Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	according_a	act_n	action_n	196	3	6.3010	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52003	Entertainments of the cours: or, Academical conversations. Held upon the cours at Paris, by a cabal of the principal wits of that court. / Compiled by that eminent and now celebrated author, Monsieur de Marmet, Lord of Valcroissant. And rendered into English by Thomas Saintserf, Gent.; Entretiens du cours. English	Marmet, Melchior de, seigneur de Valcroissant.; St. Serfe, Thomas, Sir, fl. 1668.	1658 (1658)	Wing M701; ESTC R202859	101,018	264

they be good or bad for the manner of life of the Stoicks made them easie to be known and their reputation was either good or bad in despight of all their moderation of Spirit and however their retreats were close their discourses private and that they forbore to publish their Philosophy yet left they not to post through the judements of men because they were fain to speak and could not live without expressing themselves and without being understood Speak that I may know thee said a certain wise man and the Divine Oracle hath left us for a Precept that we shall know men by their works A dead Body is always incognizable not only because it is ordinarily changed but because it neither speaks nor acts and for that the qualities of its Soul which we should know are departed with her and have left nothing but a trunk and a lump without motion An idle man is miserable and wicked because he renders his Spirit dull and his Body heavy and sluggish and because also he leads a lazy life and purchases the hatred of God and Man and for that in fine he makes not himself known what he is And howbeit an Emperor of Rome endeavoured to excuse his lazinesse by saying that every one must render an account of what he shall have done and not of what he shall not have done a person who moves not is incapable of doing evil yet did he stain the lustre of the Roman Empire by his sloth and a gap of infamy to his history which could not be stopt by his actions because thereby he never afforded any matter for it So that it is necessary either to see the man or to see his works to judge what he is and we must make use of this art to observe the interior of all the countenances he shews Action indeed said the Count facilitates knowledge but it is also true that we might find other means if the Science of Complexions were infallible and evident in frequentation and there is no doubt but it would be easie to make a perfect judgement of Spirits since they are not but by the organs and that Bodies have no functions but are meerly subject to the humors which govern them You make me take notice said the Philosopher of a certain form of trying and knowing men which I find easie and as it were indubitable and it is that when we see a person of a cold and moist complexion we may judge that he hath a good memory and that if he have never so little learning or reading he must needs have his mind full of the juyce and marrow of good Books and consequently that he hath good foundations and may passe for an able man and of this we have an example in Herodotus upon the subject of the Amazons whose sex participates most of the cold and moist that being allied to men of forreign Countrys they sooner learnt the language of their husbands then their very husbands themselves and changed their speech as often as their Country whensoever their various Expeditions of War required it So that we may say that a man of that Complexion may be a good positive Divine a good Cosmographer a good Arithmetician a good Linguist a good Lawyer a good Grammarian and a good Historian all which are the Sciences and Arts which are acquired by the Memory If Flegm and Melancholy predominate in a man and if he have drought and coldnesse in equal proportion we may draw an infallible consequence that he hath a strong Imagination and that by his inclination he may be capable of Eloquence Poetry Musick and of all the Arts and Sciences which consist in figures and correspondencies in harmonies and proportions provided that he have practised and applied himself to them On the other side when a man of a Cholerick and dry Complexion and that the blood by an agreeable conjunction hath an equal dominion between dry and moist it is not to be doubted but that Nature hath drain'd her forces been prodigal of her favours and form'd this excellent Temperament of her purest Substance And we may conclude that such a man hath a good judgement and brisk and pleasant humor that he may be a good School Divine a good Natural or Moral Philosopher a good Lawyer a good Companion a good Drol a good Courtier of Ladies and according to that good at all other operations of the mind and functions of the Body But Sir said the Marquesse if Spirits may be better known by their actions then by the Complexion because you have said that they are the inevitable marks of them and that you mean to draw the conclusions thereof from what they act what say you of a man who practices Physick and the Mathematicks and of another who practices Policy Wars and Civil Conversations and of a third who is a good Limner and a good Engyneer As I have said answered the Philosopher that by the knowledge of the Complexion we may discern Spirits so according to the drift of their inclinations since things are dependent and reflective upon one another we may know that a Limner a Poet a Mathematician an Astrologer a Politician a Captain or an Orator have a difference of Imagination very contrary to the Understanding memory that they can never be good Grammarians good School-Divines good Logicians good Physitians or good Lawyers and that they who are subtle and crafty and have a forwardnesse and quicknesse of wit are fit to be Courtiers Negotiators and Merchants but that they are not capable of learning and that there are no Spirits more contrary and repugnant to Sciences then these It will not be so difficult to judge of the understanding by its effects and of the ignorance of the vulgar who perswade themselves that a man is wise and prudent if he be eloquent historical and Romantick if he be a good Mathematician and a Poet which are things directly belonging to the Imagination and Memory and not to the Judgement which is the seat of Prudence and the just guide of the Soul and Reason And they have different opinions concerning these matters of Judgement whereas they ought to refer themselves to the learned and know that the works of the Understanding give this Power of the Soul the faculty to distinguish to infer to judge to argue and to elect and that such doubts as are in it arise from accidents but that we answer them by distinctions because thence we draw the Consequences which if they do not satisfie the mind we still contest till it be appeased by reasons and till the Judgement be satisfied If the Athenians had had this doctrine they would not have wondred to see so wise a man as Socrates not know how to speak and discourse nor should we at present find so much obscurity and roughnesse of Style in the works of Aristotle Plato and Hypocrates From hence we must conclude that whosoever will have the knowledge of a good

the world and will last till the end and therefore it were in vain to wish that we had lived in another Age or to live in those which are to come to be exempt from its contagion and to be free from its malice The greatest Captain of Pharamonds time and who had most gifts of Nature and Wit had never yet so many as to equal the number of his enviers and the most unhappy Courtier of the last that shall be of our Kings will never suffer so many crosses as will paralel the rejoycings which have been made for the misfortunes which have befaln him Albeit you sustain said the Marquess that they who are envied for their vertue are envy-proof and that that which stains the reputation of others refines theirs yet it is not to be denied but that the envious are a sort of people which dim the splendor of honour and destroy in some sort the greatnesse of a high fame for they disguise the fairest actions with the habits of a foolish and blinde Fortune and by as the uprightness of a Soul how frank and generous soever and therefore their by-ways and practices are not to be neglected in regard they strike in absence at a distance and at unawares whereas other enemies are not so much to be feared because they are known and because time may have salved the wrongs they have received and in fine because we stand always upon our guard and with praecaution to prevent them But this curst race of Nature is never weary of persecuting us and does us more hurt with the tongue without touching us then an irreconcileable enemy would do if he had us under him with his sword at our throats This is very true indeed said Angelin and therefore was the war of the Greeks against the Trojans less cruel and shorter for that it began upon an injury then that of the Romans against the Carthaginians because both these Republicks had their several design to conquer the whole world and disputed for the decision of the Empire of the Drivers The great enmity between Caesar and Pompey proceeded likewise from nothing but envy the former envying the later for his good conduct in the government of the Commonwealth and the later the former for the felicity which accompanied him in war So that we see that the decay of that flourishing Republick began from the Civil Wars raised by envy And therefore to revenge our selves against these pernicious hornets who besiege our bodies a far off who suborn the clearest Consciences and betray the gallantest lives we must use an advantagious and estimable remedy against obtrectatory and ill grounded suspicions which destroy the reward of vertue and seem to blot it out of the souls of men I will be bold to say that revenge upon the envious is as laudible as it is sweet and facil for it consists but in continuing to do well and in striving to excel in so good a practice in regard that the vertue of their Neighbour gnaws and consumes them as rust doth Iron My dear Lord makes use of this stratagem and is not moved at all because he is envied notwithstanding what you have said for besides that he is worthy of it he is so well establisht in vertue and favour that he doth not believe that the vices of others can hurt him or the greatest storm shake him And therefore it is as much in vain for the envious to buz out their detractions and dart their private injuries against so firm a Soul as it was for the Pigmys and the Ruffian Thiodamas of Lydia to presume to wrestle with Hercules For before he undertakes any great designs or causes any of his orders to be executed he prepares his spirit for the censure of envy and sweetly perswades himself that the issue will make his blames turn into praises and that to desist from the pursuit of brave actions is the only means to support detraction His perseverance in the good opinion he gives of himself keeps his person in esteem as on the other side desistence and wavering might abate the good thoughts which men have of him The Court is a tempestuous Sea which violently tosses as well great Ships as small Barks and her floating waves shake the most weighty and solid hearts without sincking them Unlesse a man have profound wisdom without weaknesse and spot and make a perfect harmony thereof with constancy he cannot preserve himself there from shipwrack and come safe to the Port. As for the Sea billows and waves said the Marquesse I will shew you a very pleasant and good Letter from a Gentleman a friend of mine who is in the Fleet with a Brother of his who is Captain of a Gally wherein you shall see what he says of Sea-sicknesse wherewith he is furiously tormented This is the Letter and thus it says My Lord GOD blesse the Cow-stall and the Divel take the Element wherein a man makes his grave by falling Alas you may easily judge of the sad condition I am in by seeing my scribbling and this Letter so rumpled but I doubt whether it will be received by you as coming from a person who honours you so much as I do because I force my self to write to you and because I write to you when I am stomach-sick or whether it will draw so much sense of compassion from you in regard I am lying straight along without strength or pulse and with insupportable qualms and faintings In fine I am as miserable as the good King in the Scripture was in his greatest calamities save only that he was fain to lie upon a Dunghil and I lie upon a Satin-quilt but if he were pestred with vermin I am so as much as he if he wanted food my stomach against the order of Nature which abhors a vacuum is posting thither if he were forsaken by his friends my Brother and my friends as if they were about a grave instead of pitying my misfortune do nothing but laugh and scoff at it In a word it seems all one to me to be at the bottom of the Sea or here in the Gally and in regard a mans heart is the first which lives and the last which die it is to be believed that our bodies are deprived of life when we feel our hearts a dying As soon as I shall be able to reach a Port I will leave the Moveable for the Immoveable and the hazzard of the Water to expose my self to the rigor of all the other Elements and will remedy the inconveniences I now suffer after the manner of poor Mad-men Six foot of Land will cure me of these evils and then I will send you the Mercury of all we do in the liquid Field and give you as good an account of our affairs as of my own restitutions Just now came a billow and tost our Gally to the middle Region of the air threw me headlong against the Helmet overturn'd my Ink-horn and blew my

whether the place he hath appointed for his retirement be the right or the wrong way both to his Temporal and Eternal Felicity If a false vocation said the Marquesse be so fatal to Monasteries as to make a man live a wicked and scandalous life the true one which comes from the holy Ghost must needs be Divine because it causes an Angelical life and purchases much veneration and reverence to such Souls as having profited by good inspirations are like the gifts of Heaven and Nature to serve for lights and patterns of Heroick and moral vertue Indeed said the Philosopher we ought to carry some respect and reverence towards good Religious men and I know not what to think of those Libertines who despise them and scoff at holy things and who setting light by Heaven and the gifts thereof upbraid and combate their felicity Nor do I make a rash Proposition when I affirm these persons who are markt with the sacred character to be the gift of God because besides that they lead a holy and exemplary life and instruct Souls towards Salvation the lively light they impart to such as with whom they converse is an infallible sign of their being sent from above to save Souls and to illuminate such Spirits as have the ordinary notions for God who is an universal and Incomprehensible Intelligence hath a care of us and makes himself concern'd in the affairs of our consciences procuring our salvation by his providence according as we cooperate with our actions and in regard that he hath given us Rational Souls he likes not that they should be in love with our Bodies and wholly transported to sensual delights and that in fine that beam of Divinity which we hold from him should be put out upon earth as material fire is hidden under ashes Therefore it was that he sent his Prophets in the Old Law to prepare mens spirits for his coming and his Apostles in the New One to announce his Passion and his Miracles to our Forefathers and to instruct them by the example he gave us in his life And for that in the Infancy of the Church it was expedient for him to make himself known by the greatnesse of his gifts thereby to attract to himself those People which were then either in disobedience or Paganism he sent his holy Spirit and that not secretly and only to kindle the hearts of his Apostles with the fire of Charity and to inspire them with the Orthodox and sacred Doctrine which they were to preach in the world but openly and publickly to shew by his goodnesse and by the magnificence of his gifts a pattern of the glory he had promised which is unconceiveable inefable and incomprehensible to human understanding But now since Christianism is so generally propagated it is not needful for God to use those attracts and specious magnificencies or any other particular remedies to retain the faithful Believers in their duty which only consists in the well keeping of his Commandments and in honoring the Announcers of his Divine Word Now if he sends us secret Apostles markt with the Sacred Character of his Grace and inspires them with the misterious Notions of a purely Celestial Science I pray you consider what kind of persons they be who have so good a Mission and how they ought to be esteemed Wherefore I will conclude that as all good Religious are called by God so are they also sent by him to interpret his Oracles and that he sends them not with lightning and thunder as he anciently communicated himself to his People but secretly and as if he were familiar amongst men to the end that not being of a higher essence then theirs their words and deeds might preach together and shew us that we our selves are the causers of our destruction as Israel was and that though God made us without our help yet will he not save us without our help and that we must serve our selves of those two things as of two spurs to attain to Christian perfection That is called in plain terms Preaching said Hydaspe and so going on with his caillery the Count interrupted him saying Gentlemen shall we not retire our selves For it grows late and we must sup more early then we use to do to go to the Bal or Mask which is to be daunc't to night at the Hostel de Luxembourgh With all my heart said the Baron when you please and so all agreeing away they went to the Barons house whether when they were come Gentlemen said he you must do me the honour to sup with me and then we will go all together to the Bal. What kind of Bal is it said the Marquesse 'T is but a Bal of Entrances without Machins said the Count and they say that the Divertisements Exercises and Passions of Youth is the Subject and that the Baladins or Maskers took it out of their own ordinary manner of life Not to publish their vices and volupties which it were fit for them to keep private and which they will not forbear to follow and enjoy whether they be known or not known but because the pleasures of the senses are not so satisfactory and agreeable when they are not communicated as being for the most part like those of love the chief satisfaction whereof is first to obtain ones desire and then to divulge it And so these people take pride in their employments and declare that though every body seeks after divertisements and pleasures yet few know how to choose the true and noble means to acquire them For women are ignorant of it either for want of capacity or through excesse of Passions Children are not of maturity to comprehend it and old folks are fond of toys and bables But they who are to daunce this Ball are both for Age and Sex in the most perfect flower and vigor to have both the Theorical and Practical knowledge of true pleasures I mean that gang of inseperable Camerades who are called La Trouppe Galliarde or the Jolly Company and who study nothing but the accomplishment of the delights and volupties of this life for they trample upon what is base scorn as Chimerical what is too witty and give their minds wholly to such things as are exempt from sottish vanity and sordity This mask as I told you before is a Picture of their manner of life and a true type and confirmation of their honest and honorable divertizements and if you have the curiosity to see it I doubt not but you will esteem it as it deserves and instead of censuring it not only approve it but praise it and do your best to protect it and prefer it both for the fitnesse of the Subject the dexterity of the Actors and the gallantry of the Scene before all you have ever seen Though you commended it not so much said the Counsellor we should yet be desirous to see it because the other night we crouded so much to see one neer us which