tickling it is certain that without the influence of the Reasonable Faculty the Senses cannot produce that effect its light insensibly disperseth it self on all its actions and the neighbourhood they have therewith alwayes communicates somewhat of its perfection which still serves to shew that beasts are not capable of laughter because their Senses are deprived of that brightness and of that influence which Reason causeth to flow in ours Before I finish this discourse I must tell you by the way who those are who are most given to laughter it is certain that young folkes laugh more willingly then old ones women then men fools then wise men sanguine then cholerick flegmatick then melancholy And this comes from that laughter being made by a pleasing surprise which we would make known those are more easily surprised are naturally merrier then these For the spirits which move quick and which consider not things are most easie to be deceived and those who are the most merry are the most easily touched with pleasant objects and are more fit for conversation then others who are severe and serious Yet as there are divers sorts of ridiculous objects that some respect our proper excellency and others society that there are some which require a great knowledge as quaint jeers and others wherein a mean one is onely requisite So there are also some persons which are more easily touched then others the young and cholerick laugh rather at the defects of others then the old and the wise being naturally insolent and proud fools ignorants observe not jests or witty encounters women and those of a sanguine complexion are more fit for the laughter which caresses occasion because they have a natural inclination to flattery After having thus discovered the nature of laughter and of ridiculous things we shall easily give a reason for all the effects which this Passion produceth on the body for there are none which proceed not from the surprise and Joy which the Soul resents the splendor of the eyes the redness of the face and tears come chiefly from Joy all the rest come from surprise
the satisfaction it expects in Revenge and the principal end Nature hath assigned it is to hinder the thing which injures us from continuing to do so so that what can stop the course and continuance of the III appeaseth Anger and we are satisfied when he who hath offended us repents himself of it when he acknowledgeth that it was not his designe when he flees or when he hath been hurt for that then it appears that he wants either power or will to mischief us or else we suppose we have taken them from him This then is the satisfaction which Anger always promiseth it self and if it happen that we despair of obtaining it as when the things which offend us appear so powerful to us that they seem beyond our strength and endeavours and that we have no hope to be able to stop the malice they have to injure us we are then no longer capable of Anger having lost our hope to be avenged that is to say to beat back the ill on him who caused it that he may cease to do us more If there be then a satisfaction which Revenge is out of hope to obtain it is not natural to the Passion it must be a stranger as what comes from the custom of the Country from the humour of the person from the weakness of judgement and the like But this shall be in its place more carefully examined Let us betake our selves to our former Discourse The Soul then stiffens it self in Hope and in some sort suffers that Tonick motion which as we have shewn happens to the body But we may say that what image soever this example may give of the manner wherewith the appetite is moved it doth not fully satisfie the Mind and leaves always in it a difficulty to conceive how the Soul can move so For it is not as of Bodies which have nerves and muscles which stretch the parts and keep them extended drawing them equally on every side We can imagine nothing like it in the Soul which is wholly simple and which would rather suffer to be compared to subtil and fluid bodies which this effect cannot reach then to those who are massive and heavie where it is commonly performed Now although this be true yet it destroys not our proposition for it 's certain the Soul stiffens it self aswel as the Body but that the manner is quite different It is not always necessary that the same motions should be made in the same manner and we see that creatures bend and stretch out their bodies although by different means Amongst those which are perfect the muscles perform this effect by contracting and loosing themselves But there are divers in whom these parts are wanting as in those which are so little that we can scarce discern them and in which most likely it is the spirits and the nerves alone perform these actions without the use of other organs There are a thousand other examples in Nature which clearly manifest this truth but were there none the Schools teach us that spiritual substances carry themselves from one place to another that they may occupie more or less room that they drive and draw bodies that in sine they perform almost all the motions which we observe in animate bodies although the manner and the means be quite contrary Which being granted we ought not to doubt but that the Appetite can stiffen it self as well as living parts it being needless it should do it in the same manner or by the same means as they are usually accustomed to do But if it were enquired what this manner is and what particular means the Appetite useth in this motion we must confess it to be a bold enquiry to which it seems the minde of man is not able to give satisfaction For since its knowsedge how high soever it be draws its origine from that of the Senses how can it have any in those things when the Senses forsake it How can it discern the ways Nature takes in the motions of the Soul which are not sensible when it is ignorant of those it keeps in them of the body which touch the Senses and are visible to our eyes Indeed all our Philosophy must confess that it toucheth but the extremities of motions and that it almost never speaks of what passeth between both And we may say that Nature which so freely gives all things seems to be jealous of the art wherewith she doth them and is unwilling we should see the springs of her works However it be I believe more cannot be assured in this matter then that the soul stiffens it self in exciting and quickning its vigour and putting it as the School says out of the power into act And truely since Angelick natures can move and even transport bodies from one place to another it must be granted that they give to themselves to them also a certain impetuosity which changeth the situation and consistence they had some particular vertue must disperse it self wheresoever they extend which renders them stronger more agile and this vertue according to my opinion is nothing but their Will which moves it self or else their very motion for things get a force in motion which they have not in rest The same thing may proportionably be said of the Appetite which is the first moving power in creatures For by exciting it self it agitates corroborates it self and being agitated with an equal and uniform motion which holds it so suspended without advance or recess it remains stiff stedfast to oppose the difficulties which may present themselvs But without engaging our selves further in this enquiry which exceeds the limits of our designe it will be sufficient to take away a difficulty which springs from what we have already said For if this motion of the Appetite be onely an equal and uniform agitation whereby the soul remains fixt in it self without advancing or receding it must follow that Desire can never be with Hope since it darts out the soul and drives it out of it self and that this restrains it We must then say that it is true Desire is not always with Hope although it always precedes it And indeed when we desire any thing ardently we perceive that Hope slackens it self as Desire also diminisheth when Hope increaseth Certainly they destroy one the other when they meet Forasmuch as the Soul in Desire considers the Good but as absent and takes no other care but to draw neer unto it but in Hope she fancies it so neer not seeing any difficulties which it cannot overcome that she almost thinks it as if it were present whence it happens that Joy is greater in it then in Desire So that she makes not therein those sallies and dartings she doth in this unless she be by some other things forced to it On the contrary she stops to receive the Good which seems to be produced and advanced towards her This truth discovers it ' self in these ordinary
the only End she tends to and if that afterwards serves to obtain some good 't is a success which happens unknown to it and which she did not at all propose herself otherwise we must say that Hatred and Fear and the rest of the Passions which flye from ill have good also for their object since we flie not from ill but for some good which may thereby accrew But if any man ask what good and profit the Soul may make by this Combate in a word what the principal motive is which engageth her to assault ill There is no man but will readily answer That it s to overcome it But this is not to give a full Answer to the Question we would know what she pretends to by this Victory for it is not sufficient to say that it 's to defeat or chase away an enemy that it 's to have preheminence over him or to acquire the glory to have overcome him Forasmuch as these latter motions touch not the Sensitive Appetite and that the other two leave the difficulty intire Since we may further demand why the Soul would defeat or drive away an Enemy and what ever we should say that it were to flie from ill besides that this Reason is too loose and too general and befits all the angry Passions It 's certain that in flying she estrangeth herself from it in another manner then when she drives it away so that we must enquire the particular which in this encounter she proposeth herself Now he that will consider that the Soul stirs up forces in Boldness and that she imploys them only when she thinks that her enemy makes use of her own to ruine her it 's to be beleeved that she hath no other design in assaulting it but to take away from it the power and strength of ill-doing For which cause we are not satisfied to see our Enemies flie but we pursue them that making them lose either their life or liberty we may bereave them of all their wreacking power But we shall insist upon this matter in the Chapter of Constancy After which What the Nature of Boldness is we believe we shall have satisfied all the proposed difficulties for as to what concerns the common manner of speaking which gives the title of Bold to him who is no longer in danger it 's sufficient to say that we speak not here of Boldness as of a Habit which keeps its name even when it acts not but as of a Passion which is altogether in motion and out of which it no longer is the Passion of Boldness Let 's then conclude that Boldness is nothing else but the motion which the Appetite makes in assaulting ill But how doth it assault it It can be by no other way but by that whereby all things use to assault their Enemies for as they fortifie themselves raise themselves up and throw themselves on them the Appetite doth the same stiffens and fastens it self in it self it animates it lifts it self up and shoots out it self against ill In effect either we must not fancy motions in the Soul nor qualifie the Passions with the name of Motions or of necessity we must confess that that of Boldness is such as we have said it to be It 's so natural and so conformable to Reason that we cannot'assure that the Soul pursues good and that she runs after it that she estrangeth her self from ill and flies it but we must be forced to confess that seeing she ought to combate it she is also obliged to raise up and throw her self against it And did not Reason perswade this let 's but consider the motions of the Body which provokes it with which hers must necessarily have a correspondence for it 's impossible to see the putting forward of the Head the startings out of the Eyes the elevation of the Muscles the motions of the Arms the precipitate course and impetuous fallies which all the parts perform in this Passion but we must presently fancy that it 's the Soul which raiseth up it self that throws it self abroad and even goes out of it self to joyn and fight against her Enemy so that we cannot err in saying That Boldness is a motion of the Appetite by which the Soul throws it self forth against ill to combate it For this shooting forth is the different motion which distinguisheth it from all the rest of the Passions in which the Soul shoots not herself forth as in that of Love and of Hatred of Joy and of Grief of Hope and of Despair and the motive of this springing forth which is to assault ill and to combate it renders it different from Desire and Aversion from Fear and from Anger forasmuch as if the Soul cast it self forth in Aversion or in Fear it s to estrange it self from ill and not to assault it In Desire it 's to approach the Good and in Anger it 's to revenge it self as in its place shall be declared It 's true this definition is very different from that which Aristotle gave us in his Rhetorick where he says That Boldness is nothing else but a Hope which comes from the opinion which we have that expected Goods are near and that things which we fear are far off But who fees not that it is the true portraicture of Confidence which is a kinde of Hope and that Aristotle in that place pretended not to define that of Boldness seeing that in that place where he was obliged most carefully to observe it's Nature he says in express terms That dangers ought to be very near to provoke this Passion Beyond all what definition soever he hath given it he considered it not as a Passion but onely as a Habit. Without stopping therefore at these things which concern us not let 's fall on those which are more important and first let us see whether it be true That the Soul hath a design to assault and combate ill in all sorts of Boldness There are two things which make us doubt this proposition the first is Whether all sorts of Boldness assault ill That Boldness is not onely employed in assaulting of ill but also in resisting and sustaining it Since a man may support a mischief and suffer even death with a Courage The second is that there are certain Boldnesses wherein there is no combate to be made there being no apparent ill As when a man runs into danger without knowing it when he is impudent or ambitious for this considers nothing but honors and boldly pursues them and the other is bold and takes delight to commit dishonest actions where it seems he hath no enemy to fight But these Reasons are easily answered for as for the first although we may say that resistance is a kinde of combate since the Soul cannot resist but by opposition and that to oppose she must stiffen herself against ill which in some sence is to assault and combate it Yet it 's certain that simply to resist ill
the other to stop it which is above the power of a material and determinate Faculty Nay even the Understanding how separate soever it be from matter and how universal soever it be would never go so far had she not those several stages and those several degrees which its known to have For those who have most curiously examined the nature thereof confess that there are as it were two parts in it the one of which is low next to the sensitive Soul and which by reason of that neighborhood suffers it self to be easily carried away and corrupted by the sences the other is more pure and raised up higher which for that cause is called the top and height of the Understanding wherein God hath effused the light of true Reason and the seeds of all the vertues and it 's that also which inspires the Will to resist those Passions which the other hath raised there unknown or contrary to its advice thus these contrary designs whereof we have spoken are not formed by one and the same power since that which serves for Constancy is formed in the highest part of the Understanding and that which serves to that Passion to which it is to be opposed is made in the lower region But we have marched too far on precipices and on thorns The Soul resists not ill but by Constancy let 's leave these by-ways and these subjects which with their difficulty astonish the mind Let 's onely observe that Constancy and strength of courage is alone the only means by which the Soul truly resists the Passions for although ordinary Philosophy proposeth others unto us as to divert our thoughts from the object which raiseth them to weaken their power by Ratiocination to fall upon other contrary Passions and the like Yet to consider it well therein there is no true resistance they are rather flights or fights then a simple defence For when we will not consider the injury which we receive that is not to defend our selves from Anger it 's to flie it even as it is to assault it when we employ a contrary Passion for to destroy it But yet to deserve the honor to have resisted them in what way soever it were we must have had the design for we may divert a man from being angry we may also inspire another Passion in him which may appease his fury and fear may fall upon him which may take from him that fence of vengeance which he may have conceived And yet a man will not say that in these encounters he resists his Passion for that he had it not in his intention It is even so with Beasts in whom one Passion may weaken and destroy another in whom the same Appetite may stiffen it self and by its stiffening hinder it self from taking the impression of another motion No they do not for that resist their Passions because besides that they cannot as I have said form the design of it it must needs be that they must be able to reflect on their actions against those maxims which we have elsewhere established Let 's then conclude that Constancy is a motion of the Appetite by which the Soul confirms and stiffens it self in it self with an intention to resist those ills which assault it To examine now those ills would be to fall into useless and impertinent repetitions for they are the same which move Boldness and all what we have said of them in that place may be here applied It will suffice if we remember that under the notion of ill we understand not onely a pure privation but also the causes which produce it and the incommodities which follow it and that the two latter are the true ills which the Soul resists The differences of Constancy We should have nothing more to say on this subject did not the method which we have followed in the rest of the Passions oblige us to observe the most remarkable differences of Constancy and chiefly those which may serve to afford us a reason for those Characters which she imprints in the Soul and in the Body Let 's then say that there are none essential forasmuch as the motion and the motive which cause all the essence of this Passion are equally to be found in all sorts of Constancy as for those which we call accidental the most remarkable are drawn from the subject wherein she is found or from the object which raiseth it or from the relation which it hath with Reason For if we consider its subject it hath one which is in the Will and another which is in the sensitive Appotite In respect of the Object there are divers sorts according to the several sorts of ill which assault the Soul but the most considerable is that which resists the Passions and that which opposeth it self to the violence and endeavors of exterior ills this is common to all Animals and depends altogether on corporal strength namely on those which are most proper to suffer such as are to be found in the melancholy temperature of which we have spoke in the Discourse of Boldness the other is proper and peculiar for Men and principally for those which are most reasonable because it 's commonly Reason which moves us to oppose the Passions so that herein there needs no other strength but that of the Soul wherefore those whose spirits are strong by nature or by study are most susceptible of it It 's true that the force of the minde depends often from the temperature whence it is that young people and Women whose spirits by reason of their constitution are less strong are troubled to resist their Passions Finally There are some that are vertuous others vicious according as they are conformable or contrary to right Reason and so serve for the matter of Vertues or Vices In effect Justice borroweth from this Passion Firmness which is necessary unto it to resist Love Hatred and such other things as might corrupt it Temperance could not moderate the motions of the concupiscible Appetite but by its means and those Vertues which force produceth by resistance such as are Patience Constancy and Perseverance are maintained onely by it On the contrary when she straggles out of the right way and abandons the conduct of Reason there is no Vice which she doth not encourage and assist because she alone resists those motions which the Conscience inspires always in those who undertake or execute any evil design But although she may be found in all vicious actions there are some wherein she appears more as in Temerity in Hard-heartedness and in Opiniastrecy as we shall hereafter make it appear Now all those terms wherewith we use to express Boldness are also employed for Constancy For to say a man hath suffered death Constantly we use to say he hath suffered it with a Courage with Resolution with Assurance without fear and without apprehension and this happens from that Constancy is as it were a demy Boldness at least it is
there happen some obstacle which hinders them Now there is nothing which can hinder them but a contrary motion because there is nothing common betwixt them but motion and consequently if there be no contrary motion in the parts of the Air it 's certain that the impression which the Angel will make on them will cause them to change situation If it happen that after having received it that they remain in the same condition they were they must have had a contrary motion which resists this impression and which being of equal force with it puts them in aequilibrio and keeps them as it were suspended without stiring from one side to the other wherein this firmness consists But what continuing thus firm and stable and not changing place can they be in motion Certainly We need not doubt it since it is by motion that they keep this situation and that we cannot deny but that the impression of the motion must be received therein but that it agitates on them and that she resists not the first motion which they made like as a great weight which we hold lifted up or high for although it still remain in the same place yet would it not forbear to have that motion which its weight gives it and we should be sensible of the effort it would make falling and returning to its centre Finally as it were nothing probable to say that a thing which were powerfully drawn on both sides by equal forces should suffer no motion because it would neither move on the one or on the other side nor that the arm we stiffen should be at rest because it still remains in the same place Philosophers and Physitians being all agreed that these are the most violent motions which bodies can suffer we must necessarily conclude that those parts of the Air which are stiffened by contrary motions are in motion although they remain stable and change not their situation Let us now apply this Doctrine to our subject and say that what the Angel doth in this encounter the Soul doth it on the spirits for although she be present to all their parts yet she renders them not stiff she must also move them and before that they also must be moved by a contrary motion so that being equally driven from one and another they can neither advance nor go back but remain immovable betwixt these endeavors and violences Now this firm motion which they ought to have may proceed from the Passions which agitate them Constancy seldom forming herself unless she be preceded by some other Passion or from the impetuosity they are driven unto in ships for being very moveable she easily makes them straggle from one the other as it happens to all fluid Bodies when they are agitated and then the Soul giving them a contrary motion proportionable to the first they had they retain it and stop them in a certain order which they change not unless one or the other cease But although in this condition they appear immoveable because they remain in the same situation they forbear not to be in motion as hath been already sufficiently demonstrated This is what the motion of the spirits is in Constancy Why the Spirits stiffen themselves Let 's now enquire the end and profit which the Soul proposeth it self in this firmness We must not doubt but she desires them for her defence and employs them to resist those ills which assault her but at first it seems as an unprofitable means for that design For if ills have no motion as Exile Infamy and Slavery this stifness were against them to no purpose for the reasons before alleadged and if they have any either they are Passions which are formed in the Appetite whose motions the spirits cannot hinder or they are Bodies whose violence they cannot stop In effect what can this stiffening do against the effort of Grief against the force of a blow against the weight of a burthen which falls on them No being so easily overcome as they are it seems that the Soul in vain useth them in these encounters and that in vain she opposeth herself against such powerful things against which she is not able to resist We must undoubtedly confess that she often abuseth herself in the motion which she gives those organs and that she doth not always get those succors which she ought to expect from them and that she even sometimes agitates them without any need For when she resists the Passions it 's certain that neither the stiffening of the Spirits nor any other motiâ— on of the Body whatsoever can be either necessary or useful unto her since they are actions proper unto her who never goes out of herself and so consequently is above all the efforts of the corporal organs Yet if she then ceaseth not to agitate them it is from that that the Appetite which stirs up these motions is a blind power which cannot judge when she ought to make use of those parts and they are destined to obey unto it it rather in this occasion commands them out of custom then out of design and they also are so obedient that we may say that at the least sollicitation it makes them that they put themselves in a readiness to assist it and that even they seem to prevent its orders and commands It is not so when the violence of corporal things is to be resisted the stifness of the spirits is therein so absolutely necessary not onely because they are bodies which may work powerfully on those things of the same Nature but also because they are the first which receives the Souls commands and carrieth them to all the rest of the parts for being employed in this commission they must needs take that esmotion which they ought to inspire in the rest of the organs and as an Ambassador ought to carry with him the sence of him who sent him and be throughly perswaded of what he is to make others beleeve they ought to be agitated with the same motions which the Appetite suffers and of those which they would imprint on the rest of the parts so that they stiffen not themselves immediately to resist the forces of the enemy but that they may stiffen the Muscles and the Nerves against them and so powerfully resist their violence And truly we may consider the body as a great Machine wherein are several Springs which move one another The first go slowly and seem almost not to move although it is they which make the great Wheels to turn and cause those great motions which are observeable in them The Spirits are the same thing we hardly feel their motion neither is it they which perform the last actions yet they lead the dance to all the rest of the organs and did that Spring but fail all the Machine would become immoveable neither could the Body act any more But the principal reason for the which in my opinion they thus move is that their stiffening contributes
onely by this stiffening which we speak of which yet lasts not so long as Habits do as the Schools teach us Besides we must not believe that Perseverance properly and immediately resists the length of time because it 's an ill which is of the rank of those which we have called immoveable as are Poverty Exile Death and the like against which the Souls resistance is vain and useless but it opposeth it self against Frowardness Fear Disquiet and such other Passions as she usually raiseth up so that it is not to be found in Beasts who know neither the parts nor differences of time and which never resist their Passions yet this may be doubted for Dogs do a long while entertain the heat they have in hunting and there are exercises which are taught them wherein they are so diligent either out of Fear or out of Hope that it 's very probable these two Passions oblige them to stiffen themselves in their first design to shun the ill or to enjoy the good proposed unto them But to speak to the purpose it is but a shadow or fantasm of Perseverance forasmuch as to persevere truly we must know the length of the time to be employed in the performance of a thing be sensible of those Passions which accompany it and afterwards take a resolution to resist them Now this cannot be but by great abstractions which Beasts are incapable of as hath been shewed they may indeed continue a commenced action and persist a long while in the labor but it 's the other Passions which keep them in breath and drive them to that end which they aim at without any necessity of the Souls stiffening it self to continue them in the action and to resist those difficulties which the length of time might produce To be Opinionate is another kind of Constancy She is Opinionate by which she remains firm and stable in her resolutions by unadvisedly opposing another mans reasons and perswasions Now a man may several ways unadvisedly oppose himself to ill either when he knows they are best and yet he will not follow them or when he flatters himself in his own opinion and perswades himself it's most reasonable although it be nothing so or even when indeed it is the best and we persist against it unreasonably for there are occasions and places and persons which oblige us to yield and which ought to make us quit our resentments and pretences How ever it be a constant man easily falls into all those kindes of Opinionateness for that Confidence having stiffened the Soul against those difficulties which assault her there is no further perswasion which can take place so that by the same resistance whereby she seeks to stop ill she opposeth Truth and Reason so that she doth like a besieged Town where the gates which are shut to the enemies hinder all friends and releif from entring in Moreover this Opinionastrecy commonly comes from Presumption which will not yield nor submit to another mans judgement and consequently that Constancy which hath a great opinion of its forces and believes it self invincible is easily abased by the Confidence it hath in it self which causing it to despise all advice and help from others renders it incredulous indocible and Opinionasted Sometimes she advanceth even to Hard-heartedness and to Insensibility She is insensible of anothers ill for in the power that she hath to stop all the rest of the Souls motions she may hinder herself from being sensible of the miseries of another which is as hath been said a kinde of cruelty and inhumanity For Nature which takes care for society gives us a certain tenderness to resist the ills of those which are afflicted that we might relieve them And when a man hath so hardened his heart that he cannot be mollified by the resentments of pitty certainly we may say that he wants not onely the Heart of a Man but that he is of Marble or of Iron Beyond all we must not wonder if Constancy easily falls into this defect since its principal employment is to resist Grief which is a good part of Compassion as in its place we shall declare She is Modest in good Fortune She is modest in prosperity because with the stifness which she gives herself it 's almost impossible for her to suffer herself to be swelled with Pride or blown away with Vanity and that Insolency which is commonly bred from one of those two Passions may render its prosperity odious She is Severe in Pleasures She is severe in Pleasure not onely because that in stiffening herself she stops those motions which they might raise and that they serve her as a bank to hinder them from over-flowing but also because she findes herself in their presence seised with a certain frowardness and with I know not what bitterness of mind which mixing it self with the joy which they give weaken her and take from her those transports those raptures and those sweets which are wont to accompany her rendring her Serious Reserved and Severe But how can such sweet and charming things cause peevishness 'T is without doubt that she considers them as ills now the presence of ill is unpleasant and although it cast not the Soul always into grief yet it gives her I know not what kinde of distaste which renders her wary and peevish and truly as liking is the first thing which good inspires which is not as we have already declared a Passion or at least which is but a breeding Joy so before ill produceth hatred and sadness in the Soul it produceth therein a certain angry sence which is not a motion of the Appetite because it remains simply in the Understanding which observes the disproportion which is betwixt it and the Object yet forbears not to disquiet it and to give it this secret peevishness which we speak of which is neither Hatred nor Grief at least if we may so call it it is but the commencement thereof Howsoever it be when the Soul resists Pleasures they no longer are graceful objects unto her she looks on them as on poysons to corrupt her and conceives the same aversion for them which she hath for all such as may destroy her for which cause we must not think it strange if they render her Severe and peevish since they are the sence which the presence of ill is always accustomed to imprint But if this be so How Joy is to be found with Grief How is Joy to be found in the violence of Grief of Scorn and of Infamy with all those evills which so often exercise Constancy For if it be true that evils alwayes bring peevishness with them those which are the greatest we can suffer must needs fill the Soul with Grief nor permit never so little a Joy to have any place in her and yet it is true that the most part of Lovers take pleasure in suffering for those they love that the Ambitious bravely support those
all motion of the Appetite making a Passion this natural Appetite which hath its particular motions must also have its particular Passions It 's true they are not so perfect nor in so great a number as the others being led by a knowledge less exact and which discerns not the objects so well as the imagination for which cause there are few unless it be Pleasure Grief Boldness and Fear which are observed to be in this lower part of the Soul they are likewise so imperfect that we may see they are but gross unfinished images or the roughcasts of the rest for the pain which Nature suffers and I know not what kind of peevishness which follows the indispositions of the Body are to speak truly but feeble beginnings of true Grief like as those secret glimmerings and those pleasant resentments which accompany natural actions are but the shadows of Joy and of Pleasure And although Nature provokes and insensibly raiseth herself up against ill and that we also often see that she is astonished and loseth Courage in the conflict they are motions which indeed have relation to the Boldness and fear of this sensitive part but are very far from their perfection as it is very easie to judge All what can be said hereupon is that these motions deserve not the name of Passions being not conducted by any knowledge which is absolutely necessary to form the Passions but besides that there is a hidden knowledge in all the things of Nature it 's most certain that it 's more distinct and more apparent in some then in others and that this natural Appetite is more enlightned in Animals then in Plants for besides this obscure and secret knowledge which it hath for vegetative actions it 's also conducted by the vital faculty which acts with so much light and discerning that divers did believe it was the springe of the sensitive Soul Now although Philosophy hath restrained the name of Passions to such motions as are made by the direction of sence yet we may perceive that its a far fetched circumstance which comes not near the essence of the thing and that the motion of the Soul forbears not to be a true motion although it follows not the orders of the sensitive Soul so that if it hath not all the conditions of Passion exactly so taken yet at least it hath if we may so speak the body and substance thereof In a word it 's so like it that as the name of Passions hath been given to the esmotions of the Will by reason of the resemblance which they nave with those of the sensitive Appetite for want of terms more fit we may call the motions of the natural Appetite Passions although they are not so perfect and that even perhaps they are of another order and of another gender However it be these two Appetites which may sometimes move separately as we may experiment it in our selves when Nature combates sickness and we are nothing sensible of any of the sensitive Passions they commonly relieve one the other and communicate their motions when they are powerfully agitated whence it happens that violent Passions cause such great disorders in the body that the peevishness and secrer contentment which we have now spoken of ends at last in sadness or in real joyes and that Grief cannot be very strong in the sensitive part but that it must be sensible to the natural Faculties and particularly to the vital Now Nature hath this property when the ill is come to her knowledge to raise up herself against it and endeavor to overcome it stiring up the natural heat and with the spirits conveighing it into those parts where she thinks it is Thus inflammations happen to wounds thus pain encreaseth when the impostumes ripen and that a Feavor breeds in a corrupt body for all these accidents are effects of this Heat which Nature stirs up and renders stronger to combate the ills she resents This being true we need not doubt that when weak and timorous persons suffer a very sensible injury the grief it causeth in the sensitive Appetite can never descend to the natural Appetite And then this power following its inclination must needs rise up against the ill and according to its custom stir up natural heat to overcome it for its undoubtedly from thence the redness proceeds which appears in the countenance upon the arrival of a great grief and which commonly accompanies those first tears which grief makes us shed as in its place shall be more fitly exprest If it be therefore true that Heat awakens and augments it self in Grief she may form Hope for the Reasons already related so that we can no ways doubt but that Anger is ever devanced by this Passion even in the weakest and most timorous Natures Yet we must here remember what we said before That that disposition which was necessary to produce this effect is that we are very sensible of injuries and that heat is very agile as without doubt it is in the Temperature of Women and Children who are composed of an agile and subtile humidity wherein heat and the spirits are easily agitated without encountring any obstacle Because that in that weakness wherein the Soul perceives her self she hath no time to consider it so that she must needs be surprised and as it were drawn away by the precipitate motion of heat She would otherwise never engage herself in fight nor ever believe she could overcome her Enemy Thence it is that Natures in whom Melancholy and Phlegm are thick and gross are hardly made angry what ill soever you do them because the Spirits move themselves with pain under the weight of such heavy Humors and that the Soul hath time enough to consider its weakness before they can make their way or free themselves So that what endeavor soever the Natural Appetite can make afterwards it is not capable to make her change the resolution which she had taken to suffer the ill and without being touched with the least hope of being able to surmount it resolving herself to Patience or abandoning herself to Grief and to those Passions which follow it But it 's to stop too long on those Subjects which must be handled again in other places Let us onely clear two Doubts which may arise from the precedent proposition for if we often grow angry without Hope of ever getting satisfaction for the injury received And if even then when we are agitated with this Passion we grow furious when we despair of our revenge it must necessarily follow That Hope ought not alwayes to go before or accompany Anger as we have said To answer to the first of these Reasons Every man that is angry hopes to revenge himself we must remember that in the order of Nature Vengeance is a chastisement whereby we would take away from him who hath done us an injury the means to continue it Now as no body makes himself angry but he believes he hath
the impetuosity and the boilings wherwith the blood and spirits are agited but we must presently judge that that is the cause which makes the Veins and Arteries swelled and extended and that all the rest of the parts are full and puffed up and whosoever shall represent to himself the impatience and the transport wherein the Soul is will nothing wonder at these motions which in this Passion the Body suffers The Head is lifted up and the Stature grows erect for as much as the Soul raiseth up herself to assault the Enemy And although he be absent she forbears not to put herself into this posture as if she were ready to throw herself on him for that the violence of those Passions which trouble her represent him to her thought as if he were truly present and as if he ought in effect to feel the blows she intends to inflict The frequent flinging out of the Arms The motion of the parts in Anger a light and quick pace a continual change of posture and place are effects which note the endeavors and sallies of the Soul the precipitation and impatience she hath to revenge herself But whence comes it that we set up our Hands by our sides when with anger and threatnings we quarrel with any man it is without doubt to confirm the parts that the Muscles of respiration which they uphold may the more powerfully operate and by that means the voice may have the more force and be the longer lasting For which cause we are never content to place our hands thus on our sides but that we also advance the Arms and the Elbows whereby enlarging and extending the Shoulders we render them for the same purpose more stiff As for those blows wherewith a man in Anger beats the ground and all what comes under his hands or under his feet it 's very likely that they are such means as the soul useth to give a repulse to those difficulties which traverse her designs and that the trouble and blindness she is in causing her to take all things for true obstacles which stop her she strikes against she drives and she beats them as it were to break them and to put them by or else they are the effects of a precipitated Vengeance which Anger doth discharge on the first Objects it meets having not either the patience or the power to make them be rescued by its real Enemy It 's thus that Dogs bite the stones which are thrown at them it is thus we break the Sword which wounded us in a word it is thus we revenge our selves on our selves and above all its what concerns those from whom we have received an injury But what reason can we give for all those shakings of the Head which are remarkable in this Passion Whence the shakings of the Head What can oblige the Soul to move it one while to the right and then to the left sometimes up and sometimes down and sometimes on one side onely And to what end doth she cause these so extravagant motions and so different the one from another For to conclude that they are signs and natural effects which Anger produceth in all men of what Nation or of what constitution soever they are So that if Nature doth nothing in vain she must herein have her causes and reasons as well as in her greatest and most considerable actions It is true in my judgement they are very hard to be known and it is with them as with most part of things which hide them selves so much the more unto the Mind the more they discover themselves unto the Sences and which are as difficult to be comprehended as they are easily remarkable And certainly as all natural things are made for some end or out of necessity we cannot say but that the alteration of the Body or the agitation of the Humors must cause these motions by a necessary consequence as it happens in the redness of the Face in the wrinckles of the Forehead in the splendor of the Eyes and the like which are formed by necessity without being destined for any use and if we would place them in the rank of actions which are performed for some end it is nothing easie to observe what motive the Soul therein proposeth it self no what service she pretends to draw from thence To give further light to these obscurities you must first know whether these motions are not in other Passions and afterwards seek those motives for the which they were therein formed and lastly to see whether they may be applied to Anger It is certain that we use to shake the Head and to give it readily two or three turns about when any thing displeaseth Why we toss the Head as especially when we refuse or disapprove of any thing when we are sensible of an ungrateful smel or when we tast ought that is disgustful For which cause the vulgar commonly call Wine when it is not good Wine with two ears because it makes those two parts move when we turn the Head from one side to the other and that by that motion we would signifie that we found it to be naught But what relation can this action have with these sentiments Is it not that the Soul would turn away the face where the organs of the sences are from those objects which are displeasing to it as she useth to fix them on those which please Or that she seeks by that endeavor to estrange from her what is troublesome At least it is thus that when any thing incommodates those parts we shake them about to drive them away for although this in these encounters we speak of be useless unto it yet are they nothing extraordinary since she often deceives herself in the same manner upon other occasions wherein she abuseth those means which Nature hath prescribed her to attain her ends employing them in others where they are of no use as hath been shewed speaking of that water which Desire causeth in the Mouth and of the motion of the Brows at the sight of distasteful things Or we may rather say that this shaking of the Head is a mark the Soul would make of the impression which some kind of objects make on her and that it is an outward image of that action which she performs in herself For it is her custom that when she would have that appear outwardly which is done within she causeth those motions of the organs which have some relation and resemblance with her own as we may judge by the laughter of the looks and by all those other effects whereof we have spoken in this Work And certainly since that at the encounter of pleasant things she makes particular signs which make known the sence she hath of them she must needs also have some for those which are displeasing So that if she sweetly casts down the Head when good presents it self unto her as it happens when we meet a friend when we approve a