They could not see any thing by the mind but terminated all sight in the Eyes Now it is the part of a noble Wit to call the Mind off from the Senses and take it out of the common Road. Therefore I suppose that in so many Ages some have before done so but of all whose Opinions are Recorded a Pherecydes the Syrese first maintain'd that Humane Souls are immortal An Author of great Antiquity b for he liv'd in the Reign of my Kinsman This opinion his Scholar Pythagoras greatly confirm'd who being come into Italy in the Reign of Tarquin the proud sway'd Greece the Great with honor to his Person multitude of Auditors and Authority of his Doctrine so that for many years after the Pythagorean Name so flour sh'd that none were reputed Scholars who were not of his Sect. a Pherecydes the Syrese From Syres one of the Islands in the Aegean called Cyclades he was the Master of Pythagoras b For he liv'd in the Reign of my Kinsman Tully claime kindred with Servius Tullius the sixth Roman King upon names-sake SECT XVII That it is more likely they ascend BUT I return to the Ancients they were hardly wont to give any reason of their Opinion unless in matters demonstrable by Lines and Numbers Plato is reported to have travelled into Italy that he might be acquainted with the Pythagoreans and when he was there to have had intimacy with Architas and Timaeus so that he became expert in all the Pythogorean Learning and was the first that not only held the same concerning the Immortality of the Soul as Pythagoras did but further brought his reason to prove it which reason unless you otherwise require let us blanch and so abandon this whole hope of Immortality S. Do you offer now you have rais'd my expectations to the heighth to disappoint me had rather I assure you be mistaken with Plato whom I know how much you magnifie and am wont upon your Commendation to admire than to be of their opinion in the right M. Bravely resolv'd for I my self could be contented with so good Company to be in the wrong Do we then question this as many other passages although there be least ground to doubt this Mathematicians perswade us that the Earth situated in the middle of the Universe beareth the proportion of a Point which they call the Center in comparison with the vast Orb of the Starry Heavens and further that such is the nature of the four Elements that their Motions are divided by opposite terms so that terrene and humid Bodies of their own bent and sway tend perpendicularly to the Earth and Sea the two remaining parts the one of Fire the other of Air as the former by their heaviness sink down into the middle of the World so these sore up at right Angles to the heavenly Regions whether it be their own nature to aspire upward c or that the lighter parts are naturally lifted up by the descent of the more heavy These things being on all hands agreed it ought to be alike evident that Souls when they depart the Body whether they be of a spiritous or fiery substance mount towards Heaven but if the Soul be a number which is said with more subtlety than plainness or if it be of that fifth Nature which however nameless is not so very difficult to be understood then are they much more abstract from matter and of greater purity and will consequently ascend to the greatest distance from the Earth Now some of these Natures the Soul must needs be of not to fancy so quick and sprightly an Intelligence lying plung'd in the Heart or Brains or after Empedocles in the Blood c Or that the lighter parts are naturally lifted up by the descent of the heavier The opinion that Gravity and Levity are not positive but comparative thought to be Modern and Cartesian appears to have been ancient SECT VIII Nor vanish AS for Dicaearchus with Aristoxenus his Contemporary and Fellow-Pupil let them pass for great Scholars the one of which seems never to have had compassion or he would have been sensible that he had a Soul the other is so transported with his Tunes that he would forcibly apply them to the Matters in hand Now we can collect Harmony from the distance of sounds the setting of which notes in due proportion produces also variety of Tunes But what Musick the posture of the Limbs and the shape of the Body destitute of a Soul can produce I comprehend not He would do well therefore Scholar as he is to leave these Matters to his Master Aristotle and content himself with teaching to Fiddle For that is good direction which is given in the Greek Proverb Let each man practice th' Art in which he 's skill'd But turn we quite out of doors that casual concourse of smooth and round Bodies which yet Democritus would have to conceive heat and become spiritous that is having Life Now the Soul in this case which if it consists of any of the four Elements whereof all things are said to be compounded hath for its ingredients inflam'd Air to which opinion Panaetius was most inclinable must mount upwards for these two Elements have nothing in them tending downward but alwayes ascend so whether they scatter in the Air it must be far from falling to the Earth or whether they continue and subsist in a separate Estate they must of more necessity mount up to Heaven forcing their passage through this gross and impure Air which is nearest the Earth for the Soul is hotter or rather more fiery than is this Air which I just now call'd gross and impure SECT XIX But ascend the Sky AND that it is so is demonstrable from this that our Bodies compounded of the terrene sort of Principles do yet conceive warmth from the heat of the Soul The probability is further improv'd of our Souls breaking thorough and surmounting this aiery Region with the more ease because nothing is swifter then thought No speed may compare with the speed of the Soul which if it continue entire and like it self must of necessity pass with such a quick motion as to pierce and divide all these lower Regions of Heaven wherein Clouds Rains and Winds are engendred which is moist and dark with Exhalations from the Earth which Atmosphear when the Soul hath transcendéd and finds that she is arriv'd at a nature like her self consisting of a refin'd Air and gentle heat of the Sun she fixeth in the Empirean Orb and stayes her further ascent for having now gotten a lightness and heat agreeable to her self as hanging ballanc'd in an equal counterpoise she moves neither way but this is her natural home when she hath arriv'd at her own likeness where she shall want nothing but be nourish'd and sustain'd with the same Food wherewith the Stars are nourish'd and sustain'd and whereas we are here wont through the Lusts of our flesh to be enflam'd to almost all sorts of
in the Body For my part when I look closely into the nature of the Soul it seems a far more difficult and obscure Speculation what the Soul should be when confin'd to this Body as in a strange House then what it should be when it is escap'd and arriv'd at the open Heaven as its own home For unless we can conceive the nature of a thing which we never saw neither can we apprehend the Being of God who is an incorporeal Spirit Dicaearchus and Aristoxenus because the Nature and likeness of a Soâ—â— were hard to be understood plainly deny'd the â—â—ry being of it Indeed it is one of the hardest Operations for the Soul by a reflex act to behold the Soul And this was the true meaning of Apollo in that Precept wherein he enjoyns man to know himself For I do not take that he means we should know our Limbs how tall we are or of what shape nor indeed are our Bodies our selves and what I now speak to you I do not address to your Body When therefore he saith know your self he means know your Soul for the Body is but the Case and Cabinet of the Soul Whatever Actions are perform'd by your Soul are your Actions Therefore to know thee unless it had been of some Divine Import it would not so far have pass'd for the Invention of some profound Wit so as to have been father'd upon a God requiring no greater Ability than to know ones self But though the Soul should not attain to know what is the Nature of the Soul pray satisfie me can it not know its Being can it not be sensible of its Motion from whence arose that Argument of Plato press'd by Socrates in the Dialogue stil'd Phaedrus and quoted by me in my sixth Book of Politicks SECT XXIII Arguments for the Immortality of the Soul from its inward Motion WHat always moveth is eternal but what imparts motion to another and what is acted by another when it comes to an end of motion must also come to an end of life That only therefore which moves it self because it is never deserted of it self neither doth it ever cease moving nay this is the Spring this the Principle of Motion to other things which are mov'd Now a Principle hath no precedent source of being for all things arise from their Principle but it can spring from no other thing for so it would cease to be a Principle if it were begotten of any thing else but if it be never generated neither will it ever corrupt for a Principle abolish'd can neither arise again from another nor can it produce any other thing from it self for all things must necessarily arise from their Principle so cometh it about that the Principle of Motion must be at that which moveth it self now that can neither be born nor dye or else all Heaven would tumble down and the whole frame of Nature stop its course nor have any Mover by whose first impression it should be set on Motion It being therefore plain that what moves it self is eternal who can deny the Nature of Souls to be such for whatsoever is stir'd by a foreign Impression is inanimate but every Animal is quickened by an inward Motion and of its own for that is the proper Nature and Power of the Soul which if it be the only of all Substances that alwayes moves it self neither was it in truth ever born and is eternal Let all the petty Philosophers for so should they be call'd in my opinion who differ from Plato and Socrates and that Family let them come in to assist one another they will not only never express any thing so neatly but also never be able to discern where the stress of the Argument lyes e The Soul therefore is sensible that it moves and is withall sensible that it moves by its own and no foreign Impulse and that it can never be that it should fail it self from whence its Eternity is concluded unless you have any reply to offer S. I indeed am well contented to admit into my thought no matter of questioning it I have such a favour for that Opinion e The Soul therefore is sensible that it moves The former Argument of Self-motion being common to all living Creatures might seem to conclude for the like Privilege to the Souls of brute Beasts which go downward and return into the Power of that Matter from whence they were educed But Cicero restrains it to a reflex Act of the understanding which properly flows from the rational Soul SECT XXIV From the capaciousness of its memory WHat do you think of these other Instances Take you them to be of less moment which manifest that there is somewhat Divine in the Souls of men which could I perceive how they could have been born I might also comprehend how they should dye For as to the Blood Choler Phlegm Bones Sinews Veins in a word all the mould of the Limbs and of the whole Body methinks I could account for them whereof they are compounded and how they were form'd from the Soul it self if there accru'd no other advantage but that we liv'd by it I should think the Life of man as much supported by Nature as that of a Vine or other Plant for we say that they also live Again if the Soul of man had no other Faculties than those of desiring and avoiding that too it would have in common with the Beasts For the first instance it hath memory and that infinite of innumerable things f so that Plato would have it to be the recalling to mind what was known in a former Life For in that Book which is entitled Menon Socrates asks a certain Youngster some Geometrical questions about the content of a Square He answers them as a Child and yet the Interrogatories are so easie that the answer proceeding step by step cometh at length to that pass as if he had learn'd Mathematicks from which Socrates would conclude that to learn is nothing else but to refresh the Memory Which Topick he explains much more accurately yet in that Dialogue which he held the very day wherein he submitted to the Execution of the Sentence pass'd upon his Life wherein he teaches that any one let him seem utterly illiterate and unexperienc'd if he answer directly to one that puts apt questions to him doth make it manifest that he doth not then learn those Matters anew but only recollect what he had before in his memory And that it were wholly impossible for us to have the Notions which the Greeks call common of so many and so great things from our Childhood imprinted and as it were registred in our Souls unless the Soul before it entred the Body had been employ'd in understanding the World And if it had been nothing as is in all places disputed by Plato for he thinks that to be nothing which cometh by Generation and turns to Corruption and that only to have being which is such always
as it were with Hereditary Family Vices and Scandals or had committed inexpiable Villanies in the overthrow of the State that these were carried in a By-road debarred from the blessed Assembly of the Gods But those who had kept themselves pure and uncorrupt and had contracted least infection from their Bodies but had alwayes drawn themselves into retirement from them and in humane Bodies had imitated the life of God that such had an easie and open return to those from whom they came and then he recounts how Swans which are not without reason dedicated to Apollo but because they seem to have the Gift of Divination from him by which foreseeing what benefit there is in death they dye with Melody and Pleasure so should all good and learned men do Nor could any one doubt of this unless it fared with us when we think earnestly about our Souls as it is wont to do with those that gaze stedfastly upon the Sun in Eclipse that they quite lose their sight so the eye of the mind looking nearly into it self is sometimes dazled and by that very means we let go the intenseness of Contemplation Therefore our whole discourse upon the Subject proceeds with suspence viewing round the Coast demurring crusing forward and backward as a small Pinnace beats about in the vast Ocean But these are old Instances and fetch'd from the Greeks Now Cato of late so parted with life as that he was glad he had gotten an occasion of dying For that Vicegerent of God which Rules within us lays a strict Injunction not to depart hence without his leave But when God himself shall give a just Cause as he did Socrates then Cato now and many often then truly will the Wise man joyfully escape out of this darkness into the light Nor yet will he break Prison for the Laws defend that but being so discharg'd and dismiss'd by God as by a Magistrate or lawful Authority he will depart For the whole Life of Philosophy as the same Author saith is a Meditation of Death CHAP. XXXI From the Sequestring it self from the Body in Meditation as in Death NOW what else do we when we call of our mind from following Pleasure that is the Body from minding our Estate that is the Servant of the Body when we withdraw it from managing State-Affairs and all business What say I do we then but call the Soul home oblige it to dwell within it self and draw it to the farthest distance from the Body Now to abstract the Soul from the Body is nothing else than to exercise dying Wherefore take my word let us practise this and sit loose from our Bodies that is accustom our selves to dye This both whilst we shall be on Earth will be like the Life of Heaven and when being set at liberty from these Bonds we shall ascend thither by this means the agility of our Souls will be less clog'd For they who have always been held fast bound in the Fetters of the Body even when they are knock'd off tread more gently as they who have been many years loaded with Irons But when we shall come thither then shall we live in truth for this Life is but a Death which if I were so disposed I could lament S. That you have enough lamented k in your Book of Consolation which when I read I desire nothing more than to leave this World but upon hearing the present Discourse I am much more desirous to do so M. The time will come and that speedily and that whether you draw back or hasten for Life is upon the Wing but Death is so far from being an Evil as you lately thought that I doubt whether any thing else be I say not no evil but any thing else be a greater good for we shall be either Gods or with the Gods S. What availeth it for there are many among us that give no credit to these things M. Now will I never in this debate part with you on such Terms as that you should be of opinion that death is evil S. How can I now I have been thus inform'd M. How can you do you ask there will come upon you whole troops of Gain-sayers and those not only Epicureans whom for my part I do not despise though best Scholars generally do contemn But my dear Dicaearchus hath most earnestly disputed against this immortality of Souls for he wrote three Books call'd Lesbian because the debate was held at Mitylenae wherein he would prove that Souls are Mortal the Stoics l they prorogue us as Crows to a late day of Death for they allow Souls to abide long but not for ever k In your Book of Consolation Upon the occasion of his beloved Daughter Tullia dying in Childbed Tully drew up into a Treatise all the Heads of comfort and distress delivered by the ancient Philosophers and applyed them for his own use which Book is lost though there go about a piece under that name l They prorogue us as Crows to a late day of death This is a Tradition from Hesiod that Crows live nine Lives of a man Aristotle denies it and affirms only the Elephant to out-live man SECT XXXII The Adversaries of the Souls Immortality confuted HAVE you a mind therefore to hear how though it should be so yet there is no evil in Death S. Use your pleasure but no one shall ever beat me out of Immortality M. I commend you for that but it is good not to be too confident for we often give upon some subtle Argument are shaken and change our Judgment even in clearer Matters for there is some obscurity in these Therefore if such a rencounter should happen let us be arm'd S. Well advis'd but I will watch that it may not happen M. Have you then any thing to alledge why we should not dismiss our Friends the Stoics those I mean m who allow that Souls abide after they are gone out of the Body but not always S. Ay those Gentlemen who maintain that which is most difficult in this whole dispute that the Soul may subsist in a separate condition but do not yield that which is not only easie to be believ'd but consequent upon that which they have granted that the Soul after it hath long surviv'd should not at all dye M. You rightly reprove them Should we then believe Panaetius dissenting from his Master Plato Him that in all places he calls the Divine the Wisest the Holiest n the Homer of the Philosophers yet this only Tenet of his about the Immortality of the Soul he doth not approve for he affirms what no body denies that whatsoever is born dyes but Souls are born as the likeness of Children to their Parents makes evident which appears in their Wits also nor only in their Bodies He brings another Argument for it Nothing suffers pain but what may also be sick and what is liable to disease that must dye but Souls suffer pain they therefore must dye m Who allow
that Souls abide after they are gone out of the Body but not always The Stoicks held the Soul to be a hot Breath that is a Body compounded of Air and Fire so consequently subject to Dissolution but not suddenly upon expiring The Souls of the loose and debauched they fancied to abide a time accordingly shorter but those of the just and resolute to the next Conflagration of the World n The Homer of the Philosophers Not only because as Homer led and excelled in Poetry so Plato in Philosophy but also more because as the continued Epique Poem of Homer was that rich Spring from whence the following Poets drew the partial Arguments of their Poetry so the Dialogues of Plato are that well-stored Repertory of Wisdom from whence the succeeding Philosophers have set up their several Sects with their respective Opinions So that what the one furnished in gross the others deal out by retail SECT XXXIII The Arguments of Panaetius answered THESE Reasons may be disprov'd for they proceed from ignorance that when there is speech about the Eternity of Souls it is meant of the Understanding which is always free from any turbulent Motion not of those parts wherein Passions Wrath and Lusts inhabit which o he against whom these Objections are raised supposeth remov'd from the Understanding and lodg'd in distinct Apartments For likeness more appeareth in Beasts whose Souls have no reason But the likeness of men is more visible in the shape of their Bodies and the Souls themselves it much imports in what kind of Body they be lodg'd for there proceed many Impressions from the Body which quicken the understanding many which dull it p Aristotle indeed saith that all ingenious men are of a melancholly Complexion so that I have the less reason to be troubled that I am none of the quickest And as if the Problem were agreed upon subjoyns a reason why it cometh to be so Now if there be such great influence see the Production in the Body upon the habit of the Mind and these whatever they be are all that maketh the likeness the likeness of Soul infers no necessity why it should be born To pass likeness would Panaetius could be present he liv'd with Africanus I would enquire of him whom of all his Kindred was Africanus's Brother's Grandson like In shape his very Father in life so like any Villain that he was by far the basest of all Like to whom too was the Grandchild of P. Crassus both a wise and eloquent man as also the Sons and Grandsons of many other excellent Personages whom it is no ways material to name on this occasion But what drive we at have we forgot that this is the Scope of our present discourse after we had spoken sufficiently upon Eternity further to prove that there is no evil in death though Souls were also to be extinct S. True I minded it but all the while you were discoursing upon Eternity was willing you should run on wide of the Point in hand o He against whom these Objections are raised Plato p Aristotle indeed saith that all ingenious men are of a melancholy Temper In his Problems Sect. 30. Choler adust hath the predominancy in them and they are upon the confines of madness SECT XXXIV Upon Supposition of the Souls mortality death is not evil being a departure from evils M. YOU look high I see and would fain be removing to Heaven I hope that will be our portion but suppose as those Gentlemen would have it to be that Souls do not remain after death I see we are cut off from the hopes of a more blessed Life but what evil doth that opinion import Suppose the Soul so to perish as the Body is there then any pain or indeed any sense at all in the Body after death No body saith so although Epicurus chargeth that on Democritus his Followers deny it neither is there any sense therefore left in the Soul for that it self is no where where then is the Evil for there is no third Subject is it because the parting of the Soul from the Body passeth not without pain Should I believe it to be so how small a business is that and I take it to be untrue for it happens frequently without Sense nay sometimes with Pleasure And that whole concern make the most of it is of small import for it indureth but a Moment That consideration perplexeth or rather torments a departure from all those things which are good in this Life Look whether it may not more truly be said from the Evils thereof Why should I now bewail mans Life I might truly and have title to do so but what needs it when I am labouring to take off the opinion that we shall be miserable after death to make even Life more miserable by bemoaning it We have done this in that Book wherein we comforted our selves as much as we could Therefore to state the question aright Death withdraws us from Evils not from Goods This Point was so largely debated by Hegesias the Cyrenaick that he is reported to have been prohibited by King Ptolomy to dispute publickly on that Subject because many upon the hearing it made themselves away Callimachus hath an Epigram upon Cleombrotus the Ambraciote who saith he had no misfortune befell him but upon reading Plato's Dialogue threw himself from the Wall into the Sea And that Hegesias whom I mention'd left a Book entitled The resolv'd Passenger because one departing out of Life by forbearing to eat is disswaded by his Friends whom he answers by reckoning up the Miseries of man's Life I could do the like though not to that degree as he who thinks it expedient for none at all to live Others I wave Is it expedient for us to do so who being strip'd of the Comforts and Ornaments both of Family and Court had we dy'd before Death had most assuredly remov'd us from Evils and not from Goods SECT XXXV Or from uncertain Goods SUppose we then one that has no Evil hath met with some misfortune q Metellus the Honourable had four Sons Ay but Priam had fifty and seventeen of them born of his lawful Wife Fortune had the same power over both though she made use of it only upon one for many Sons Daughters Grandsons Grand-daughters laid Metellus in the Grave but the hand of an Enemy slew Priam before the Altar where he had taken Sanctuary after the loss of so numerous a Progeny Had he been deceas'd whilst his Children surviv'd the State of the Empire continu'd firm By Barbary Guards attended In Palace carv'd and vaulted Resolve me whither he had departed from Goods or Evils from Goods he would at that time have thought But in truth it had fallen out better for him nor had that Ditty been sung to so lamentable a Tune All these I saw in Ashes lay'n Priam by the proud Victor slain Joves sacred Altar blood profane As if at that time any thing could have befallen him better
ago or rather all that ever were born S. I am clearly of that Perswasion M. Prithee tell me do these Advises from under ground scare you The black Mastiff with three Heads the howling River the Ferry over the Stygian Lake Tantalus chin-deep in Water choak'd with thirst Doth Sisyphus his ponderous Stone Tug'd up with sweat still rolling down alone Perhaps too those inexorable Justicers Minos and Rhadamanthus before whom you can have neither Lucius Crassus nor Mark Antony to plead your Cause nor because the Matter is to be try'd before Greek Judges can you have Demosthenes for Counsel your self must make your own defence in the greatest of all Assemblies These things perhaps you dread and therefore apprehend death as an eternal Evil. a We are born to everlasting Misery It is horrible to imagine that the Author of Nature should ordain the whole Race of Mankind so highly by him advanced to a State of endless Misery But the Heathen did not understand death as a Punishment superinduc'd through the defection of our first Parent This is brought against Death's being Evil that is miserable to both living and dead The third Member of the Dis-junction SECT VI. The Local Hell describ'd by Poets is fictitious S DO you take me to be so destitute of Reason as to believe these Legends M. What do not you verily believe them S. Not I at all M. You tell me ill news S. How so I beseech you M. Because I could have past for a Wit in confuting them S. And who might not on such a Subject or what difficulty is it to prove these to be meer extravagancies of Poets and Painters M. Why there are whole Book-fulls in the Philosophers of Disputations to overthrow these Supposititions S. To much purpose indeed for who is so senseless as to be concern'd at them M. If therefore there be none miserable under ground neither are there any Persons under ground S. I am clear of your mind in that M. Where then are those that you call miserable or what place do they inhabit for if they be they cannot be no where S. Yes I think them to be no where M. Therefore neither to be S. Well as you say and yet miserable for that very reason because they be not M. Nay now had I rather you were afraid of Cerberus than to use such inconsiderate Discourse S. How so M. You say that the same is not and yet is Where is your Subtilty for when you say he is miserable you then say that he who is not yet is S. I am not so stupid as to say that M. What is it then that you say S. That M. Crassus for instance is miserable who by death was taken from that Estate Cn. Pompey miserable who was depriv'd of so great Glory in a word that all are miserable who lack this chearful light M. You come round thither where you were before for they needs must be if they are miserable but you lately deny'd that the Dead are if therefore they are not they cannot be any thing and by consequence not miserable S. Perchance I do not yet speak out my meaning for I take that very thing to be most miserable for him not to be that hath been M. What more miserable than for one never to have been at all by the same reason they that are yet unborn are already miserable because they are not And we our selves if we shall be miserable after we are dead were so before we were born but I do not remember that I was miserable before I was born you if you have a better Memory I would fain know whether you remember any such thing of your self * * To prove these to be meer Extravagancies of Poets and Painters The Body in a State of Separation in insensible nor did they expect a Resurrection of the Body only by Faith in the sacred Testimonies apprehended therefore to place Hell in bodily Sufferings seem'd to them repugnant both to Sense and Reason Yet they own'd the Souls of the deceas'd to enter into a State of Happiness or Misery according to their Actions in this Life SECT VII They who are not are not miserable S. YOU make a Droll of it as if I said they are miserable who are not born and not those that are dead M. You say then that these are S. Nay but because they have been and are not that they are miserable M. Do not you perceive that you speak Contradictions for what is so opposite as that he should be not only miserable but any thing who is not at all b As you go out at the Capuan Gate and see there the Sepulchres of Calatinus the Scipio's the Servilii and Marcelli can you judge them miserable S. Because you pinch me with cavilling at a word I shall hereafter forbear to say they are miserable but only term them miserable for that very reason because they are not M. You do not say then M. Crassus is miserable but miserable M. Crassus S. Right M. As though whatsoever is pronounc'd of any one were not of necessity either so or not so have you not so much as learn'd the Rudiments of Logick for this is a fundamental Maxim there that every Proposition must be either true or false when therefore you say miserable M. Crassus either you say M. Crassus is miserable that it may be brought to trial whether it be true or false or you say nothing at all S. Well then I grant that they are not miserable who are dead because you have wrack'd out of me the Confession that a they who have no being cannot be so much as miserable what say you of us that are alive can we be other than miserable since we must dye for what enjoyment can there be in life when we are to think day and night that dye we must of a certain and it is uncertain whether this or the next Moment a They who have no being cannot be so much as miserable Nothing is more certain as the Action at Law dies with the Person so if the Subject cease to be all the Accidents depending on it fall together Death is a Dissolution of the whole compound but this Argument is intended to reprove the Vulgar who foolishly pittied the dead only for their loss of these worldly Advantages to which indeed the dead are utterly lost but he afterwards retrieves the Soul The drift of these two Sections is to disprove Death's being evil or miserable to them that are already dead which was the second Member of the disjunctive b As ye go out at the Capuan Gate It was a Law among the Romans taken from the Attick to bury none within the City but without the several Gates by the High-way-side Monuments erected for the dead were admonitions to the Passengers and Ornaments of the Publick SECT VIII Nor is dying a miserable thing it is assay'd to prove it rather good M. DO you come then to understand of how
much evil you have discharg'd humane Condition S. Which way M. Because if dying had been miserable to them that are dead we should have had an endless and everlasting evil in Life Now I see the Goal whether when I have finish'd my course nothing further is to be fear'd But you seem to me to be of Epicharmus's mind an acute man and not unfacetious as being a Sicilian S. What was his mind for I do not know it M. I will tell you if I can translate it for you know I no more use to bring in ends of Greek in a Latin Discourse than when I am speaking Greek to come in with Latin Sentences S. In that you are right but what I pray is that saying of Epicharmus M. To dye I 'me loth but weigh not to be dead S. Now I find the Greek by his subtlety but since you have forc'd me to yield that they who are dead are not miserable perswade me if you can that it is not a miserable thing that we must dye M. There is now no great difficulty in that but I aim at higher Matters S. How no great difficulty in that or what can be those higher Matters M. Because if there be no evil after death neither can death it self be evil for the time which immediately follows it is after death wherein you allow that there is no evil upon which follows that neither is it evil that we must dye which is we must arrive thither where we confess is no evil S. Speak to that I pray more largely for these captious questions sooner gain of me a Confession than a Conviction But what are those higher Matters that you say you aim at M. To make out if I am able that death is so far from being evil that it is good S. I do not require that from you but would gladly hear it for though you should not demonstrate what you attempt yet you will gain the question that death is not evil Proceed then I shall not interrupt you I had rather hear it in a continu'd Speech M. What if I should ask you any thing would you not answer me S. That were an uncivil part but unless there be a necessity I had rather you would for bear it * * If there be no evil after death neither can death it self be evil Death as a passage to a State of insensibility can have no very formidable aspect and this is offer'd to overthrow the first Branch in the disjunctive Syllogisme as if death were evil to them that are to dye But the Heathen World knew not the universal calpableness of mankind the rigorous Sanction of a just Law and Power of the Law-giver to put his Sentence in Execution wherein the Terrors of Death doth consist SECT IX What is death what the Soul in vulgar Opinion M. I Will comply with you and to my best Ability declare what you desire yet not so as if inspir'd by Pythian Apollo I should speak nothing that were no Oracle and Infallible but as a weak man of like frailty with the rest of Mankind pursuing what hath greatest appearance of Truth for beyond probabilities I am not able to advance Let a them deliver Certainties who both affirm these Matters to be comprehensible and profess themselves to have arriv'd at Perfection S. In that as you please we are prepar'd to give attention M. Death then however universally it may seem to be known must first be enquir'd what it is Some hold death to be a Separation of the Body from the Soul Others think there is no Separation but that both Soul and Body determine at once and that the Soul is extinguish'd with the Carkass Of those who judge that the Soul departs some hold that it presently scatters some again after a long space others maintain that it endures for ever Now what it is where seated or whence it cometh is matter of great Controversie Some take it to be the heart whence men are said to be without Heart of a bad Heart or of one Heart And that great Statesman Nasica who was twice Consul had the Surname of Wise-heart And the old Poet terms Wise Aelius Sextus of an heart Profound Empedocles thinks the Soul to be the Bloodshed through the Heart Others judge that a part of the Brain is the Principle of Sense and Understanding Another Party cannot agree either the one or other to be the Soul but these lodge it in the Heart those in the Brain as its Seat or Palace Others and among them we in our own Language use the name Soul and Spirit promiscuously for we say to gasp and expire or give up the Ghost also men of a gallant Spirit of a sound Spirit and the like As for Spirit it is being interpreted Breath Zeno the Stoic holds the Soul to be a Fire a Let them deliver Certainties He reflects upon the Stoics who were very positive and Pretenders to perfect Wisdom SECT X. What it is in the Judgment of divers Philosophers BUT these which I have recited that the Soul should be Heart Brains Breath Fire are vulgar Opinions the remaining private Doctors have held and some of the Ancient ones Of later date Aristoxenus Musician and Philosopher too maintain'd it was a certain Key to which the body was strain'd as in the tuning of an Instrument so by the nature and posture of the Body variety of Motions were rais'd and as Notes in Musick He kept to his Art yet somewhat he said which somewhat such as it was had been long before both said and explain'd by Plato Xenocrates deny'd that the Soul hath any corporeal Figure but said it was a number whose Power as Pythagoras had before held was of great Efficacy in Nature His Master Plato divided the Soul into three Parts The Principal of these which is Reason he plac'd in the Head as in its Citadel and separated into two Anger and Lust which he lodg'd in different Apartments placing Anger in the Stomach and Lust under the Entrails But Dicaearchus in that Discourse which he held at Corinth and put out in three Books in the Person of learned men in the first Books brings in many Disputants in the two latter introduceth one Pherecrates an old man of Phthia whom he alledgeth as descended of Deucalion and there to argue that there is no such being as a Soul that it is a meer Name without a Notion and that we speak improperly in saying that Creatures have a living Soul whereas in truth there is neither in Man nor Beast any such thing as Soul or Spirit but all that Power which produceth in us Actions of the Mind or Senses is an equal Complexion of the Elements nor can subsist in a separate Estate as being no substance but plain body which under such a Figure is by its natural Temper dispos'd to Vegetation and Sense Aristotle who far surpasseth all others Plato alwayes excepted both in Parts and Industry after he had computed the four
Elements which furnish material cause of existence to all compound Bodies pitches upon a fifth Essence of which the rational Soul should consist for to think and forecast to learn and teach to invent with so many other Abilities of Memory Love Hatred Desire Fear Anxiety Joy he doth not conceive these and the like can be inherent in any of those four Elements Hereupon he adds a fifth nameless Nature and so calls the Soul by the new name of a pure Act being in continu'd and perpetual Motion SECT XI Inferences from these diverse Opinions THese are almost all the Opinions about the Soul as far as I can recollect for let us wave Democritus a brave man indeed and excellent Scholar but who fram'd the Soul upon a casual rencounter of smooth and globular Moths for among those Gentlemen there is no feat so strange but what omnipotent Atomes can perform Of these Opinions which is true God alone knows which hath the greatest appearance of truth is much to be question'd Had we best therefore discuss these different Opinions or return to the enquiry at first propos'd S. I would fain both might be if it were possible but it is hard to confound them Wherefore if without scanning them at large we may be deliver'd from the Terrors of death let that be our business but if that cannot be obtain'd till this question of the Souls nature be decided let us now dispatch this and that another time M. I judge that more convenient which I find you like better for it will be concluded with good Reason that whatsoever of those Opinions which I have alledged prove true death must be either not evil or rather good For if the Soul be Heart or Blood or Brains of a certain because it is Corporal it will dye with the other Body If it be breath perhaps it will scatter into thin Air If Fire it will be quench'd If it be the Harmony of Aristoxenus it will be discomposed What need I mention Dicaearchus who allows not the Soul to be any Substance according to all these Opinions none hath any concern after Death for Life and Sense are extinguish'd together But what is insensible hath neither interest in good or evil The Judgments of the rest open some door of Hope if this may chance to please you that our Souls when they have escap'd out of our Bodies may arrive at Heaven as at their own Home S. That is well pleasing to me and I could principally wish that it were so But next however it is could be contented with the perswasion that it were so M. What need have you of our pains to that purpose can we surpass Plato in Eloquence Read over diligently his Book about the Soul you will need no further Information S. I have in truth done so and that many times but I know not how whilst I am in reading I yield my assent when I have laid down the Book and begin to meditate with my self upon the Soul's Immortality all my former Assent slips out of my mind M. What think you of this do you grant that Souls do either subsist after death or determine upon death S. I readily grant it M. b What if they survive S. I allow they are blessed M. If they dye S. That they are not miserable because they have no being for that Point upon compulsion from you we a little before granted M. How then or wherefore do you say death in your judgment to be an evil which either renders us blessed in case the Soul survive or not miserable as being without all Sense b What if they survive I allow they are blessed An intellectual Life is a Blessing compar'd with Annihilation but to this must be added Reconciliation to God on such Terms as he hath declar'd consistent with the Honor of his Justice and Truth SECT XII Arguments that the Soul subsists after Death from immemorial Tradition from Funeral Rites and from the Veneration of ancient Heroes S. BE pleas'd therefore to declare in the first place if you are able that the Soul subsists after Death if you cannot evince that for it is a hard matter to make out clearly inform us that Death carrieth no evil along with it for I fear least that be evil I say not to be insensible but that we must lose our Senses M. We can produce the best Authority for that Sentence which you would gain now this both ought and is wont to be of greatest moment in deciding all Causes as first the consent of all Antiquity who the less distance they were remov'd from their original and divine Extraction did perhaps discern truth more clearly Therefore this one Principle was deeply engrasted in those old Sires who liv'd in the non-age of time that there was Sense after Death nor would man by departure out of Life be so rais'd up from the Foundations as to perish totally And this may be collected as from many other Instances so in particular from the Pontifical Sanctions about Ceremonies at the places of burial which they would never have observ'd with so much Devotion nor aveng'd the breach of them under such inexpiable Penalties had it not been imprinted in their minds that death was not an Annihilation but a removal and change only of Life which used to conduct Men and Women of good Fame up to Heaven and which continu'd in others but was depress'd to the grosser Regions investing the Earth After this Ritual and the Opinion of our Ancestors In Heaven lives Romulus with the Gods in bliss as Ennius compliant with Fame sweetly sings In like manner among the Greeks and from them deriv'd to us and as far as the Western Ocean is Hercules esteem'd a God so powerful and propitious From hence Bacchus born of Semâ—le and in like renown Castor and Pollux Brethren Sons of Tynearus who are deliver'd to have been in the Battles of the Roman People not only assistants of Victory c but also Messengers there of express What is not Ino Cadmus's Daughter who was nam'd by the Greeks Leucothea term'd by the Romans Matuta What is not almost all Heaven not to instance in more peopled with Inhabitants of humane Race c But also Messengers thereof In the War with the Latins at the Regillan Lake two Knights on white Horses were seen to lead up the Roman Battalia and after the Victory the same night to wash their Houses at the Fountain of Juiurna where having brought Post to Rome the News of the day won they vanish'd The like divine Express is said to have brought the word to Domitius Aenobarbus the day that Perses King of Macedon was beaten by Paulus Aemilius SECT XIII From this that the Superior Gods are receiv'd to have been Men deceas'd BUT if I should go about to ransack old Monuments and discover out of them what the Greek Writers have disclos'd those very Gods which are reputed of the higher Rank will be found to have pass'd from us here to
concupiscence and to be so much the more fir'd because we emulate those who are in possession of those Goods which we pursue Doubtless blessed shall we be when divested of these Bodies we shall with them have put off their craving desires and fond Emulations Now as it fareth with us here when releas'd from cares we love to recreate our selves in beholding some moral Divertisements or other pleasing sights we shall have then much more liberty to attend to it d and shall lay out our selves wholly in contemplating the wonderful Effects of Nature and discerning their Causes both because our minds have naturally unplanted in them an insatiable longing to come at the sight of Truth And because the very Borders of those heavenly places at which we shall have arriv'd as by their proximity they will furnish greater advantages as the discovery of the celestial Bodies with their motions so will they accordingly excite in us a more ardent desire to enquire after them For it was this beautiful order which put our Fathers and Grand-fathers even here on Earth as Theophrastus saith upon Philosophy and inflam'd them with a desire of Knowledge but they shall with more inlarged Faculties and satisfaction comprehend them who while here upon Earth however they were invelopped in thick mists of Obscurity yet by the piercing sight of a clear mind endeavoured to descry them d And shall lay out our selves wholly in contemplating the wonderful Effects of Nature and discerning their Causes To behold natural Causes is delightful to the Understanding God is said to look down upon his Works and rejoyce But our greatest satisfaction is by them as in a Mirror to behold the infinite Wisdom and Power of him who hath dispos'd them And since the Creature must pass away in the general Conflagration there remains no other beatifical Vision but to behold the face of the Creator reconciled to us through a gracious Redeemer to which only purity of heart can prepare SECT XX. And thence contemplate Nature NOW if they fancy themselves to have got some advantage who have seen the Mouth of the Black-Sea and those Streights through which the Galley enter'd which was nam'd Argo because in her the Flower of Greece From Argos row'd to fetch the Golden Fleece And those also who have seen the Streights mouth where the swift current Libya and Europe parts What a rare sight do we think it will be when we may see the whole Earth at one view and as its Situation Form Circuit so both its Country's habitable and those again utterly uninhabitable through excess of cold or heat For we do not at present behold with our eyes the things we do see Since there is no sense in the Body but as not only Naturalists inform but also Physitians who in Dissections have seen and examin'd the several parts there are certain open passages bored from the Seat of the Soul to the Eyes to the Ears and to the Nostrils whence oftentimes either being deep in Meditation or seiz'd with some violent Distemper though our eyes and eares be both sound and open we can neither see nor hear with them So that it is very apparent that it is the Soul which both sees and hears and not those parts which are but as it were the Casements of the Soul with which yet it can perceive nothing unless it be mindful and attentive It is further observable that with the same mind we comprehend objects of a most different Nature as colour taste heat scent and sound which the Soul could never distinguish from the report of five Messengers unless all were committed to her that she alone might be judge of all And in truth those things will be seen much more clearly and transparently when the Soul shall get free to the place whither Nature is bound for at present however Nature hath fram'd those overtures which are a thorough-fair from the Body to the Soul after a most curious and artificial manner yet are they in a sort obstructed by gross and impure Matter but when the Soul shall he by her self nothing shall interpose to hinder her from discerning every object according to its proper Nature SECT XXI That the Epicureans who plead for Annihilation have no such reason to triumph in their Scheme of natural Knowledge improv'd WE could sufficiently dilate upon this Subject if the Matter requir'd it how many how different how great entertainments of the Sight the Soul should find in the heavenly places The Consideration of which makes me often admire at the strange Vanity of some Philosophers who magnifie their knowledge of Nature and in great Extasies of Joy offer up thanks to him that first invented and revealed it worshipping him as a God For by his means they pretend themselves freed from the most insupportable Lords everlasting Terror and apprehension day and night What Terror What Apprehension Is there any old Good-wife so doting as to fear those things which you see now had you not learn'd the Scheme of natural Philosophy you should have fear'd Acheron 's low Regions which pale shades frequent Where Clouds o're-spread the gloomy Firmament Is it not a shame for a Philosopher to glory that he is got above these fears and that he knows them to be but Fables By which it appears what profound natural Parts these men have who should have believ'd such Stories if they had not been bred up to Learning A great prize too they have got by this Learning that when they come to dye they are to perish Soul and Body Which admit to be true for I am not contentious what great matter of joy or boasting doth the Doctrine afford Though to speak truth I cannot find any considerable Objection against the opinion of Pythagoras and Plato for had Plato alledged no reason for it see what deference I have to his Person he would have dash'd me with his bare Authority but now he hath back'd his Judgment with so many Reasons that he seems to me to have endeavoured to make others to be so but himself truly to have been of the perswasion SECT XXII An immaterial Substance though invisible may subsist of it self as God so the Soul YET many stubborn Opponents there are who pass Sentence of Death upon Souls as Capital Malefactors Nor have they other ground upon which they derogate credit from the Eternity of Souls but only this that they cannot fancy nor comprehend what should be the nature of a Soul separate from the Body as if they understood what were the nature of it when united to it what fashion what size what place it takes up So that were man a Creature who might be look'd into and all his inward Parts discover'd whether would the Soul be visible or for its extraordinary subtilty escape the sight These things they would do well to consider who say they cannot conceive what a Soul should be without a Body they will find what Conception they have of it now it is
as he calls his Idea we the Species or Kind the Soul after it was locked up in the Body could not come to understand them therefore it brought the knowledge of them with it hither by which means all admiration of our knowing so many things ceases Nor doth the Soul discern them on the sudden after she is remov'd into such a strange and confus'd habitation till she hath recollected and recruited her self for then she recovers those dormant notices by remembrance of them so that Learning is nothing else than a recalling to mind Now I must confess I do after an extraordinary manner admire the memory what is that faculty whereby we remember what is its force or whence its nature I do not demand about such a memory as Simonides is said to have had such as Theodectes such as he who was sent Ambassador from Pyrrhus to the Senate Cynaeas such as Charmidas lately such as in these times the Scepsian Metrodorus such as our Friend Hortensius I speak of the common memory of men and those especially who are train'd up in any considerable Business or Art the compass of whose mind it is hard to estimate so many things do they remember f So that Plato would have it to be the re-calling to mind what was known in a former Life It is a known opinion of Plato the pre-existence of Souls too much favoured by Origen and Arnobius perhaps to salve the Doctrine of original Sin which they thought less reconcileable to the Souls Creation in its Infusion But the truer account of such apprehension seems to be from the common Notions by natural instinct implanted in the rational Soul SECT XXV Corollaries of the former Argument from that of Invention WHither now tends this whole Discourse I think it would be understood what is this force and whence it is Certainly it proceeds not from the Heart nor Blood nor Brains nor Atomes Whether the Soul be Breath or Fire I know not nor am I asham'd as some others are to confess I do not know what I do not But this I can affirm as much as of any thing else that is obscure be the Soul Breath or be it Fire I durst be depos'd it is Divine for I beseech you now can you imagine that so great an ability of memory can be produc'd or compounded of Earth or this gross Region of Air You do not see what is its Nature But what are its Qualities you do see or if you do not that neither what is its quantity to be sure you do see How then do we conceive of it whether do we think there is any concavity into which as into a Fat we turn up the things which we remember that is absurd For what bottom or what such Figure of the Soul can be imagin'd or what Gage of so large a Size Or do we take the Soul to be imprest as Wax and the Memory for the Prints of things set down in the Mind as in a Table-book What Prints can there be of Words what of the things themselves Lastly what Volum so vast as to represent such numerous Nations What think you should that Power be which brings to light useful Secrets which is call'd Invention or Devising or that it can be compounded of this earthly mortal and frail Nature What judge you of him who the first impos'd names on all things which Pythagoras reckons a Work of the highest Wisdom or who drew scatter'd men into Communities and incorporated them for the mutual Support of Life or who couch'd the Sounds of the Voice which seem'd infinite into the marks of a few Letters or who calculated the Courses Progressions Stations of the Planets All of them were great Personages Those of higher Antiquity yet who found out Corn who Cloathing who Houses who the helps of living handsomly who guards against wild Beasts by whom being civiliz'd and reclaim'd we naturally proceeded from the necessary to the more polite Arts for entertainment of the Ears was in great measure found out and temper'd with variety of Notes and Voices We look'd up even to the Stars both those which are fix'd at certain distances and those also which are not so in reality but in name only wandring Stars All the motions and windings of which the Soul that first observ'd gave at the same time proof that it was like him who had fashion'd them in Heaven For when Archimedes lock'd up the motions of Sun Moon and the five other Planets into his Sphear he brought that to pass which the God that in Timaeus built the World that one Revolution should adjust motions most unlike for speed and slowness Which if it cannot be wrought in this World without God neither could Archimedes in his Sphear have imitated the same Motions without a Divine Wit SECT XXVI From further Endowments IN my judgment I must say even these more familiar and illustrious Instances seem not performable without some Divine Power so as I should think that either a Poet pours out a grave and accomplish'd Poem without some heavenly Instinct of the Mind or that any Eloquence without some extraordinary impulse can flow in a mighty Stream of lofty Words and copious Sentences And for Philosophy the Mother of all Arts what is it else but as Plato saith the Gift as I the Invention of the Gods This first train'd us up to their Worship next to Justice towards men which consists in the Preservation of Societies And lastly to Moderation and Courage this also hath dispell'd the darkness from our Souls as from our Eyes that we can behold the Extremities of Nature what is above below first midst last Truly this Power seems to me to be Divine which can work so many and so admirable Effects For what is Memory of things and words What is Invention Certainly such as no greater Perfections can be apprehended to be in God Now I am not of the mind that the Gods take pleasure in Feasting on Nectar and Ambrosia or in a Goddess of everlasting Youth to bear their Cups Nor do I believe Homer who saith that Ganymede was ravish'd by the Gods for his Beauty to fill Jupiter Drink a Cause no way sufficient why such an injury should be offer'd Laomedon This was a meer Fiction of Homer's who made Gods like men I could have wish'd he had rather made men like Gods Wherein like Gods in Activity Wisdom Invention Memory Therefore the Soul which as I say is Divine as Euripides presumes to say is a God truly if God be either Spirit or Fire the same is mans Soul for as that heavenly Nature is free both from Earth and moisture so the humane Soul partakes of neither of them But if it be a fifth Nature first introduc'd by Aristotle the same is common both to the Soul and God Pursuant to which opinion we thus express'd our selves word for word in our Book of Consolation SECT XXVII From its Divine Original ORiginal of Souls none can be found
than Death Now had he been taken away before he had escap'd those Evils but being so at this time he lost the Sense of them Our Friend Pompey after a sore Sickness at Naples was pretty well recover'd the Neapolitans put on Garlands so did the Burgers of Puteoli no doubt The adjacent Towns deputed Members of their own to congratulate him in the Name of their Corporations a formal piece of insignificant Courtship to say truth and like the Greeks but yet successful Pray then inform me if he had at that time dy'd would he have been taken away from good or evil things To be sure he had from unhappy ones for then would he not have been engag'd in a War with his Father-in-law he would not have taken up Arms without any Preparation he would not have left home not fled out of Italy he had not after the loss of his Army fallen naked into the hands and Poignard of Slaves his Children had not been left in a deplorable condition and all his Fortunes possess'd by the Conqueror He that by departing then had dy'd in a most honourable Estate by prolonging his Life how many great and incredible Calamities did he suffer q Metellus the Honourable had four Sons Qu. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus had been himself Consul Censor Augur and had triumph'd over Andriscus the Mock Philip Usurper of the Kingdom of Macedon he saw three Sons Consuls whereof one Censor and Triumphal also a fourth Pretor These he left all in good Estate and three Daughters Married by whom and his numerous Progeny he was accompanied at his Funeral having liv'd the Favourite of Fortune indulgent to the last SECT XXXVI Such as we shall not miss THESE accidents are escap'd by dying although they never actually befall us yet because of their possibility But men do not consider themselves liable to these chances every one hopes for Metellus's Fortune As though either there were more fortunate than unhappy or there were any certainty in man's Estate or it were more prudent to hope than fear But be this granted that men are depriv'd of their good things by death is it therefore consequent that the Dead lack the Conveniencies of Life and that it is a miserable thing so to do To be sure they must say so Can he that hath no Being be in want of any thing the very name of want is sad because it imports thus much The man had something hath it not desireth looketh after needeth it These are I take it the Inconveniencies of want One wants Eyes to be blind is discomfortable Another Children so is it to be Childless This holds in the Living but none of the Dead want any comforts of Life no nor Life it self I speak of the Dead which have no Being we who have a Being though we are without Horns or Wings would any one of us say he wanted them None I trow For if one have not that which is neither for his use nor agreeable to his Nature he doth not want it though he is sensible he hath it not This Argument is to be urged over and over when that is made out which is unquestionable upon supposition of the Souls mortality but that there is so total an Abolition in death as that there is not left the least Suspition of any Sense This therefore being fully resolv'd it must be strictly search'd to find what it is to want that so there be no ambiguity left in the Term. Want therefore is the being without that which one desireth to have for desire is imply'd in missing unless in such case as when we speak of having miss'd the Fit of an Ague in a more restrain'd notion of the word The term of wanting is farther used in another Sense when one is without a thing and sensible that he is without it and yet not much concern'd about it but to want any evil is not properly spoken for that would import no sorrow for it The opposite is properly said to want good which is evil but neither doth the Living want what he doth not need Yet it may be understood of a living man that he wants a Kingdom now this cannot with any Logical Truth be said of you it might of Tarquin when he was depos'd and banish'd from his Kingdom but the term can by no means be understood of a dead man for want is proper to one that hath Sense but the Dead have no Sense therefore neither do the Dead want Though what need we syllogize on this Point since we see the matter stands in no such great need of Logic SECT XXXVII Since it hath not appear'd dreadful even to common Soldiers HOW often have not only our Commanders but whole Armies also charg'd the Enemy without any probability of coming back alive Had death been to be fear'd r L. Brutus would never have hindered the return of that Tyrant which himself had expell'd by losing his Life in the Engagement Nor would Decius the Father in Battle with the Latins the Son of the Hetrurians and Grandson with Pyrrhus have run upon the Point of the Enemies Sword Spain had not seen the two Scipio's in one War fall for their Country Cannae Paulus Aemilius Venusia Marcellus the Latins Albinus the Lucanians Gracchus is any one of these at this day miserable No nor immediately after they had expir'd for none can be miserable who is insensible But that very thing is grievous to be without Sense grievous indeed if one were to miss it But it being notorious that he can be nothing who hath himself no Being what can be grivous to him who is without any thing and hath no Sense that he is so Although we have inculcated this Argument too often already but for this purpose because all that distress of mind which ariseth from the apprehension of death is grounded on this For whosoever shall sufficiently perceive what is clearer than the light that upon perishing of Body and Soul together and the whole living Creature being destroy'd and an utter Abolition made of the entire compound that Animal which was before is annihilated he will clearly discern that there is no difference between a flying Horse which never was and King Agamemnon And that M. Camillus doth now no more regard this Civil War than I did the taking of Rome when he was alive Why then would both Camillus have griev'd had he thought these things would have come to pass about three hundred and fifty years after and should I grieve if I thought any Foreign Nation would be Masters of our City ten thousand years hence Because the dearness of our Country is so great that we measure it not by our Sense but it s own safety r L. Brutus L. Junius Brutus the first Roman Consul after the expulsion of Tarquin in a Battle for the reducing him charg'd Aruns the Son of Tarquin so furiously that they gave each the other his deaths wound Decius Mus the Father in the War with the
premis'd What was Socrates Sense of the business appeareth in a Dialogue which relateth the manner of his death about which we have already spoke so much for having argued for the immortality of Souls when the time of his dying press'd on and he was ask'd by Crito how he would be buried Now much pains saith he have I laid out Friends to little purpose for I have not perswaded our Companion Crito that I shall fly away hence and leave nothing of me here below Nevertheless Crito if you can come at me or shall find me any where bury me as you shall think fit But believe me when I shall have departed hence none of you will reach me An excellent reply for he both left it to his Friend and declar'd that he was upon the whole matter altogether indifferent Diogenes was more churlish though of the same mind yet like a Cynick more roughly bid them fling him out of doors without any burying What say his Friends to the Birds and Beasts By no means saith he but lay my staff by me that I may beat them away How can you do that answered they when you shall have no feeling Oh! I shall have no feeling what harm then will the tearing of wild Beasts do me Bravely said Anaxagoras who when he lay a dying x at Lampsacus and his Friends ask'd him whither if he should do otherwise than well he would be carried to Clazomenae his Country answered There is no need for it is the same distance from all places to the other World Now upon the whole consideration of Burial this Principle is to be held that it relates to the Body whether the Soul dye or survive it is also manifest that whether the Soul be extinguish'd or escap'd there remains no Sense in the Body x At Lampsacus Anaxagoras was banish'd Athens for speaking irreverently as they judg'd it of the Sun which he call'd a Mass of glowing Iron SECT XLIV Cruelty towards dead Enemies and lamenting unburied Friends reprov'd BUT all the World is full of mistakes Achilles drags Hector ty'd at the Chariots tail sure he thinks him torn grievously Therefore this the man doth out of revenge as he thinks Again y the Woman bewails it as a very cruel matter I saw and at the sight my sad heart fail'd Hector behind the flying Chariot trail'd What Hector or how long will he continue Hector Better saith Attius and Achilles at length grown wise Priam the Corps I gave But Hector took away Thou didst not therefore drag Hector but the Corps which had been Hector's z Look another peeps up from under ground who cannot let his Mother sleep Mother whose care soft slumbers have beguil'd Nor pittiest me rise bury thy dead Child When these Aires are plaid to a low and lamentable Tune which raiseth compassion in whole Theaters it is hard not to judge them miserable who lye unburied E're Birds and Breasts He is afraid least he should not have the use of his Limbs if they be torn but fears not if they be burnt a Alas what of the half-burnt King remain'd Bare bones lye trod on ground with gore distain'd I understand not what he feareth since he worketh out such sweet numbers to the sound of the Pipe Hold we this then for a Maxim that nothing is to be regarded after Death though many take Vengeance on Enemies even when they are dead Thyestes in Ennius curseth his Brother in very ingenious Verses wishing first that Atreus might perish by Shipwrack a dismal Fate for such a kind of death is not without grievous pain the rest is but empty sound Pitch'd on a craggy Rocks sharp-pointed Top There let him hang his Bowels panch'd His sides upon the rough Spikes gaunch'd On the stones black gore and matter drop Why those very stones were not more void of all Sense than he that is thus empal'd whom he thinks he wisheth it for a Torment How grievous would they be if he felt them without Sense they were no torture at all that too is wonderful idle Nor of the Graves safe harbor be possess'd Where after life his Corps from harms may rest You see upon how great a mistake all this runs on he thinks the Grave to be the Bodies Haven and that when it is dead it rests there Pelops was much to blame who had not taught his Son better nor instructed him what regard was due to each thing y The Woman Andromache Hector's Wife the couplet is taken out of a Tragedy of Ennius of that name z Look another peeps up from under ground Priam King of Troy at the Greeks Invasion had sent his youngest Son Polydore with a great Sum of Money to Polymester King of Thrace who had married Iliona the Princess Royal of Asia his eldest Daughter that he might be secured against the uncertain events of War She tenderly brought him up as her own Son but the Fortune of the Trojans being turned the Tyrant to curry favor with the Greeks murthers his Charge flings him out unburied and seiseth his Portion Thhe Ghost of the murther'd appears to his ruputed Mother in her sleep and demands burial This passage is taken out of the Iliona of Pacuvius a Alas what of the half-burnt King These seem to be a distinct out of Ennius spoken by Hecuba or Andromache about King Priam consum'd or scorch'd in the Flames of Troy with an allusion to the Greek way of burning the Corps or gathering the Ashes or Bones into Urns. SECT XLV The Customs about some Savages about Burial condemn'd What decency to be observ'd in Interment of the Dead BUT why do I take notice of private Opinions when we may plainly see the diverse Errors of whole Nations The Egyptians embalm their Dead and keep them at home The Persians over and above embalming wrap them in Searcloths that the Body may continue as long as is possible entire It is the Custom of the Magi not to inter any of their Fellows till their Bodies have been first torn in pieces with wild Beasts In Hircania the Commons maintain Dogs at the publick Charge Noble-men in their Families Now we know that is a generous Race of Mastiffs but every one purchaseth them according to his Ability and that they take for the best way of Burial Chrysippus collects many other Instances as being excellently well vers'd in all sorts of History but some of them b so loathsom that civil Discourse doth nauseate and abhor the mentioning of them Now this whole matter is to be despised by us not neglected by our Friends provided always that we judge the Bodies of the Dead to have no Sense yet how far Custom and common Fame is to be comply'd with let the Living consider that but so as to understand that it no ways concerns the Dead Now death is then to be receiv'd with the greatest content when the decaying Life can comfort it self with a Reflexion upon its past good Services No man hath liv'd short of his
things and consequently Pain were indifferent Pyrrho that Sense of Ignorance was Good Opinion of Knowledge Evil other things neither to be desir'd nor avoided SECT VII Epicurus contradicts himself herein the Tragical impatiences of Philoctetes BUT Epicurus speaks after that rate that he seems to me desirous to move Laughter for in one place he affirms If a wise man be burnt if he be wrack'd you look perhaps that he should say He will be patient he will endure he will not sink under it By Hercules a great Commendation and worthy that very Hercules by whom I swore But this will not serve x Epicurus a rough and hardy man If he shall be in Phalaris brazen Bull he will say Oh! how sweet is this How unconcern'd am I at all this Is it sweet too Were it too little if it be not better But those very Persons who deny Pain to be Evil are not wont to say that it is sweet to any one to be put to Torture they say that it is rough hard octious contrary to Nature and yet not Evil. He who saith this is the only Evil and the utmost of all Evils affirms that a wise man would call it sweet I do not require of you to speak of Pain in the same Language as Epicurus doth of Pleasure who was himself as you know a great Voluptuary Let him say the same with all my heart in the Brazen Bull as if he were upon a Feather-Bed I do not attribute to Wisdom so much strength against Pain If perhaps it be sufficient discharge of Duty to bear it patiently I do not further demand that she rejoyce at it For without doubt it is a sad thing bitter repugnant to Nature difficult to be endur'd with any Patience y Look on Philoctetes who is to be pardon'd his groaning for he had seen Hercules on Oeta yelling through excess of Pains The Arrows therefore which he had receiv'd from Hercules did then nothing comfort him when z The Vipers Gall into his Marrow shed Had through his Bowels griping Tortures bred Then he roars out seeking for aid desiring to dye a Ho! down that Peek who doth me throw Into the bring Waves below Now now I faint the belking wound The burning sore my Soul confound It seemeth a hard word that he who is forc'd to roar out after this sort should not be in evil Estate and that very Evil too x Epicurus a rough and hardy man Spoken by way of Derision for he was soft and voluptuous y Look on Philoctetes Hercules on Mount Oeta is said to have bequeath'd his Bow and Arrows to Philoctetes he one day heedlesly let fall an Arrow on his Foot which gave him such intolerable anguish that with his roaring he disturb'd the Grecian Host then on their March towards Troy He may be look'd upon as a fit Emblem of the Gout z The Vipers Gall. These and the following Verses are taken out of the Philoctetes of Attius translated out of Sophocles The Arrows of Hercules were strain'd with Poyson shed upon them by Hydras gnawing them when he emptied his Quiver into her Body a Ho! down that Peek Ulysses to rid the Grecian Camp of the Outcrys of Philoctetes gets the Fleet to weigh Anchor and leave him ashore in Lemnos where he got on a Rock to look after them and there took up his abode in a Grot and lay on a Couch of Leaves CHAP. VIII Hercules BUT look we upon Hercules himself who was then carried forth into Impatience thorough Pain when he was upon acquiring Immortality by his very death What Expressions doth he utter in Sophocles in his Play call'd Trachiniae for when Deianira had made him put on the Shirt b dip'd in the Centaure 's Blood and that had stuck to his Body thus he saith O many labours hard to be recounted Which this spent Soul and Body have surmounted Nor spightful Juno's spleen implacable Nor sad Eurysthens wrought me so much ill As one perverse ill-natur'd Oeneus Seed She hath ensnar'd me in a Hellish Weed Which cleaving rends the flesh away which drains My tainted Liver and exhausts my Veins Wanz'd to a Skeleton I my self survive Wound in an anctious Cere-cloth up alive No proud Foes hand nor Earth-born Gyants force No Centaure dealt these blows half Man half Horse No power of Greeks no fierce Barbarian hands No Savages banish'd to remotest Lands Whither I rov'd all harms to exterminate But I to a Woman owe my ignoble Fate Son may thy Father all that Name engross Nor to a Mothers fondness quit my loss Go hale her hither with officious hands Prove which you value her or my commands On start not Son o're thy wrack'd Sire lament Pity him Nations shall our grief resent Alack that I should like a Girl make moan Who none e're saw in anguish vent a groan My manlike bravery thus unman'd and gone b Dip'd in the Centaure 's blood The Story of Nessus may be known from Ovid's Metamorphoses English'd and illustrated by Sandys the Jealousie of Deianira the twelve Labourers of Hercules and his being Deify'd after he had been burn'd on Oeta whither the Reader is refer'd SECT IX COME hither Son stand near survey with tears The fleshless Carcass thy torn Father wears All men behold and thou that rul'st the Sky Quick bolt of Thunder at my head let fly Now now the grinding pangs my Bowels guide Now spreads the Plague O hands that once were fear'd O Back O Breast O Arms with Muscles swell'd Was it your Gripe that Nemeas Lyon held Till hug'd he roar'd most hideously then dy'd This hand the dreadful Leona pacify'd This Centaur's Horse and Man in death did joyn This quell'd the Erymanthus rooting Swine This carry'd off from dark Tartarean Cell In his own Chain the foaming Dog of Hell This slaying th'oft-twisted Dragon did unfold Which watch'd the Tree that bore the Fruit of Gold Many like prize hath been our Conqu'ring spoil Non man e're yet could vaunt he did us foil Nor can we now despise Pain when we see Hercules himself so impatient under it SECT X. Prometheus ENTER next Aeschylus not only a Poet but also Pythagorean for so have we by Tradition How doth Prometheus in him bear the Pain inflicted on him for c the Lemnian Theft whereby Fire that is now become culinary was clandestinely dealt among Mortals Which sly Prometheus did they say From Heav'n to Earth cleanly convey And for which bold attempt He stands by Jove condemn'd An amends honourable to pay Paying therefore this amercement as he hangs fastened to Mount Caucasus he utters these words Ye Race of Titans to us near ally'd Born of high Heav'n behold your Kinsman ty'd To rough Rocks as a Crew of Seamen binds Their Ship for fear of night and boisterous Winds Here hang in Chains I by Joves strict commands To which obsequious Vulcan lent his hands He cruel Artist did my quick limbs nail With piercing Staples to this hellish Goal When the third Execution
saith he long Pain hath more pleasure in it than trouble Now cannot I say that a man of his Reputation is without common Sense but I think we are mock'd by him The Pain which is at the highest and I suppose it at the highest although there may be one ten Atomes greater I do not presently affirm it must be short and can instance in many sufficient men that for very many years have been tormented with the Gout but this wary Person never defieth either the greatness of the Pain or shortness of Time so that I may come to know what he means by the highest in Pain what short in Time Let us therefore leave him saying nothing to any purpose and let us oblige him to confess that the remedy against Pain is not to be expected from him who shall hold Pain to be the greatest of Evils Let the same Person in his Collick Stone and Strangury set never so good a Face on the matter Elsewhere therefore must Cure be sought and especially if we enquire what is most suitable of those who judge that which is honourable to be the chiefest good what is base the chiefest evil In their presence you will not dare to keep a groaning and make a disturbance for in their Language Valour it self will thus address to you SECT XX. Vertue exhorting personated WILL you when you see Children at Lacedaemon young men at Olympia Barbarians in the Amphitheater receive the severest Strokes and put them up quietly will you I say upon the least ail cry out like a Woman Will you not bear it with Constancy and Calmness It is intolerable Nature cannot brook it these are words Children endure it for love of Glory others endure it for shame many out of fear and yet do we apprehend that Nature cannot stand under that which is endur'd by so many and in so many places Now she is so far from not abiding it that she even requireth it For she hath nothing more excellent nothing she more desireth than Honour than Praise than Dignity than Decency of Demeanour By these several Names I mean one and the same thing but I use different Expressions that I may make it out with the greatest plainness Now my meaning is that to be far the choicest good for man which is to be chosen for its own sake as proceeding from Vertue or plac'd in it and is in its own Nature praise-worthy which I would sooner call his only than not his chief good And as this hath been said of Honour so must the contrary of Baseness Nothing goeth so much to the Heart nothing carrieth that Antipathy with it nothing is so unsuitable to man's Dignity which if you be thoroughly perswaded of for at first you yielded it to be your judgment that there was more evil in Dishonour than in Pain it remains that you govern your self although this be a pretty odd Expression as if the same Man consisted of two The one the Governour and the other the Governed yet it is handsomly enough said SECT XXI The manner of subduing our Affections to Reason FOR the Soul is distributed into two parts whereof the one partaketh of Reason the other is Irrational when therefore it is enjoyn'd that we should govern our selves the Sense of the Injunction is that our Reason should restrain our Passion There is in the Souls of all men in a manner naturally somewhat lasche mean low-spirited in a sort emasculate and feeble were there nothing else man would be the most deformed thing in the World but Reason the Lady and Empress of all things is at hand to help which bearing up on her own strength and advancing farther becometh at length accomplish'd Vertue The man therefore must take care that this may rule that part of the Soul which ought to obey How should it do that say you why as a Lord his Slave as a General his Souldier as a Parent his Child If that soft and tender part of the Soul which I called Lasche shall give it self over to effeminate Lamentations and Tears let it be bound and secur'd by the guards of Friends and Allys For we often see Persons aw'd by Shame who could not be wrought upon by any Reason These therefore like Slaves let us bind in Chains and keep under guard but those who have some steadiness but yet are not of the stoutest these we should call back with like Admonitions as good Souldiers are rally'd to make head and maintain their ground That wisest man of Greece in the Play called Niperiae maketh no great Lamentation or rather but a very moderate one when he saith Tread gently make ev'n steps with ease Least by the choque my Pain increase Pacuvius hath done this better than Sophocles for in this latter Ulysses is brought in making piteous moan over his wound and yet here though he do but let fall a groan those very men who carry him off wounded regarding the Gravity of the Person stuck not to say Ulysses though we you behold Sore-wounded yet let us be bold You too almost faint-hearted are Of an old beaten Souldier The judicious Poet perceives that acquaintance with trouble is no mean School-mistress of Patience Yet Ulysses in great Pain crys out not out-ragiously Hold stifle stay me my wound probe 'T is fester'd Oh! for Pain I sob Then is ready to saint away but soon recovering quiets himself Wrap me warm presently be gone Void all the Room leave me alone For to handle thus and jog my Sore Doth only fret and teize it more See you how still he is grown not upon abatement of his Bodies Pain but repressing the Vexation of his mind Therefore towards the latter end of the same Play he chideth others and that being ready to dye In grief we may complain but must not vex That manly is this like the feebler Sex The softer part of his Soul was so rang'd under the Obedience of Reason as a discreet Souldier under a strict General SECT XXII Armour against Impatience THE man in whom perfection of Wisdom shall be c for yet we see none such but what he will be if ever he be is plainly described in his Character made by the Philosophers He I say or that Reason which shall be perfect and absolute in him will so keep in subjection the inferior part as a loving Father his dutiful Children he will with a beck obtain what he pleaseth without any Pains any Trouble He will rouse excite furnish arm himself that he may so resist Pain as an Enemy what now is that Armour Stoutness Resolution and an inward Check upon himself as he thus reflects take heed of doing any thing dishonourable low-spirited unmanly Let noble Presidents be still presented to the mind d Zeno the Eleate would be laid before us who suffered any thing rather than to discover his Accomplices in abolishing the Tyranny over his Country Let e Anaxarchus of the School of Democritus be thought upon who falling into the
hands of Nicocreon King of Cyprus neither petition'd him nor declin'd any sort of torment f Kalanus the Indian no Scholar but a rude Barbarian born at the foot of Caucasus was voluntarily burn'd alive We if but a Foot or Tooth do but Ake but suppose Aches over the whole Body cannot endure it For we have a certain effeminate and loose Opinion nor that in Pain only but all one in Pleasure with which when we are dissolv'd and swim in ease we cannot endure to be stung by a Bee without setting up an out-cry But now C. Marius a Rustick man but in truth a man when he was cut as I mention'd before at first forbid his being bound Nor is it reported of any one before Marius that he was loose whilst he was cut How then came others afterwards to do the like The Authority of the Patern sway'd with them Do you perceive therefore that the evil ariseth from our conceit not the Nature of the Thing And yet that the Pain was very pungent the same Marius shew'd for he would not hold forth his other Leg So he both approv'd himself to have the stoutness of a man in enduring Pain and again the tenderness of man in that he would not abide more without necessary cause This therefore is all in all to command our selves And what sort of commanding this is I have shew'd Now this Consideration what is beseeming our Patience our Courage our Gallantry of mind not only restrains our Spirits but after a secret unaccountable manner doth alleviate the very Pain it self c For yet we see none such Here is an ingenuous acknowledgment of our Imperfection in Morals Some glimps of perfection the Stoicks had and therefore give us the Wise man in Idea This bears Testimony to some Primitive Excellency of Humane Nature as the former to the loss of it but towards the recovery hereof the Philosophers maintain'd it to be wholly in our own Power the Will to be still free and sufficient to reduce the Affections under the Scepter of Reason Hence some of them pretended to dispassionateness that is Impeccability that is Perfection and doubtless many of them were great Proficients in curbing their impetuous Appetites but being ignorant of the Divine Law in its extent could not discover how far they came short of those Degrees of Love to God and Man which Natural Integrity dictates This knowledge more aggravates the Spiritual Pride of those whether Familists or Quakers or Perfectionists of whatever denomination who from early Ages have given the Christian Church no small trouble with their bold and unjustifiable Pretences d Zeno the Eleate He was of Vella in Lucania an Auditor of Parmenides when Nearchus had invaded the Kingdom of Lucania Zeno was apprehended for a Conspiracy against him and being wrack'd to confess his Fellows he nominated all the Tyrants best Friends but being further press'd bit his own Tongue off and spit it in the Tyrants face e Anaxarchus of the School of Democritus He was of Abdera also his Country call'd Eudaemonick from his sweet temper On a time being at the Table of Alexander the Great and by him ask'd How he lik'd the Feast reply'd compleatly well only it lack'd one Dish with a Vice-Roys Head meaning Nicocreon the Cyprian He was afterwards by cross Winds driven into Cyprus and there at the command of the King bruis'd in a Mortar with Iron Pestles where he call'd out to him Pound on Pound the Hull of Anaxarchus for Anaxarchus himself thou dost not Pound f Kalanus the Indian He being Aged 73. followed Onesicritus to the Camp of Alexander the Great but sickning at Passagarda built himself a Pile and went alive into it Alexander asking him what Will he should execute for him His answer was I shall see you shortly which fell out accordingly for a few days after he dy'd at Babylon SECT XXIII Faintness of Spirit dishonourable FOR as it falls out in Battle that the Coward and timorous Souldier as soon as he sees the Face of an Enemy flingeth away his Shield and sets on running as fast as ever he can and for that very reason sometimes is lost before he had receiv'd any wound when no such thing befalls him who keeps his ground So they who cannot abide the appearance of Pain cast away themselves and so grown heartless sink under Affliction whereas they who have resisted it most commonly come off with Victory Now there are certain resemblances of the Soul with the Body As Burdens are more easily borne whilst Bodies bear upright if these give way they overwhelm them Just in like manner the Soul by putting forth its utmost Efforts doth bear off all the pressure of those grievances which burthen it but upon shrinking is so follow'd that it can never raise it self up And to speak the truth an intention of the whole mind is to be used in the Prosecution of all Offices of Life for it is the sole guard of Duty But in Pain chiefly we must watch that we do nothing despondingly nothing after a Cowardly Slavish effeminate manner and especially that the yelling out like that of Philoctetes above be disapproved and utterly rejected Sometimes it may be allowable for a man to sigh and that but seldom roaring out is not so no not to a Woman And this indeed is that lamentation which the twelve Tables prohibited the use o in Funerals Nor will a valiant and wise man ever so much as let a groan escape unless it be in straining to put forth greater strength As Runners for a Prize shout as loud as ever they can in the Race So do Wrestlers whilst they are in the Exercise but Cuffers even then when they give their Adversary a Blow as they fetch their Whorle-bats round let go a sigh not that they are grieved or out of heart but because the stress of their whole Body vents it self in an audible voice and the Blow is set on with greater vehemency SECT XXIV Resolution necessary in War WHAT they that would speak louder than ordinary are they contented to strain their Sides Throat and Tongue out of which Organs we see the voice raised and poured plentifully forth They force their whole Body and as it were stand on Tip-toes as the Proverb is to promote the earnestness of their utterance I speak no untruth g I saw Mark Antony when he made his earnest defence being impeach'd upon the Varian Law touch the very ground with his Knee h For as Cross-Bows wrought up with Cap-stones shoot forth their Stones i and other Engines their respective Darts with so much the more violence as they are strain'd and skrew'd higher so the Voice so the Running so the Blow falls heavier with the greater Spring it is set on Now since there is so great force of this straining if a groan in Pain shall any way conduce to force the Soul we shall do well to vent it but if that sigh shall be lamenting if feeble if base
Greeks in engrossing Wisdom to themselves because of their Scholastical Niceties and in magnifying their war-like Atchievements beyond all measure whereas they were now fallen from their old Martial Glory the Lacedemonians having in great measure degenerated from the Constitutions of Lycurgus and the Athenians turn'd to servile Flattery u But the Cimbrians In Germany w And Celtiberians In Spain x That Refuge Mark the Artifice of Eloquution the name of death carrieth Terrour with it and is dismal to Humane Apprehension therefore he substitutes for it that of a Refuge a place of retreat a desired Port but yet to count any Pain too great to be stood under so as to resolve against continuance in Life is a Stoical repugnancy and derogatory from true Fortitude y As the Dolphin did Arion of Methymna Arion an excellent Harper having amass'd much Wealth by his Art in the City of Greece upon his return home the Sea-men discovering his charge of Money Pirates as they were conspir'd to heave him over-board he beg'd of them the respit till he could tune his Harp on the Deck which as he touch'd the Dolphins playing about the sides of the Ship delighted with his Aires one of them took him up on its back gently and wafted him over safe to Tenarus Methymna is a City of Lesbos the Territory about it famous for generous Wines and the Country of Arion z As the Sea-born Horses of Pelops bestow'd upon him by Neptune Pelops the Son of Tantalus came from Phrygia into that part of Greece from him denominated Peloponnesus there he fell in Love with Hippodamia Her Father had received an Oracle that he was to dye when his Daughter married and thereupon set up a Race of Chariots in the Isthmos of Corinth at the Altar of Neptune the Prize was his Daughter to the Victor but the loser was kill'd many had he beaten and slain in the Race when Pelops having received a Set of Coach-Horses from Neptune and brib'd the Coach-man of Oenomaus to break his Wheel in driving as he pass'd by slew the Father and carried off the Daughter and with the same Horses pass'd over Sea The Cure of Discontent The Causes and Remedy of the Depravation of Humane Nature are premis'd Sect. 1 2 3. Book III. SECT I. The Reluctancy of deprav'd Man against his own Cure VVHAT should I take to be the Cause most worthy Brutus since we consist of Body and Soul why an Art hath been sought out for recovering and preserving the Bodies Health and the usefulness of it a attributed to the Invention of the Gods but the Physick of the Soul was neither so much wanted before it was found out nor so much frequented since its discovery nor is so agreeable and accepted by many nay is suspected and loath'd by the greater part Is it because we judge of the Bodies Infirmity and Pain by the Soul but have no Sense of the Souls Maladies by the Body So it happens that the Soul does not pass judgment of it self b till that which is to give the judgment be distemper'd Now if Nature had brought us into the World with an Original Ability to look into and clearly discern her Ordinance and that under her surest conduct we might pass the course of our Life there would be no reason why any should have use of Logick or Philosophy But now she hath put into us only some small glimmerings which we being suddenly corrupted with ill habits and opinions so far stiffle that the Light of Nature doth no where appear for there are Seeds of Vertues innate in our very Souls which if they might spring up till they come to maturity Nature it self would conduct us to Happiness of Life But now as soon as we are brought into this World and taken up we are presently encompass'd with all Corruption of Manners and falshood of Opinion that we may seem to have suck'd in Error almost with our Nurses Milk But when we are brought home to Parents and then turn'd over to Masters we are season'd with such variety of Mistakes that Truth is forc'd to yield to falshood and Nature it self to prejudicate Opinion a Attributed to the Invention of the Gods Apollo and Aesculapius b Till that which is to give the judgment be distemper'd Therefore not only the inferior Faculties of Will and Passions are disordered but the Superior Power of the Soul the Understanding is disturb'd and Sick contrary to the answer which he gave Panaetius above about the Sickness of the Soul This in reference to the mind consists in a Corruption of Judgment and reprobate Sense only curable by attention and assent to sound Doctrine SECT II. Further Causes of the Depravation of Humane Nature THEN come in the Poets These carrying a great appearance of Learning and Wisdom are heard read con'd without Book and stick in our Memories but superadd to all as it were our highest Master the People and the whole Multitude on every side conspiring in favour of Vice then we become entirely debauch'd in judgments and fall off from our very Natures So that they seem to me to have envy'd us the Prerogative of the best Nature who have judg'd nothing better for man nothing more desirable nothing more excellent than Honours than Commands than Popular Glory toward which the best of men pursue and affecting that true Honour which Nature doth propose as the sole object of its most diligent Enquiry grasp at meer Emptiness and Vanity These pursue no substantial and grand Figure of Vertue but a superficial and shadow'd resemblance of Glory For Glory is a solid thing and substantial not a faint shadow it is the concurrent praise of good men the incorrupt approbation of such as judge rightly concerning excellency in Vertue that answers to Vertue as the eccho Which being the attendant on honest Actions is not to be rejected by good men but that which apeth it popular vogue a rash and inconsiderate cryer up of Vices for the most part by a semblance of Honour sets a false varnish in the place of a true and natural Beauty Men out of this blindness having been imported with an ardent desire after some sort of Excellency yet having withall entertain'd a false Notion wherein it consisted and what are its Properties some have utterly subverted the Government of their Countries others have fallen themselves in the Contest Now these propounding to themselves the noblest end do not so much willfully miscarry as through mistake of the way What shall we say of them who are acted by the love of Money or Pleasures and whose Spirits are to that degree disturb'd as that they come little short of madness which is the Case of all unwise men can no course be taken for their Cure Is it because Maladies of the Soul are less hurtful than those of the Body or because Bodies may be cur'd there is no Physick for Souls SECT III. That the Soul may have Remedies for its Distempers WHEREAS in truth
there are more and more dangerous Diseases of the Soul than of the Body For even these latter are therefore vexatious because they reach the Soul and afflict it Now the Soul vex'd is as saith Ennius to all quiet lost Stays no where long by new Lusts still is toss'd Now what Bodily Diseases in the whole World can be more grievous than those two Diseases to pass over the rest I say than Discontent and Lust But how can it be prov'd that it should be able to cure it self when it was the Soul that invented the Art of curing the Body And whereas the disposition of Bodies and Nature doth work much towards the curing of Bodies nor are Patients yet come under cure by certain consequence cur'd Souls on the contrary which are willing to be restor'd to their Health and follow the Prescriptions of the Wise do undoubtedly recover In truth there is a faculty of curing Souls even Philosophy whose succor is not as in bodily Diseases to be fetch'd from abroad but we must with our whole might and by all means labour that we may cure our selves Although as to Philosophy in its whole Latitude how much it is to be desired and studied hath been I suppose sufficiently discoursed c in my Treatise on that Subject call'd Hortensius and since that time we have scarcely ever ceas'd both disputing and writing upon Points of highest Importance In these Books too are laid down those Disputes which we had among Friends that came to visit us at our House at Tusculum But because in the two former there hath been spoken as to Death and Pain the third days Dispute shall make this third Volum for as soon as we were come down into our Academy I bid any one of them that were in presence propose a Subject to debate upon Then the Matter proceeded thus c In my Treatise on that Subject called Hortensius Tully writ a Book wherein he answers the Objections against Philosophy made by Hortensius and therefore calls it by his Name it is not now extant SECT IV. The Position offers it as a probable Opinion that a Wise man is liable to Discontent S. IT is my judgment that Discontent may be incident to a Wise man M. May the other Disturbances too Fears Lusts Wrathfulness for these are in a manner of that Nature which the Greeks call Passions I might Diseases and the word would fully justifie me But the Expression hath not been received in our Language for Pittying Envying Giggling Rejoycing all these the Greeks call Diseases being Commotions of the mind rebelling against Reason but we may as I suppose style the same inordinate Emotions of mind Distempers Diseases we cannot in any receiv'd Sense of the Word unless you be of another judgment S. I am in that clearly of your mind M. Do you think then that these are incident to a Wise man S. Plainly I am of your opinion that they are M. Then truly this Wisdom so much glorified is of no great value since it differs not much from madness S. What do you take every stirring the Affections for stark madness M. I am not the only Person that take it to be so but that which I use often to admire I find that this was the Sense of our Ancestors many Ages before Socrates from whom all this Doctrine of Life and Manners is deriv'd S. How doth that appear M. Because the name of Distemper signifieth a Sickness and Disease of the mind that is being out of Temper and that crazedness of mind which they called madness or being distempered Now the Philosophers style all Passions Diseases and say that no Fool is free from these Diseases but they that are not in Temper are Distempered Now the Souls of all unwise men are not in Temper therefore all unwise men are Distempered Now this Temper of Souls they judg'd to be plac'd in a calmness and constancy of mind a mind destitute of these things they called Distemper or Madness because in a disturb'd Mind as well as Body there can be no good Temper SECT V. That men imported by Passions are Mad. NOR was that less ingenuous when they term'd such habit of the mind as is withdrawn from the conduct of Wisdom being out of the Wits or besides ones self Whence we may perceive that those who gave these Names to things were of the same judgment as Socrates deliver'd and the Stoicks have firmly maintain'd that all unwise men are not sound in their Principle Now the Soul that is any ways Diseas'd and the Philosophers as I lately said term these inordinate Motions Diseases is no more sound than the Body when it is Diseas'd So it follows that Wisdom is the soundness of the Mind but Folly a kind of unsoundness Distemper and being out of the Wits d And these words are much more significant and expressive in Latin than in Greek as it occurs in many Instances a different Import but of that elsewhere now to the matter in hand The importance therefore of the very word declareth of what Nature and Property the whole matter under question is For they must needs be understood sound of mind whose mind is disturb'd with no Passion as with a Disease Those who are contrariwise affected must needs be called unsound of Mind Distemper'd or Mad. Therefore nothing can be better express'd than the Latin Phrase when we say of men that they are broke loose from Government when they are transported with unbridled Lust or Anger although Anger it self be but a sort of Lust for Anger is defin'd to be a Lust of Revenge They therefore that are said not to be their own Masters are therefore said so to be because they are not under the Government of their Understanding to which Faculty the Soveraignty of the whole Soul is by Nature given Now whence the Greeks derive their name for Madness I cannot easily guess but we are more distinct in our Terms than they for we separate this Distemper of Mind which is joyn'd with Folly and of larger extent from distractedness The Greeks indeed aim at a peculiar word but are not very happy in it What we call Rage they term Melancholly As though the Soul were only disturb'd by Choler adust and not oftentimes either by excess of Wrath or Fear or Grief with which sort of Rage we say Athamus Alcmaeon Ajax Orestes were transported He that is in this Circumstance the twelve Tables forbid him to have the management of his own Estate Therefore it is not written if he cometh to be unsound of judgment but to be distracted For they judg'd that Folly that is a shallowness of Parts or a mind fickle and destitute of sound judgment might discharge ordinary Offices and answer the common and daily occasions of the World but they look'd upon being distracted as a total darkness of the Understanding which though it seem a greater Evil than want of a sound Judgment yet is this of that Malignity that e a wise
man may be distracted but cannot be of an unsound Mind lose his Reason he may but cannot act against it while he hath it But this is another question let us return to the Proposition in hand I suppose you said it was your Opinion that a wise man might be liable to Discontent S. In truth I am of that mind d And these words are much more significant and expressive in Latin than in Greek Tully seeks all occasion of Buoying up the Latin Tongue against the Greeks and therefore a little below picks a Quarrel with their term for being Mad. e A wise man may be distracted but cannot be of an unsound Mind Wisdom is consistent with Madness as with Sleep but no more reconcilable to folly than light is to darkness SECT VI. The absurdity of denying a Wise man all use of the Affections is declin'd M. IT is from good Nature that you are so minded for we are not hew'd out of the hard Rock but there is implanted in the very Nature of our Souls somewhat tender and soft which is subject to be beaten with the Sense of Evil as with hardness of Weather And Crantor of principal Renown in our Academy said not improperly I am by no means of their mind who cry up a strange unintelligible Notion of perfect insensibility whereas there neither can nor should be any such disposition My first option is saith he that I may not be ill but if I be at any time let me be sensible whether any Incision be made or part dismember'd for that same dedolency is not acquir'd but at the charges of long and sore Afflictions whereby the Body is mortify'd and the Soul harden'd However we may do well to consider f whether this be not the Language of such as flatter our Infirmities and fondly comply with our carnal Ease But for our own parts let us take up a bold Resolution not only to lop off the out-boughs of our disquiet but to pluck up the very Roots with all the Fibres and tendrels of them Somewhat will perhaps nevertheless be left behind such deep rooting have the Stumps of Folly taken in our Hearts but that only will be left which is of necessary use Take this for a certain truth unless the Soul be cur'd which can never be done without Philosophy there will be no end of our Miseries Wherefore since we have begun let us deliver up our selves to be her Patients Recover we shall if we be put willing and I will carry it on further for I shall not only speak to Discontent though I shall to that in the first place but to every Distemper of the Soul as I have laid it down or every Disease of it as the Greeks term them And first if it please you let us proceed in the Stoicks way who are wont to cast their Arguments into strict and bare Syllogisms then we will dilate after our own Fashion f Whether this be not the Language of such as flatter on Infirmities The subject of warrantable Mortification is not what is natural but what is corrupt yet we shall do well to give diligent heed least an Enemy escape in the garb of a Friend SECT VII The Assertion oppos'd by an Argument from the Topick of Fortitude g EVERY Valiant man hath also Assurance since Confidence by a vulgar mistake is only restrain'd to a bad Sense although derived from confiding which is commendable Now he that hath Assurance cannot be in Fear for to have Assurance and be in Fear are implicatory But he that is liable to Discontent is also to Fear for we Fear those things impending and approaching at whose presence we are Discontented So it follows that Fortitude and Discontent are incompatible It is therefore likely that he who is liable to Discontent is also liable to Fear to Faint-heartedness and dejection of Spirit and he that is liable to these is liable to be a Slave to confess himself at some time or other worsted and he that can admit of these will admit of timorousness and Cowardise but these things are not incident to a valiant man therefore neither is Discontent Now none is Wise but he that is Valiant therefore neither is Discontent incident to a wise man Furthermore he that is Valiant must needs be brave Spirited and he that is of a brave Spirit invincible and he that is invincible must despise the World and look upon it as beneath him but none can despise that for which he can be Discontented From whence necessarily follows that a Valiant man is never Discontented but all wise men are Valiant therefore Discontent is not incident to a Wise man And even as the Eye being out of order is not duely dispos'd to the performance of its Office and the other parts nay the whole Body when it is out of order cannot discharge its Office and Duty so the Mind being out of order is not in fit case to discharge its Office Now the Office of the Soul is to use its Reason aright and a Wise man's Soul is always so dispos'd that he useth his Reason after a most right manner therefore it is never disturb'd but Discontent is a disturbance of the Soul therefore a Wise man will be always free from it g Every Valiant man Syllogistical Disputation was after the Stoical way which begins here SECT VIII by another from that of Temperance IT is further likely that he who is Temperate whom the Greeks call Sober and name the Vertue it self Sobriety which I am wont sometimes to term Temperance other times Moderation and another while Modesty which yet I know not but it may be rightly called Integrity this is more narrowly express'd among the Greeks who call men of Integrity only useful men but the Term is of larger extent for it is all sort of abstinence all sort of innocence this hath no usual Name in Greek but might be call'd by a word importing harmlessness for Innocence is such a disposition of mind as to harm no Body Integrity comprehends also all the other Vertues which unless it were so great and had it been confin'd within the narrow bounds of Frugality or Thrift as some conceive the Sirname of L. Piso had never been so honourable but because neither he that through Fear hath quitted his Garrison which is an act of Cowardise nor he who for covetousness hath deny'd to restore a Trust secretly committed to him which is an act of Injustice nor he who through rashness hath miscarried in any undertaking which is a piece of Folly because none of these are wont to be call'd honest men or men of Integrity Therefore Integrity comprehends three of the Vertues Fortitude Justice and Prudence and if it do so it is common to all the Vertues for all the Vertues are link'd and fasten'd inseparably to one another Therefore Integrity must needs be the remaining and fourth Vertue for it seemeth to have this Property to regulate and compose the Affections
always to repress the Enormity of the Will and to preserve a constant Moderation in all things The contrary Vice to which is called Naughtiness Frugality is as I suppose from Fruit than which nothing better springs out of the Earth Naughtiness is hence though perhaps it may be somewhat hard however let us assay though it pass but for an Allusion if there should be nothing more it is hence deriv'd from that such a man hath not ought in him whereupon he is also said to be nothing worth He then that is Honest or if you had rather that is Modest and Temperate must of necessity be Constant and he that is Constant Quiet he that is Quiet free from all Disturbance and consequently Discontent but these are the Properties of a Wise man theâ—â—fore Discontent will be far from a Wise 〈…〉 SECT IX by an Induction from Particular Passions of Wrath Envy SO that Dionysius of Heraclea Disputes not unhandsomly upon that Passage of Homer wherein Achilles complains to this purpose as I take it My Heart swells big whil'st I on this reflect Rob'd of my Lawful Prize and iust respect Is the Hand rightly dispos'd when it is swell'd or is there any other Member which hath a Rising or Swelling that is not out of order in like manner therefore the Soul puffed up or swollen is out of order but the wise mans Soul is always in order therefore it never rifeth never swelleth But now the Soul in anger is so therefore a wise man is never angry for if he be angry he also Lusts for it is the property of one angry to desire a fixing the most grievous Pain on him by whom he thinks he is injur'd and he who covets that if he shall obtain it must necessarily be transported with joy whence it follows that he must rejoyce at anothers harm which because it is not incident to a wise man neither is it incident to him to be angry but if Discontent were incident to a wise man so also were the Passion of Anger but because he is free from this so must he be also from that of Discontent For if a wise man were liable to Discontent so might he also be to Pitty so might he also be to Envy I use a word of active signification because the ordinary Latin word rather signifieth passively an Odium that so we may decline the Iniquity of the Term now the Latin word for Envy is deriv'd from a Verb which imports looking very wistfully upon anothers Beauty as in the Play Menalippus Who on my blooming Sons look'd with ill eye The Latin Construction seems wrong but Attins said singularly well who though he departs from Custom at present prevailing yet challeng'd the Priviledge of a Poet ventur'd to follow the natural Analogy SECT X. and Pitty THerefore also the Passions of Pitty and Envy are incident to the same Subject For he that is griev'd at some ones Adversity is also griev'd at some ones Prosperity h As Theophrastus deploring the untimely death of Callisthenes his Fellow-Student maligneth the good successes of Alexander therefore he saith that Calisthenes light upon Relation to a Person of the greatest Power and highest Fortune but ignorant how to manage Prosperity as he ought Now as Mercy is the being afflicted at anothers Adversity so Envy is the being afflicted at anothers Prosperity Whosoever therefore is liable to Pitty the same is also liable to Envy but Envy is not incident to a wise man therefore neither is Pitty Now if a wise man used to take Discontent he would use also to take Pitty therefore a wise man is not liable to Discontent i These Arguments are thus brought by the Stoicks and infer'd by legitimate Conclusions but they are to be discours'd somewhat more at large and with greater Variety Yet we must maintain their Tenets more expresly who have proceeded upon the most couragious and as I may say manly Principle and Opinion For our Friends the Peripateticks though there be nothing under Heaven more Copious than they are nothing more Learned nothing more Grave yet do not make out to my judgment a Moderation either of the Distempers or Diseases of the Soul for every Evil though but indifferent great is great But we are proving this that there is no such thing at all in a wise man For as the Body if it be but indifferent is not well so if there be the same indifferency in the Soul it is not in Health Therefore our Ancestors did excellently well name as many other things after their Propriety so Vexation Disquiet Anxiety a Distemper and the Greeks express every disorder of mind by a Term near the same for they call every inordinate Sally of the Spirit a Passion which in that Language imports a Disease We more properly for the Distemper of the mind bears great Analogy with bodily Sickness But Lust is not like Sickness nor is immoderate Joy which is an ecstatical and extravagant pleasure of the Mind Nay Fear it self is not very like a Disease though it borders upon Discontent But properly as Sickness in the Body so Distemper in the Soul hath a name not sever'd from Pain therefore the Original of this Pain is to be laid open by us that is the efficient cause of Distemper in the Soul as of Sickness in the Body for as Physicians having found out the cause of a Disease think the Cure found out so we having discover'd the Cause of Discontent shall find out the method of curing it h As Theophrastus deploring the untimely death of Callisthenes his Fellow-Student Callisthenes the Olynthian was well known to Alexander the Great having studied together under the same Tutor Aristotle The King took him along with him to Pen the History of his Asian Atchievements but the freedom of his Discourse and uncomplying demeanor wrought his overthrow For when King Alexander now Lord of Asia requir'd of his Macedons to give him the Ceremony of Persian Adoration he with some others of the Macedonian Nobles too openly declar'd their dislike of it The haughty young Victor could not brook that the Majesty of his Empire and with that Grandeur improv'd should be disputed by his Vasals and therefore is said under a colour of a Sham-Plot of Hermolaus to have executed many of the Non-conforming Nobility but Calisthenes he first mangled and disfigured cut off his Ears Nose and Lips afterwards put him into a Cage with a Dog and so carried him about whithersoever the Army march'd till at last he dy'd with the torture and regret of Spirit Theophrastus wrote a Book entitled Calisthenes or a Lamentation from whence this Passage is quoted i These Arguments are thus brought by the Stoicks From strict Arguing he cometh to examine Terms and prepares the way to enlarge more clearly on the Subject SECT XI The Cause of Dissatisfaction is a mistake in Opinion k THE whole therefore is in Opinion nor is that the Cause of Discontent only but of all the
but his Folly but that is no proper time for teaching And yet Cleanthes doth not seem to me rightly to have consider'd this case that grief may possibly be sometimes admitted upon that which he himself confesseth to be the greatest Evil. For what shall we say when Socrates had perswaded Alcibiades as we have by Tradition that he had not the worth of a man in him and that there was no difference between Alcibiades the High-born Prince and any Porter Now when Alcibiades was greatly troubled at this and with tears beg'd of Socrates that he would instruct him in Vertue and rescue him in Folly what shall we say Cleanthes will you say that there was no Evil in that thing which afflicted Alcibiades what think we of those words of Lyco who extenuating Discontent saith it is rais'd upon Sufferings in Estate or Body not Evils of the mind What now that which Alcibiades griev'd for was it not for the Evils and Vices of his Soul As to the Consolation of Epicurus enough hath been said before SECT XXXIII That it is a Duty not to be swallow'd up of Grief NEither is that Motive of the strongest although it is both usual and oftentimes to good effect You are not the only Sufferer in this sort This as I say is effectual but not always nor with all for some reject it but it imports how it is apply'd for we must urge instances how particular men have wisely born their Sufferings not what they have suffer'd That of Chrysippus is of greatest strength as to its truth but difficult as to the time of Sorrow It is a great task to prove to a Mourner that he Mourns out of judgment and a conceit that he ought so to do Thereupon as in Causes we do not always make the same state for so we call the several sorts of Controversies but suit them to the Season to the Nature of the Cause and to the Person so in asswaging Sorrow For we must discern what method of Cure each Person is capable of but I know not how our Discourse hath digress'd from the matter propos'd for your question proceeds about a wise man in whose judgment either there can be no Evil where there is no Dishonesty or so small an Evil that it is swallow'd up of Wisdom so that it can scarce appear One who adds no imaginary Troubles nor improves his Discontent nor judgeth it to be right to give himself the most grievous Torture and to fret to Death than which nothing can be more wrong Yet the sequel hath inform'd us to my apprehension although it were not the direct and proper question at this time that there is no Evil but that which may be call'd Dishonesty so that we may withall see whatever Evil there is in Discontent it is not Natural but contracted by our voluntary judgment and mistake in opinion Now that sort of trouble of mind hath been handled by us which is greatest of all so that upon the removal of it we judg'd the Remedies of the rest not of difficult enquiry SECT XXXIV A Passage to the Remedies of Disquiet arising from the particular Passions FOR there are certain Common places which are said about Poverty about an inambitious and obscure Life and severally certain Essays upon Banishment upon the Captivity of our Country upon Bondage upon Maimes upon Blindness and upon every other Misfortune to which the name of Calamity is appliable The Greeks divide these into distinct Disputations and separate Tracts For they lack work although their Disputations are full of delight and yet as Physicians in carrying on the Cure of the whole Body apply Remedies to the least affected part So Philosophy having taken away trouble of mind in general yet if any Error ariseth from Particulars if Poverty bites if Disgrace pinches if Banishment casts us under a Cloud or if any of the above-mention'd Calamities befall us although every Affliction hath its proper Consolation to which you shall hear discours'd when you please but still we must recur to the same Spring-head that all Discontent is stranger to a wise man because it is idle because it is admitted to no purpose because it ariseth not from Nature but Judgment but Conceit but a kind of drawing our selves on to Grieve after we have determin'd that it is our duty so to do Remove this which is wholly depending on our Will and all that fretful Discontent will be taken away yet some Gripes and Resentments will remain in the Mind Let them call this Natural if they please so the name of Discontent be forborn a name grievous vexatious deadly which can by no means be and as I may say dwell with Wisdom But how many and how bitter are the Suckers of Discontent which must all be pluck'd up when the Body of it is fell'd down and if need shall require at several times o for we abound in this leasure such as it is But the Form of all Passions is one the Names diverse for both Envy is a Passion and Emulation and Detraction and Pitty Anxiety Mourning Fretting Melancholly Lamentation Sollicitude Grief Uneasiness Vexation Desperation all these the Stoicks define and the words which Irehears'd have several Notions and do not as they seem signifie the same things but differ somewhat which perhaps we shall treat of elsewhere These are the Fibres and Tendrels of the Suckers first mention'd which must be search'd out and torn asunder that not one of them may ever shoot up A great and difficult Work who denys it But what is there excellent which is not also hard yet Philosophy professeth to effect it would we but admit its Cure Now thus much for this Point the rest shall be ready for you as often as you will both at this and any other place o For we abound in this leasure such as it is Spoken with some regret for his being out of Practice Trust and honourable Employment The Government of the Passions The Prologue Sect. 1 2 3. Book IV. SECT 1. The Ancient Romans probably not Strangers to Polite Learning because Borderers upon Greece the Great AS in many other Instances most worthy Brutus I am wont to admire the Parts and Perfections of our Country-men so especially in these Studies which they have but of very late time regarded and brought over from Greece to this State For whereas from the first Foundation of the City Divination Ceremonies Common-Councils Appeals Court of Senators Train'd-bands of Horse and Foot the whole order of the Militia were from a Wisdom almost more than Humane establish'd upon the Regal Constitutions and some of them upon their Laws so when the Common-wealth was deliver'd from the Oppression of Tyranny p an admirable advance and incredible carriere was made towards all excellency Now this is not the proper place to dilate upon the Customs and Ordinances of our Ancestors upon the Discipline and Temper of our Government this hath been with some diligence treated of by us
Duty to be dejected and troubled in mind Mirth a fresh opinion of a present Good upon which it seems our Duty to be elevated Fear an opinion of an impending Evil which seems intolerable Lust an opinion of an approaching Good the presence and Fruition of which would be beneficial to us Now as to those Opinions and Judgments which I said were Ingredients of the Passions they do not say that only the Passions have their subsistence from them but also the Effects of those Passions so that Discontent causeth a certain painful remorse Fear a withdrawing of the Soul and a kind of flight Mirth an extravagant Jolity Lust an unbridled Concupiscence Again they interpret that opinion which we have inserted into the Definitions above-mention'd to be a weak assent But under each of these general Passions there are certain particular ones of the same sort distributed as under Discontent Envying for we must serve our selves of a less usual word in order to the clearness of Explication since the word Envy especially in Latin is taken not only actively as it refers to him that Envys but passively as to him that is envy'd for the Odium that is cast upon him Emulation Detraction Pitty Anguish Mourning Bemoaning Distress Sorrow Lamentation Anxiety Uneasiness Self-afflicting Despair and whatever else be of the same Nature Again subordinate to Fear are Sloth Shame Terrour Timorousness Dismay Confusion Distraction Cowardise under Pleasure Malice rejoycing at anothers Mischief Delight Boasting and the like Under Lust Anger Wrath Hatred Enmity Discord Want Desire and the rest of that kind Now these they define after this manner SECT VIII The subordinate Passions desin'd Of Discontent and Fear THEY say that Envying is a Discontent admitted upon anothers good Successes being no ways prejudicial to him that envieth for if any one be troubled at the Prosperity of one who hurts him he is not properly said to Envy as if Agamemnon should be so at Hectors But he who is griev'd that another should enjoy those advantages which are no ways prejudicial to himself he in truth is envious Emulation again hath a twofold importance so as to be taken both in a good and a bad Sense for the imitation of Vertue is also call'd Emulation but we have nothing to do with it here in that acceptation for that is praise-worthy And there is an Emulation a Discontent if another enjoy and one go himself without that which he hath eagerly coveted after Detraction is now what I would have understood to be Jealousie a Discontent that another should share in that which one hath eagerly coveted Pitty is a Discontent arising from the Misery of another suffering wrongfully for no Body is touch'd with pitty at the punishment of an Assassine or Traytor Anguish is a sore Discontent Mourning is a Discontent at the untimely death of one who was dear to us Bemoaning is a Discontent with Tears Distress a toilsome Discontent Grief a tormenting Discontent Lamentation a Discontent with wailing Sollicitude a Discontent with pensiveness Uneasiness a persevering Discontent Self-afflicting a Discontent with Inflictions upon the Body Despair a Discontent without any expectation of better condition But what are subject to Fear they thus define Sloth to be a Fear of ensuing Labour Terrour an astonishing Fear Whence it cometh to pass that blushing followeth shame paleness and trembling and gnashing of Teeth Terrour Timorousness to be a Fear of approaching Evil. Dismay a Fear that puts the mind besides it self whence that of Ennius Dismay all wisdom from my Soul expells Confusion a Fear following and as it were attendant on Dismay Distraction a Fear that breaks all the Measures we had taken Dread a persevering Fear SECT IX of Pleasure and Lust AGAIN the particular Branches from Pleasure they thus describe that Malice should be a Pleasure taken in anothers harm without any advantage to onesself Delight a Pleasure charming the mind with the sweetness of the hearing and such as is that of the Ears such are those of the Eyes the Touching the Scent and Tast which are all of one kind as it were Pleasures melted down to gratifie the Soul Boasting is a Pleasure naturally Impertinent and which exalts it self with some Insolence But what Passions are subjected to Lust they thus define so that Anger is a Lust of punishing him who appears to have injur'd us Wrath is Anger breaking forth and newly arisen which is in Greek call'd Heat Hatred is an inveterate Anger Enmity an Anger watching the time of taking Revenge Heart-burning is a deadly feud conceiv'd with inward rancor of Spirit Worldliness an insatiable Lust Expectation a Lust of seeing one who is not yet come They further distinguish this that Lust is of those things which are affirm'd of one or more which the Logicians call Predicates as having Riches bearing Offices Want is a Lust after the things themselves as Mony as Honours Again they say the Spring of all Passions is Intemperance which is a defection from the whole Understanding and from right Reason At such Aversion to the Orders of Reason that its Affections can by no means be regulated nor restrain'd As Temperance therefore moderates the Affections and causeth them to obey right Reason so it s opposite habit Intemperance Fires Confounds puts into an Uproar the whole State of the Mind therefore both Discontents and Fears and all the other Passions take their Rise from it CHAP. X. The Original of the Distempers of the Soul AS therefore when the Blood is corrupted or Phlegm abounds or Choler in the Body Diseases and Indispositions are ingender'd So the medley of perverse Opinions and their opposition one to another rob the Soul of its Health and afflict it with Diseases Now from the Passions first Diseases as they so call them are contracted and those Habits which are contrary to those Diseases as having a deprav'd Aversion and Distast for certain things Then Indispositions which are call'd by the Stoicks Infirmities and also contrary Aversions oppos'd to them Upon this place too much Pains is taken by the Stoicks and especially Chrysippus it setting forth the resemblance between the Diseases of the Body and those of the Soul waving which Discourse not at all necessary let us dispatch those things wherein the Matter consists Be it therefore adverted that whilst Opinions toss about as they are inconstant and impetuous Passion is still in motion But when this boiling and tumult of the Soul hath fermented and as it were shed it self into the Veins and Marrow then breaks forth both the Disease and Indisposition and those Aversions which are contrary to those Diseases and Indispositions SECT XI The Nature of Passion and Antipathy THESE things which I am speaking of differ from one another in Speculation but in reality are link'd together and arise from Lust and Mirth for when Mony is coveted and Reason not presently apply'd as a kind of Socratick Medicim to cure that coveting the Infection sinks into the Veins and
cleaves to the Vitals and breaks forth into a Disease and Indisposition of mind which being grown old cannot be pluck'd out and the name of the Disease is Covetousness and other Diseases in like manner as Vain-glory as multiplying Wives or as the Greeks have it Love of Women and other Diseases and Indispositions of mind do in like manner arise but those which are contrary to these they are thought to spring from Fear as Hatred of Women such as was in the Woman-hater as Hatred of all Mankind which we have heard was in Timon sir-nam'd the Man-hater as is Inhospitality All which Indispositions of Mind spring from a certain Fear of those things which men avoid and hate Now they define an Indisposition of Mind a strong conceit cleaving to the Soul and deeply rooted in it about a thing not truly desir'd as though it were greatly to be desir'd But as to that which ariseth from Aversion they thus define it to be a strong conceit cleaving to the Soul and deeply rooted in it about a thing not truly to be avoided as though it were to be avoided Now this conceit is an Opinion that one knows what he doth not know But under this Indisposition such like Habits are compris'd Covetousness Ambition immoderate Love of Women Wrangling Liquorishness excess of Wine Daintiness and any other such-like things Now Covetousness is a strong conceit about Mony as though it were greatly to be desir'd cleaving to the Soul and deeply rooted in it so the Definition of other such Distempers is of like Form Again the Definitions of Aversions are of such sort as that Inhospitality is a strong conceit that a Stranger should be greatly avoided which conceit cleaveth to the Soul and is deeply implanted in it In like manner is also defin'd Hatred of Women as in Hippolitus and of all Mankind as in Timon SECT XII The Analogy between the Sickness of the Soul and Body in ill habit NOW that I may come to the resemblance of Bodily Health with the right State of the Soul And we may make that Comparison though less triâ—ely than the Stoicks use to do some are more inclinable to one Disease and others to another therefore we call some Scorbutical others Gouty not that they are always in the Fit but are often so some to Fear others to some other Passion Whereupon carefulness is nam'd to be in some men when they are call'd careful or worldly men in others Hastiness which differs from Anger and it is one thing to be Hasty another to be Angry for neither are all those careful men who have sometimes Care upon them nor have all careful men at all times Care upon them as there is difference between being Drunk and being a Drunkard and it is one thing to be a Bully another a Suitor Thus this Propension of some to one Disease others to another is of large extent for it is applicable to all Passions it is also apparent in many Vices but the Notion hath not a distinct Denomination Therefore men are stil'd both Envious and Malitious and Dirty and Timorous and Compassionate because they are inclinable to such Passions not because they are always actually imported by them This proneness therefore of every man to his respective Humour peculiar to his Complexion from resemblance of the Body is nam'd an Indisposition in such Sense as it may be meant a proneness to Distemper but this in good things may be nam'd easiness Since some are more ready to one good Quality and others to another in bad things a proneness to connote a Propension to fall in indifferent things it may have the former name Now as in the Body there is a Disease an Indisposition and a Blemish so also in the Soul SECT XIII The Similitude between soundness and unsoundness of Body and Soul THEY call a Disease a Corruption of the whole Mass An Indisposition a Disease with Infirmity A Blemish a Disproportion in the order of the Parts of the Body from whence arise a crookedness of Limbs Dislocation Deformity So that the formet two Disease and Indisposition grow from the Concussion and Disturbance of the Health of the whole Body But a Blemish without the Impeachment of Health is discernable of it self but in the Soul we can distinguish the Disease from the Indisposition by thought only But the Blemish of the Soul is an Habit or Quality of a Mind wavering all its Life and at Discord with it self so it cometh to pass that in the one Disease and Indisposition is caused by Corruption of Opinions in the other by Inconstancy and Opposition for every Blemish hath not incongruous Parts as that of those who are not far remov'd from Perfection It is indeed a Quality jarring with it self so far as it is short of Perfection but not dislocated nor crooked Now Diseases and Indispositions are Parts of being blemish'd But whether Passions be parts of it is a question for Blemishes are Permanent Qualities but Passions moving ones so that they cannot be parts of the Permanent Qualities And as the resemblance of the Body approacheth the Nature of the Soul in bad so also in good Qualities for Bodily Excellencies are Beauty Strength Health a good Constitution Swiftness the like are also in the Soul That Temper of the Body wherein the parts of the Body hold a right Correspondence is a State of Health so is it call'd soundness of mind when its Judgments and Opinions thereof are at accord one with annother and that is the Vertue of the Soul which some call Temperance it self others a Quality obeying the Rules of Temperance and consequent upon it nor having any particular Denomination of its own but whether it be this or that they say it is found in the wise man only Though there be a certain soundness of mind whereof an unwise man is also capable when he hath been distracted and cured by the Physicians And as there is a just Simmetry of parts together with a freshness of colour and that is call'd Beauty so in the Soul an even Temper and Constancy of Opinions and Judgments with Resolution and Stedfastness following upon Vertue or making up the very Nature of it is call'd its Beauty Likewise from a Similitude to the Strength of the Body its Sinews and Activity the Strength of the Soul is nam'd in like Terms Again the Swiftness of the Body is ham'd Celerity Wit hath also a like Commendation for quickness when the mind can dispatch much bus'ness in a short time SECT XIV Their Dissimilitude THERE is the Dissimilitude between Souls and Bodies that Souls in their full strength cannot fall into Sickness Bodies may But the Disorders of Bodies may happen without any fault of Souls cannot so All whose Diseases and Passions arise from a Disobedience to Reason and consequently are to be found in men only for Beasts do somewhat analogous but fall not into Passions There is again this difference between the acute and the
to hold monstrous Opinions But now they thus argue that they affirm all Fools to be Mad in such manner as all mire stinks But it doth not so always Stir it you will be sensible whether it do or not So a hasty man is not always angry provoke him you will presently see him in a rage What of that Military Wrath when it is return'd home how doth it demean it self with Wife with Children with Servants is it then also useful is there then any thing that a mind in confusion can do better than it can when it is settled or can any one be angry without disorder of mind our Country-men therefore although all Vices were in the rank of Diseases because none was more foul than wrathfulness did well name only wrathful Persons as it were craz'd and distracted h Of Sphaerus Sphaerus a Bosporan was Scholar of Zeno and afterwards Cleanthes Fellow-Pupil with Chrysippus flourish'd about the time of Ptolomy Philopater SECT XXV The Indignation of Orators Displeasure of Parents or other Governours regular BUT for an Orator to be angry is far from decent to make as though he were is not indecent Do you take us to be angry then when we speak any thing in our pleadings with somewhat more than ordinary earnestness and vehemency What after the Tryal is past and gone when we pen our Orations do we pen them in anger Ho! None attend Bind him Do we think i that either Aesop ever acted in anger or Attius writ in anger These things are acted handsomly and indeed better by an Orator if he be a true Orator than by any Player but they are acted dispassionately and with a calm mind But to praise Lust what a piece of Lust is it You produce me Themistocles and Demosthenes you add Pythagoras Democritus Plato What do you call Studiousness Lust which though it be after the best things as are those in which you instance yet ought to be compos'd and calm But to praise Discontent the thing of all to be most abhor'd what Philosophers I pray must that argue But Afranius said ingeniously F. Grieve he though grieve for what he please He there spoke of a prodigal and dissolute Son but our question proceeds upon a constant and wise man Nay let a Captain or Ensign take this very anger or others who are not necessary to be mention'd least we divulge the Misteries of Rhetoricians for it is expedient for him to serve himself of Affections who cannot make use of Reason but the Subject of our Question is as I often testifie a Wise man i That either Aesop ever acted in anger Aesop the Player liv'd in Tully's time the Fabulist 500 years before SECT XXVI The pretended benefit of the other Passions disprov'd BUT further Emulation is useful Detraction and Pitty Why should one pitty another rather than succour him if he is able Cannot we be bountiful without pitty Sure we are not bound to pull upon our selves Discontents in favour of others but to relieve others of their Discontent if we are able Again what use can there be in detracting from another or emulating him with that vitious Emulation which resembles Rivalship since he that emulates is afflicted at anothers good which himself hath not on the other side he that detracts is afflicted at anothers good because that other hath it as well as himself Who can approve that if one would have any thing he should rather choose to sit down in Discontent for being without it then put himself upon attempts to gain it for as to the affecting to engross it to himself it is the highest pitch of madness Again who can justly commend Moderation in bad for who is there in whom Lust and Covetousness is but must be lustful and covetous in whom Wrath but Wrathful in whom Anxiety but Anxious in whom Fear but Fearful Do we therefore judge that a Wise man is Lustful and Covetous and Wrathful and Anxious and Fearful of whose excellency much may be said in as large and copious manner as one please but most succinctly thus Wisdom is the knowledge of Divine and Humane things and perceiving the cause of every particular one which hath this effect that it imitates the Divine Perfections and esteems all Humane Occurrents inferior to Vertue Now did you give it for your opinion that disturbance was incident to this temper as to the Sea which is subject to the Winds What is there able to disturb so great Gravity and Constancy is any unexpected or sudden turn What such can befall him to whom no contingency of Humane Life is unpremeditated For as to their saying what is excessive should be retrench'd what natural left I demand what can be natural which also may be excessive for all these things sprout from the Roots of Mistakes which must be torn and wholly pluck'd up not pared and lop'd off SECT XXVII Whence the Remedies of Humane Frailties are to be drawn BUT because I suspect you do not put the question so much about the Perfect wise man as about your self in a state of proficiency for him you think to be free from all Passion you would come to be so let us see how great are those Remedies which are by Philosophy prescrib'd to the Diseases of Souls for to be sure there is some Physick for them nor was Nature so insense an Enemy to Man-kind as to provide so many means of recovery for Bodies and none for Souls To which she hath been so much the more kind as that the aids of Bodies are fetch'd from without the relief of Souls is inclos'd in themselves But the greater and diviner Excellency is in them the greater Diligence do they need On this account reason well consulted behold what is the best when neglected is entangled in many Errors Therefore my whole discourse is to be turn'd to you for you put the case as of a wise man but perhaps you enquire about your self There are then diverse cures of those Passions which I have laid down for every Discontent is not asswag'd the same way for there is one method to be taken with him who Mourns another with him that Pitties another again with him who Envieth There is further in all the four Capital Passions this distinction whether the Discourse be better address'd against Passion in general which is a disobeying of Reason or an over-vehement Affection or against the particular ones as Fear Lust and the rest Again whether that particular object which occasions our Discontent be to be taken hainously or whether we should be discontented upon any occasion at all As if one should be troubled that he is Poor whether you should dispute with him that there is no evil in Poverty or that a man should be contented in every condition clearly this is the better least if you should not perswade in the instance of Poverty way must be given to Discontent but if Discontent be remov'd by the proper Arguments which we used
cannot be so much as in our Wits Therefore either let us deny that any thing can be effected by reason whereas on the contrary nothing can be well done without reason or seeing Philosophy consists in a deduction of Reasons if we would be both good and happy let us fetch from thence all the aids and assistances to a good and happy Life The chief End of Man The Preamble Sect. 1 2 3 4. Book V. SECT I. The efficacy of Vertue is not to be valu'd by our faint-heartedness THIS fifth day most worthy Brutus will put an end to our Tusculan Disputations on which day was debated that which of all Subjects you most approve for I perceive by that Book which you writ to me with great exactness and your many Discourses that you are zealously of the opinion that Vertue is self-sufficient to Happiness which though it be hard to demonstrate by reason of the many and diverse Tortures by Fortune inflicted yet is it of such moment that it deserves all pains to be employ'd in order to the clearing of it up since there is nothing treated of in all Philosophy which is more Grave and Gallant to maintain for whereas that was their Motive who first apply'd to the Study of Philosophy to cast all their other business aside and put themselves wholly upon searching out the best State of Life certainly they laid out so much care and pains in that Study out of hopes to live happily Now if Vertue have been by them compleatly stated and if an interest in Vertue be sufficient to happiness of Life who is there but must think that the Pains in studying Philosophy was to excellent purpose both laid out by them and undertaken by us but if Vertue expos'd to diverse and uncertain hazards be the handmaid of Fortune and not of Power enough to defend it self I fear we must rather pray for happiness than aspire to it in any assurance of Vertue And in truth when I consider within my self those changes wherein Fortune hath greatly exercis'd me I begin to call this opinion into some question and at times to dread the weakness and frailty of Mankind for I fear as Nature hath given us feeble Bodies and fasten'd to them both incurable Diseases and intolerable Pains so least she have given us Souls also both jointly sympathizing with bodily Pains and severally incumber'd with Disquiets and Anguishes of their own But herein I correct my self that I judge of the strength of Vertue by the softness of others and perhaps my own not by Vertue it self For that if any such thing there be as Vertue b which Brutus your Uncle put out of doubt counts all things incident to man beneath it self and looks down upon the changes of Humane Life with contempt for being utterly blameless it chargeth it self with no other concern than to preserve its own integrity But we both increasing all future Adversities with Fear and present ones with Vexation choose rather to condemn Nature than acknowledge our own Error a I fear we must rather pray for Happiness than aspire to it in any assurance of Vertue That man was ordain'd to Vertue and Happiness is evident that our Nature was originally perfect and to act according to it had been sufficient to the attaining to that end cannot I think justly he deny'd that our Reasons and Wills are yet the Powers and Faculties by which only we can act as Men. What is said here I fear we must rather pray for Happiness than aspire to it in any assurance is undoubtedly a Proverbial Loquntion to this purpose We must cry out God help us and surcease all endeavours of our own which is unwarrantable as tending to discourage Industry In a Storm the Pilot must not quit the Stern nor other Sea-men their Quarter as they expect the Ship should ever be safe Since our Nature is deprav'd could we retrieve lost Perfection it were not of it self sufficient to the recovery of Happiness because the non-incurring a new Debt doth not quit the old Arrear yet have we grounds of hope that sincerity of endeavours shall not want acceptance through another Covenant vouchsafed to Man-kind b Which Brutus your Uncle M. Porcius Cato Uticensis the Brother of Servilia Mother to Brutus CHAP. II. Philosophy is the Rule of Life BUT the whole correcting both of this fault and all other our Vices and Misdemeanors is to be fetch'd from Philosophy into whose bosom our Choice and Affections having guided us from our very Childhood we after being toss'd with a great Storm are fled upon these most grievous turns of State into the same Harbour from whence we had put forth O Philosophy thou Guide of Life Instructress in Vertue and Correctress of Vices what could not only we be but the very Life of men without thee thou hast founded Cities thou hast invited scatter'd men to live in Communities thou hast link'd them one to another first in Habitations then in Marriages and then in Communication by Letters and Words thou wast the Inventress of Laws thou the Mistress of Manners and Discipline we fly to thee seek help from thee to thee we commit our selves as formerly in great part so now entirely and in whole for one day led well and according to thy Precepts is to be prefer'd before an immortality in Vice Whose succors therefore should we rather make use of than thine who hast both freely bestow'd on us Tranquillity of Life and taken away from us the Terror of Death yet Philosophy is so far from receiving Praise suitable to the Benefits she hath confer'd on man's Life that she is by the most slighted nay by many revil'd O that any one should dare to villifie the Parent of Life and stain his Conscience with such Parricide should offer to be so unnatural and ungrateful as to accuse her whom he ought to reverence although he could not comprehend but this errour and gross darkness is in my opinion cast over the minds of the ignorant because they are not able to look so far backwards nor do think that they were the Philosophers by whom first the Life of men was civiliz'd Which thing though we see to have been most ancient yet we confess the name to be but modern SECT III. The Study of Wisdom of the same standing with man FOR as to Wisdom who can deny it to be ancient not for the thing only but also the name which acquir'd this honourable name among the Ancients from the knowing of Divine and Humane things as also the Elements and Causes of every being Therefore have we receiv'd by Tradition of those seven that they were both nam'd and accounted Sages by the Greeks and wise men by our Country-men and many Ages before of c Lycurgus in whose time Homer is said to have been before d the building of Rome and in the Heroical Ages of Ulysses and Nestor that they both truly were and were reputed such Nor would there have been the
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SECT XXXIII That Pleasures may be purchas'd at an easie rate YOU see I presume how Epicurus hath divided the sorts of Desires perhaps not over cunningly yet usefully that they are part natural and necessary part natural and not necessary part neither that the necessary may be satisfy'd with next to nothing for the Riches of Nature are low-priz'd that the second sort is neither difficult to compass nor to refrain The third because they are wholly empty and do not concern not only necessity but so much as Nature he thought were wholly to be cashiered Upon this Head much is disputed by the Epicureans and these Pleasures are in particular depress'd which in the general they do not dis-esteem but they are straighten'd for matter for they tell us that obscene Pleasures also upon which they hold much discourse are easie common and at hand and they think them if Nature require not to be measur'd by their Birth or Quality or Rank but their Beauty Age and Shape and that it is no hard matter to abstain from them if either Health or Business or Reputation require and in the whole that this sort of Pleasures is desirable if it do no hurt that it never doth good And this whole Lesson about Pleasure he hath so laid down that he thinks Pleasure of it self because it is Pleasure always desirable and to be pursu'd and by the same reason Pain upon that very account because it is Pain always to be avoided Therefore that a wise man would still hold this Ballance to avoid Pleasure if it would work greater Pain and to embrace Pain working a greater Pleasure and that all delights however they are judg'd by bodily Sense yet are resolv'd into the mind Wherefore the Body rejoyceth only so long as it feels the present Pleasure the Soul both perceives the present together with the Body and foreseeth it coming nor suffers it to depart when past Thus that there will always be close and uninterrupted Pleasures in the wise man when the memory of those enjoy'd is continu'd with the expectation of those hoped for Arguments also of like Nature are apply'd to Diet. There the magnificence and sumptuousness of Feasting is decry'd because Nature is contented with small Provision SECT XXXIV Examples of a light Diet in the Lacedemonians and Persians NOW who doth not see that all these things are season'd by the appetite Darius upon a flight having drank Water and troubled and stain'd with the Corpse of the slain said He had not made a more pleasant draught He never it seems had been a dry when he drunk Nor had Ptolomy been a hungry when he eat for on a time in his Progress through Egypt his Courtiers and Purveyance not being yet come up when Houshold-Bread in a Country-Cottage was brought him No Royal Cates ever went down with greater Gust than that Bread They report of Socrates when he was walking very earnestly too late in the Evening and was ask'd why he did so that he reply'd He was going to Market to buy him a Stomach to his Supper What do we not see the Commons of the Lacedemonians in their Hall where when the Tyrant Dionysius had supp'd he said He did not like their black Broth which was the prime Dish of the Table to which he was invited Then the Cook reply'd No wonder Sir for you had not the proper seasoning What is that saith he I pray Hard hunting sweat race from Eurotas hunger thirst For the Lacedemonian Feasts have these Sawces and this may be understood not only from the Custom of men but also from Beasts These if you put any Fodder to them so it be not improper to their Nature they are contented with it and look no further Some whole States train'd up by the mode of their Country love Parsimony The Fare of the Persians is describ'd by Xenophon who saith of them that they eat nothing with their Bread but Cresses Although if Nature do require some more grateful repast how many things grow out of the Earth and upon Trees both of easie purchase and admirable relish Joyn hereto that dry Constitution which follows upon this spare Diet compare with them the other sweating belching cram'd with Feasting like stall'd Oxen you will soon understand that they who most follow after Pleasure are the farthest from taking it and that the delight of all enjoyments is in the appetite not satiety SECT XXXV in the Academy THEY relate of Timothy the Athenian and prime Noble-man in that State that having supp'd with Plato he was greatly taken with the entertainment and seeing him on the morrow said your Suppers not only please at the present but also do much good the next day Whereas we have not the free and clear use of our understanding when we are stuffed with Meat and Drink There is an excellent Epistle of Plato's to Dions Relations wherein is written to this effect almost in the very words When I was come thither that Life which was cry'd up for happy full of Italian and Syracusian Feasts no ways agreed with me twice a day to be gorg'd never to lye single and other Consequents of such a Life wherein no man will ever he made wise and sober much less For what Nature can ever be of such an admirable Temper How then can a Life be pleasant where there is neither Prudence nor Sobriety whence the Error of e Sardanapalus the most wealthy King of Syria is discernable who commanded it to be engrav'd on his Monument This have I what I eat and what did sate My greedy Lust farewel both Wealth and State What else saith Aristotle would one write upon a Beasts Sepulcher and not a Kings He saith he hath now he is dead what whilst he was alive he had no longer than during the enjoyment why then should Riches be wanted or wherein doth not Poverty suffer us to be happy In Images I warrant Pictures Plays If any one be taken with these do not mean men more enjoy them than they who have the greatest store of them for there is in our City abundance of all such things belonging to the Publick and expos'd Those which private men have are neither so many and they seldom see them only when they come into their Country Houses And then too fell some remorses when they call to mind f how they came by them The day would fail if I should go about to make an Apology for Poverty since the matter is plain and Nature it self minds us every day how few things she wants how small how cheap e Sardanapalus He was the last King of Assyria overthrown by Arbaces the Mede at Anchiale was a Monument erected for him on a Marble Base the Statue of a Man in Brass with his right Thumb apply'd to his middle Finger underneath was insorib'd Sardanapalus Son of Anacyndaraxes built Anchiale and Tarsus in one day
in Meditation as in Death P. 54. SECT XXXII The Adversaries of the Souls immortality confuted P. 56. SECT XXXIII The Arguments of Panaetius answer'd P. 58. SECT XXXIV Upon Supposition of the Souls mortality Death is not evil being a departure from Evils P. 59. SECT XXXV Or from uncertain Goods P. 61. SECT XXXVI Such as we shall not miss P. 63. SECT XXXVII Since it hath not appear'd dreadful even to common Souldiers P. 65. SECT XXXVIII Much less should it hinder promoting the publick Good but as Death is not terrible so neither is it amiable P. 67. SECT XXXIX The opinion of untimely Death examined P. 68. SECT XL. We must live in our places undaunted and when our time is come dye contented after the example of Theramenes P. 70. SECT XLI Socrates P. 72. SECT XLII The Spartans P. 73. SECT XLIII And Theodorus the Cyrenian A digression to the Point of Burial P. 75. SECT XLIV Cruelty towards dead Enemies and lamenting unburied Friends reproved P. 77. SECT XLV The Customs of some Savages herein condemn'd what decency to be observed in interment of the dead P. 80. SECT XLVI Glory after death should abate the fear of dying in prosperity P. 82. SECT XLVII An Epilogue after the mode of the Greek Rhetoricians who would perswade us that Death is the greatest good that can befall man and that from Divine Testimonies P. 84. SECT XLVIII From those of Demi-gods Oracles and Panegyrical Commemorations of such as have dy'd for their Country P. 87. SECT XLIX The Close of all applys the substance of the present Debate to the Readers benefit P. 89. THE CONTENTS Of the Second BOOK Patience under Pain The Proem Sect 1 2 3 4. SECT I. THE benefit of Philosophy P. 92. SECT II. That the Academick Scheme is cautious and modest P. 95. SECT III. The Epicurean only regarded by its own Followers P. 97. SECT IV. The bad lives of some Teachers only scandal to their Persons not Doctrines P. 99. SEOT V. The Position maketh Pain the greatest of all Evils P. 101. SECT VI. The different Maxims of Philosophers on that Subject P. 103. SECT VII Epicurus contradicts himself herein The Tragical Impatiences of Philoctetes P. 104. SECT VIII IX Hercules P. 106. 108. SECT X. Prometheus P. 109. SECT XI Digression against the Poets P. 111. SECT XII And some Heterodox Philosophers P. 114. SECT XIII Pain must not betray us to indecent carriage P. 115. SECT XIV Must be oppos'd with Courage P. 117. SECT XV. Inuring to labour disposeth to a patient enduring of Pain P. 120. SECT XVI XVII The Power of Exercise P. 121. 123. SECT XVIII The force of Reason P. 126. SECT XIX The direction of Epicurus impracticable P. 127. SECT XX. Vertue personated making her Exhortation p. 129. SECT XXI The manner of subduing our Passion to Reason p. 130. SECT XXII Armour against Impatience p. 133. SECT XXIII Faintness of Spirit dishonourable p. 136. SECT XXIV Resolution necessary to War p. 137. SECT XXV in Tryals at home p. 140. SECT XXVI and in all laudable Enterprises p. 142. SECT XXVII Our Patience must be of equal Temper as to the Field in Battle or the Bed of Sickness p. 144. THE CONTENTS Of the Third BOOK The Cure of Discontent Premis'd in Sect. 1 2 3. SECT I. THE Reluctancy of depraved Man against his Souls Cure with some Causes of his Depravity p. 148. SECT II. Further Causes of the Depravation of Humane Nature p. 150. SECT III. That the Soul may have Remedies for its Distempers p. 151. SECT IV. The Position offers it as a probable opinion that a Wise man is liable to Discontent p. 153. SECT V. That men imported by Passions are Mad. p. 154. SECT VI. The absurdity of denying a Wise man all use of the Affections is declin'd p. 157. SECT VII The Position impugn'd by an Argument from the Topick of Fortitude p. 158. SECT VIII By another from that of Temperance p. 160. SECT IX By an Induction from particular Passions as of Wrath Envy p. 161. SECT X. And Pitty p. 163. SECT XI The Cause of Dissatisfaction is a mistake in Judgment p. 165. SECT XII The Picture of Discontent in certain unfortunate Princes p. 167. SECT XIII We should not despair whatever our Circumstances be p. 169. SECT XIV Meditation on possible Mishaps abates their Evil when come p. 170. SECT XV. Is also ground of Constancy p. 172. SECT XVI The contrary Tenet of Epicurus and his Followers p. 174. SECT XVII The true Remedy assign'd p. 175. SECT XVIII And verified in the Case of Thyestes Aeetes Telamon p. 177. SECT XIX And Andromache p. 180. SECT XX. Epicurus prov'd inconstant to his own Principles p. 182. SECT XXI The stoutness of the Epicureans taken down p. 184. SECT XXII The judgment of the Cyrenian Sect how far allowable p. 185. SECT XXIII Forecast of possible Calamities is needful p. 187. SECT XXIV The use of Presidents p. 189. SECT XXV The Cavil that the common condition of Mortality is ineffectual in point of Comfort examin'd p. 191. SECT XXVI Trouble of mind to be a Duty is a mistake p. 192. SECT XXVII Farther illustrated p. 194. SECT XXVIII That mistake rectify'd by Consideration that our Sorrow availeth nothing p. 196. SECT XXIX That the matter of our disquiet is by misapprehension aggravated beyond its own Nature p. 199. SECT XXX That Motives of Consolation too often prove ineffectual proceeds not from defect in them but our own Indisposition p. 201. SECT XXXI Directory for Comforters as to the Season p. 203. SECT XXXII the Method p. 204. SECT XXXIII That it is a Duty not to be swallow'd up of Grief p. 205. SECT XXXIV A Passage clear'd to the Remedies of Disquiet arising from the particular Passions p. 207. THE CONTENTS Of the Fourth BOOK The Government of the Passions The Preface Sect. 1 2 3. SECT I. THE ancient Romans probably not Strangers to polite Learning because Borderers upon Greece the Great p. 209. SECT II. Because acquainted with Musick Poetry and Oratory p. 211. SECT III. But Philosophy was of later date with the Romans p. 212. SECT IV. The Position That it is probable thâ—â— a wise man is not free from all Passion p. 214. SECT V. The method of the ensuing Disputation p. 216. SECT VI. The Definition of the Passions in general p. 217. SECT VII The Intellect to be accessary to the Passions p. 219. SECT VIII The subordinate Passions defin'd those under Discontent and Fear p. 220. SECT IX Those under Pleasure and Lust p. 222. SECT X. The Original of the Souls Distempers p. 223. SECT XI The Cause of Passion and Antipathy p. 224. SECT XII The Analogy between the Souls and Bodies Sickness in ill habits p. 226. SECT XIII The Similitude between Soundness and Unsoundness of Body and Soul p. 227. SECT XIV Their Dissimilitude p. 229. SECT XV. The Cure of the Souls Infirmities p. 230. SECT XVI Especially to be in Moderation p. 231.
so violently that we should not see reason enough to endure them any longer good Gods m why do we make much difficulty for the Harbor is at hand death upon the spot an eternal receptacle into a State of insensibility n Theodorus said to Lysimachus threatning him with death you have indeed rais'd your self to great advancement if you can compare in power with a Spanish Fly Paul when King Perses petition'd him not to be led in Triumph reply'd That is in your own Power Much hath been said of death the first day when the Debate was expresly concerning death and not a little the second when the Subject was about Pain he that can remember that is in no great danger of not thinking death either to be desir'd or at least not to be fear'd k That he heard ill M. Crassus the Triumvir one of the three Keepers of the Liberty of Rome with Pompey and Julius Caesar he certainly lay under a flagrant infamy of unsatiable Covetousness both at home and with the Persians On this account Tully inveighs against him in his last Paradox He was also brought into some suspicion in the matter of Catiline but there compurg'd by him and perhaps he doth the like here only in point of disaffection to the Government in his time establish'd l Our Epicureans A colour or facetious Argument taken to expose that Sect. m Why do we make much difficulty A Stoical case to favour impatience in Pain n Theodorus Call'd Atheist was sent Embassador by Ptolomy to Lysimachus King of Thrace where speaking resolutely he was threat'ned by him who was of a cholerick Temper when he bid him come no more into his presence he reply'd he would not unless Ptolomy sent him again Some of the Fathers count him falsly traduc'd of Atheism because he disallow'd the worship of the Greeks and being a Cyrenian and known to Ptolomy he might have acquaintance with the Alexandrian Jews SECT XLI That it is an opinion almost universally held by the Philosophers that wise men are always happy THAT order seems in my judgment fit to be observ'd in Life which is enjoyn'd in the treats of the Greeks either drink or be gone And reason good for either let a man enjoy the pleasure of taking his Cup with others or let him timely withdraw lest he being sober be fallen upon by the rest in a drunken Fit So should a man avoid by retiring what injuries of Fortune he cannot sustain These same directions of Epicurus repeats Hierom word for word Now if those Philosophers who are of the opinion that vertue of it self is of no consideration all that we call honest and praise-worthy they say to be meer Jargon and a pure Rant yet if these judge the wise man to be always happy what I pray do you think should the Philosophers descended from Socrates and Plato do some of which say there is so great excellency in the goods of the mind that those of the Body and external ones are eclips'd by them others do not so much as count them goods place all their advantages in their mind Which Controversie of theirs Carneades was wont to moderate as an Umpire to which both Parties refer'd their Cause to be compromis'd For whereas what things the Peripateticks think goods the Stoicks count the same Conveniencies and yet the Peripateticks do not attribute more to Riches Health and other things of like Nature then the Stoicks since they were to be weigh'd by reality not words he deny'd there was any just cause of Dissention Wherefore let the Philosophers of other Perswasions look to it how they can gain this Point Yet I am pleas'd that they make a profession beseeming Philosophers about wise mens title to living in perpetual happiness But since we must be going to morrow let us comprise in memory these five days Debates And to say the truth I think I shall draw them up in writing for upon what can we better employ o this leisure such as it is and we will send these other five Books to our Friend Brutus by whom we have not only been invited to the making Philosophical Treatises p but also provok'd Wherein how much we shall profit others we cannot easily tell but for our own most bitter griefs and various disquiets charging us on every side no other relief could be found o This leisure such as it is Spoken with some Stomach for his being at that time in Prudence oblig'd to compound for his safety by retirement from his honourable Emploiments p But also provok'd By example and the address of his Book upon alike Subject FINIS THE CONTENTS Of the First BOOK Comforts against Death The Prologue Sect. 1 2 3 4. SECT I. THAT the Greeks were inferior to the Romans in most Points of useful knowledge Page 1. SECT II. However Superior in Poetry Pictures Musick and Geometry P. 3. SECT III. Equall'd by them in Oratory which is encouragement to set upon Philosophy P. 5. SECT IV. Philosophy joyn'd with Oratory is more beneficial P. 6. SECT V. The Position that the Proponent taketh Death to be Evil. P. 8. SECT VI. The local Hell of the Poets to be fictitious P. 10. SECT VII They who are not are not miserable P. 12. SECT VIII Nor is dying miserable but essay'd to be prov'd rather good P. 14. SECT IX What Death is What the Soul in vulgar opinion P. 16. SECT X. What it is in the judgment of divers Philosophers P. 17. SECT XI Inferences from these different Opinions P. 19. SECT XII Arguments for the Souls subsistence after death from immemorial Tradition from Funeral Rites and from the veneration of ancient Heroes P. 21. SECT XIII From this that there is a Tradition of the Superior Gods having been Men deceas'd P. 23. SECT XIV From an innate care of Posterity Zeal for the State P. 25. SECT XV And thirst after Glory P. 26. SECT XVI That dead mens Souls abide in Caverns under Earth is the groundless Fiction of Poets or imposture of Magicians P. 28. SECT XVII That it is more likely they ascend P. 30. SECT XVIII Nor vanish P. 32. SECT XIX But mount the Sky P. 33. SECT XX. And thence contemplate Nature P. 35. SECT XXI That the Epicureans who plead for Annihilation have no such reason to triumph in their Scheme of Natural knowledge improved P. 37. SECT XXII An immaterial Substance though invisible may subsist of it self as God so the Soul P. 38. SECT XXIII Arguments for the immortality of the Soul from its being the principle of its own Motion P. 40. SECT XXIV From the capaciousness of its memory P. 41. SECT XXV Corollaries upon the former Arguments from that of Invention P. 44. SECT XXVI From further Endowments P. 46. SECT XXVII From its Divine Original P. 48. SECT XXVIII From its Faculties P. 49. SECT XXIX From its Nature P. 51. SECT XXX From the Authority of Socrates and Cato P. 52. SECT XXXI From the Sequestring it self from the Body