in the Tuilleries justifies him Yet Art finds a greater facility in this matter near Lakes Hills and Woods naturally dispos'd for such a re-percussion But which increases the wonder of the Echo is its reduplication which is multiply'd in some places seven times and more the reason whereof seemes to be the same with that of multiplication of Images in Mirrors For as there are Mirrors which not onely receive the species on their surface so plainly as our Eye beholds but cannot see the same in the Air though they are no less there then in the Mirror so there are some that cast forth the species into the Air so that stretching out your arm you see another arm as it were coming out of the Mirror to meet yours In like manner it is with the voice And as a second and a third Mirror rightly situated double and trebble the same species so other Angles and Concavities opposite to the first cause the voice to bound and by their sending it from one to another multiply it as many times as there are several Angles but indeed weaker in the end then in the beginning because all Reaction is less then the First Action CONFERENCE XVI I. How Spirits act upon Bodies II. Whether is more powerful Love or Hatred I. How Spirits act upon Bodies IT is requisite to understand the Nature of ordinary and sensible actions that we may judge of others as in all Sciences a known Term is laid down to serve for a rule to those which are inquir'd So Architects have a Level and a Square whereby to discern perpendicular Lines and Angles Now in Natural Actions between two Bodies there is an Agent a Patient a Contact either Physical or Mathematical or compounded of both a Proportion of Nature and Place and a Reaction Moreover Action is onely between Contraries so that Substances and Bodies having no contraries act not one against the other saving by their qualities Which nevertheless inhering in the subjects which support them cause Philosophers to say that Actions proceed from Supposita Now that which causeth the difficulty in the Question is not that which results from the Agent for the Spirit is not onely a perpetual Agent but also a pure Act nor that which proceedeth from the Patient for Matter which predominates in Bodies is of its own Nature purely Passive But 't is from the want of Contact For it seemeth not possible for a Physical Contact to be between any but two complete substances And if we speak of the Soul which informes the Body it is not complete because it hath an essence ordinated and relative to the Body If we speak of Angels or Daemons there is no proportion of Nature between them and Bodies and much less resemblance as to the manner of being in a place For Angels are in a place onely definitively and Bodies are circumscrib'd with the internal surface of their place How then can they act one upon the other Nor can there be reaction between them For Spirits cannot part from Bodies But on the other side since Action is onely between Contraries and Contraries are under the same next Genus and Substance is divided into Spiritual and Corporeal there ought to be no more true Action then between the Soul and the Body both Contraries not onely according to the acception of Divines who constantly oppose the Body to the Spirit and make them fight one with the other but speaking naturally it is evident that the proprieties of the one being diametrically opposite to those of the other cause a perpetual conflict with them which is the same that we call Action Contact is no more necessary between the Soul and the Body to infer their action then it is between the Iron and the Load-stone which attracts it What Proportion can be found greater then between Act and Power the Form and the Matter the Soul and the Body which are in the same place As for Reaction supposing it to be necessary whereof yet we see no effect in the Sun nor the other Coelestial Bodies which no Man will say suffer any thing from our Eye upon which nevertheless they act making themselves seen by us And Lovers are not wholly without reason when they say a subject makes them suffer remaining it self unmoveable It is certain that our Soul suffers little less then our Body as is seen in griefs and corporal maladies which alter the free functions of the Mind caus'd by the influence of the Soul upon the Body through Anger Fear Hope and the other Passions The Soul then acts upon the Body over which it is accustom'd to exercise Dominion from the time of our Formation in our Mothers womb it governs and inures it to obey in the same manner as a good Rider doth a Horse whom he hath manag'd from his youth and rides upon every day Their common contentment facilitates this obedience the instruments the Soul makes use of are the Spirits which are of a middle nature between it and the Body Not that I fancy them half spiritual and half corporeal as some would suppose but by reason they are of so subtile a Nature that they vanish together with the Soul So that the Arteries Ventricles and other parts which contain them are found wholly empty immediately after death The Second said That if we would judge aright what ways the Soul takes to act upon the Body we need onely seek what the Body takes to act upon the Soul For the lines drawn from the centre to the circumference are equal to those from the circumference to the centre Now the course which it holds towards the Soul is thus The Objects imprint their species in the Organ of the outward Sense this carries the same to the Common Sense and this to the Phancy The Memory at the same time presents to the Judgement the fore-past Experiences which she hath kept in her Treasury The Judgement by comparing them with the knowledge newly arriv'd to it by its Phantasmes together with its natural habit of first principles draws from the same a conclusion which the Will approves as soon as Reason acquiesseth therein According to the same order the Will consignes the Phantasmes in the Memory and the Phancy this to the Common Sense and this to the Organs of the Senses For Example as soon as my Judgement hath approv'd the discourse which I make to you and my Will hath agreed thereunto she consign'd the species to my Memory that it might remember to reduce them into this order according to which my Memory distributed them to my Imagination this to my Common Sense this to the Nerves appointed for the Motion of my Tongue and the other Organs of Speech to recite the same and now into those of my hand to write them down to you The Third said That the clearing of the Question propounded depended upon two others First what link or union there may be between a Spiritual and a Corporeal thing Secondly supposing
it self and causes them to act and move in the Matter rightly dispos'd As for the Second Like as they argue that the world is finite round and corruptible because its parts are so So also it may be said that the world hath a Spirit which enlivens it since all its principal parts have a particular one for their Conservation Action and Motion the parts being of the same Nature with the whole This Universal Spirit is prov'd by the impotency of the Matter which of it self having no activity or principle of Life and Motion needeth some other to animate and quicken it Now particular Forms cannot do that for then they would be principles of that Virtue that is to say principles of themselves which is impossible Wherefore there must be some Superiour Form which is the Universal Spirit the principle of Action and Motion the Uniter of the Matter and the Form the Life of all Nature and the Universal Soul of the World Whence it may confidently be affirm'd that the World is animated but with what Soul or Spirit is the difficulty For if we prove by Local Motion or by that of Generation that a Plant or Animal are animated why may we not say the same of all the World since its more noble and principal parts afford evidence thereof As for the Heaven and the Stars they are in continual Motion which the more â—ober Opinion at this day confesseth to produce from their Internal Form rather then from the Intelligences which some would have fastned to the Spheres as a Potter to his wheel The Sun besides his own Motion which some call in controversie gives Life to all things by his heat and influences The Air Water and Earth afford also instances of this Life in the production and nourishing of Plants and Animals Thus the principal parts being animated this sufficeth for the Denomination of the whole seeing even in Man there are found some parts not animated as the Hair and the Nails As for the Last Point which is to know what this Universal Soul is there are many Opinions The Rabbins and Cabalists say that it is the RVAH ELOHIM that is the Spirit of God which moved upon Waters Trismegistus saith that it is a Corporeal Spirit or a Spiritual Body and elsewhere calleth it the Blessed GreenWood or the Green Lyon which causeth all things to grow Plato affirmeth it to be the Ideas The Peripateticks a certain Quintessence above the Four Elements Heraclitus and after him the Chymists that it is a certain Aethereal Fire For my part I conceive that if by this Spirit they mean a thing which gives Life and Spirit and Motion to all which is found every where and on which all depends there is no doubt but 't is the Spirit of God or rather God himself in whom and through whom we live and move But if we will seek another in created Nature we must not seek it elsewhere then in that corporeal creature which hath most resemblance with the Deity The Sun who more lively represents the same then any other by his Light Heat Figure and Power And therefore the Sun is that Spirit of the World which causeth to move and act here below all that hath Life and Motion The Second said That that Soul is a certain common Form diffus'd through all things which are moved by it as the wind of the Bellows maketh the Organs to play applying them to that whereunto they are proper and according to their natural condition So this Spirit with the Matter of Fire maketh Fire with that of Air maketh Air and so of the rest Some give it the name of Love for that it serves as a link or tye between all Bodies into which it insinuates it self with incredible Subtility which Opinion will not be rejected by the Poets and the Amorous who attribute so great power to it The Third said That the Soul being the First Act of an Organical Body and the word Life being taken onely for Vegetation Sensation and Ratiocination the world cannot be animated since the Heavens the Elements and the greatest part of Mixed Bodies want such a Soul and such Life That the Stoicks never attributed a Soul to this world but onely a Body which by reason of its Subtility is called Spirit and for that it is expanded through all the parts of the world is termed Vniversal which is the cause of all Motions and is the same thing with what the Ancients call'd Nature which they defined the Principle of Motion The reason of the Stoicks for this Universal Spirit is drawn from the Rarefaction and Condensation of Bodies For if Rarefaction be made by the insinuation of an other subtile Body and Condensation by its pressing out it follows that since all the Elements and mixt Bodies are rarifi'd and condens'd there is some Body more subtile then those Elements and mixts which insinuating it self into the parts rarifies them and makes them take up greater space and going forth is the Cause that they close together and take up less Now Rarefaction is alwayes made by the entrance of a more subtile Body and Condensation by its going out This is seen in a very thick Vessel of Iron or Brass which being fill'd with hot Water or heated Air and being well stop'd if you set it into the cold it will condense what is contain'd therein which by that means must fill less space then before Now either there must be a Vacuum in the Vessel which Nature abhorreth or some subtile Body must enter into it which comes out of the Air or the Water which fills that space Which Body also must be more subtile then the Elements which cannot penetrate through the thickness of the Vessel There is also seen an Instance of this in the Sun-beams which penetrate the most solid Bodies if they be never so little diaphanous which yet are impenetrable by any Element how subtile soever And because a great part of the Hour design'd for Inventions was found to have slip'd away during the Reciprocation of other reasons brought for and against this opinion some curiosities were onely mention'd and the examination of them referr'd to the next Conference In which it was determin'd first to treat of the Air and then to debate that Question Whether it is expedient in a State to have Slaves CONFERENCE VII I. Of the Air. II. Whether it be best for a State to have Slaves I. Of the Air. THe First said That he thought fit to step aside a little out of the ordinary way not so much to impugne the Maximes of the School as to clear them and that for this end he propros'd That the Air is not distinguish'd from the Water because they are chang'd one into the other For what else are those Vapours which are drawn up from the Water by the power of the Sun and those which arise in an Alembic or from boyling Water if we do not call them Air Now those Vapours are
it is now straitned and takes less room then before Whence Water freezing in Vessels well stopp'd the same break for the avoidance of Vacuum Moreover Humidity is not one of its essential proprieties because it may be separated from it as we see in frozen water which is less humid then when it was cold It followes then that Second Qualities being Tokens of the First and the goodness of Water requiring that it have the least weight that can be as also that it have neither Taste nor Smell the most pure i. e. the Elementary of which we are speaking is without First Qualities having been created by God onely to be the band or tye of the other parts of a mixt body The Fifth said That the Scripture divideth the Waters into those which are above the Heavens and those upon the Earth as if to teach us that Water is the Centre the Middle and the end of the Universe Which agrees with the opinion of those who establish it for the Sole Principle of all things Those Supercoelestial Waters are prov'd by the Etymology of the word for Heavens Schamaim which signifies in Hebrew There are Waters Because 't is said that God divided the Waters from the Waters and placed them above the Firmament Which Supercoelestial Waters are also invited by the Psalmist to bless the Lord And lastly because it is said that at the time of the Deluge the windows of Heaven were opened The Sixth said That the gravity of those Supercoelestial Waters would not suffer them to remain long out of the place destinated to that Element which is below the Air And therefore it were better to take the word Heaven in those places for the Air as 't is elsewhere in the Scripture which mentioneth the Dew and the Birds of Heaven Since also the Hebrew word which there signifies Firmament is also taken for the Expansion of the Air and those Supercoelestial Waters for Rain II. Of Wine and whether it be necessary for Souldiers Upon the Second Point it was said That if we speak of Wine moderately taken the Sacred Text voids the Question saying that it rejoyceth the Heart Which it performeth by supplying ample matter to the Influent Spirits which the Heart by the Arteries transmitteth to all the parts and which joyning themselves to the private Spirits strengthen them and labour in common with them And so the Souldier entring into fight with a cheerful Heart is half victorious Yea the greatest exploits of War are atchieved by the Spirits which constitute Courage the Blood heated by them over-powring the coldness of Melancholy and Phlegme which cause backwardness and slowness of Action For it is with the Virtues as with Medicines which become not active and pass not from power into act but by help of the natural faculties So the Virtues do not produce their effects but by the Spirits But Wine taken in excess is wholly prejudicial to the Valour of a Souldier who hath need of a double strength One of Mind to lead him on valiantly to dangers and keep him undaunted at dreadful occurrences The other of Body to undergo the long toiles of War and not draw back in fight Now Wine destroyes both of these For as for the former Valour or Fortitude is a Moral Virtue which as all other Virtues its companions acteth under the conduct of Prudence which alone ruleth and employeth them and knoweth where and how they ought to act So that what assists Prudence assists Valour too and that which hureth the one hurteth the other also Now excessive Wine hurteth the former very much For by its immoderate heat it causeth a tumult and disorder in the humours it maketh the Brain boyle and work and consequently embroyleth and confoundeth the Phantasines which are imprinted in it as it happeneth in sleep or in the Phrensie and by its gross vapour it obstructeth all its passages So that the Understanding cannot take its Survey there having no free access to come and form its judgements and conclusions upon the Ideas and Phantasmes And although it should have its Avenues free yet the Phantasmes being in confusion like Images in stirred waters it would be impossible for it to judge aright and prudently to discern what fear or what eagerness ought to be check'd and repel'd For all Fear is not to be rejected no more then 't is to be follow'd nor is the bridle to be let loose at all adventures nor alwayes restrain'd The strength of the Body is also impaird by Wine For though Galen and others will have it Hot and Dry yet it being so but potentially 't is as subject to deceive us as that Dutchman was who hearing that Cresses were hot commanded his Man to fill his Boots therewith to warm him For the truth is Wine is moist and vapourous and that to such a degree that by reason of its extreme humidity it cannot be corrupted with a total corruption For this happeneth when the external heat hath wholly drawn out the moisture of the corrupted Body and so dissolved the Union of all the dry parts which moisture keeps together So that the Elements flying away there remains nothing to be seen but Earth alone Which cannot come to pass in Wine by reason of the little dry substance in it and of its great humidity which cannot be wholly separated In which regard it is never corrupted but in part viz. when the external heat draws away the more pure substance and the better Spirits as we see when it grows sour thick or turbid Being then humid to such a degree and our parts partaking of the nature of their food if Souldiers nourish their Bodies excessively with Wine they must retain the qualities thereof viz. softness and weakness which follow humidity Whence possibly came the word Dissolute for such as addict themselves to this debauchery and the other which follow it Therefore the Souldier would be more robust if he never drank Wine because he would eat the more and produce the more solid substance which would make him more vigorous less subject to diseases and more fit to indure in sight and undergo the other toils of War The Second said That it belongs to the prudent States-man to weigh the benefit and the mischief which may arise from his orders So that he alwayes propose to himself that he hath to do with imperfect men and who incline rather to the abuse then the right use of things This holds principally in War Souldiers willingly aiming at nothing else but pleasure and profit Even in this Age wherein we are past the Apprentisage of War except some constant Regiments Souldiers are tumultuously chosen almost alwayes out of the dregs of the people of whom to require the exercise of Temperance in the use of that which ordinarily costs them nothing were to seek an impossibility Such is Wine that though it makes the Souldier sturdy yet it makes him unfit to govern himself much less others Whereunto notwithstanding he oftentimes
a simple alteration which requireth not the time necessary to local motion whereby Hearing is perform'd and by this means distinguish'd from vision in which at the same time the medium and the Organ are both alter'd whereas in Hearing the Organ is not alter'd till after the medium Hence it is that the wind helps greatly to the carrying of sounds which would not be if they were only intentional species for visible things are seen as well in a contrary wind as in a calm air and that sounds seem weaker a far off then neer hand The Sixth said Among the objects of the Senses sounds and odours have alone had the honour to be dedicated to the Deity Melodie and Incense having always been employ'd in Divine Service either because the humane soul is most delighted therewith or for that either of them being somewise spiritual and corporeal God requires that we offer him both the body and the spirit whereas Daemons abhor nothing more then Harmony and Perfumes as ill suting to their irregular and infected nature And sounds have so great affinity with the soul that according to their cadence and their tones they excite compassion cruelty joy sadness courage fear lasciviousness and chastity whence it was said that Aegysthus could never debauch Clytemnestra till he had kill'd her Musitian Because all our actions and inclinations depending upon our spirits they are modefi'd and made like to the sounds which they receive by the ear So that if the sounds be tremulous grave sharp quick or flow the spirits become so too and consequently the Muscles which are instruments of voluntary motion having no action but by means of the spirits they impress upon them and make them follow such cadence as they like Hence it is that hearing others sing we fall a singing too without thinking of it with those that whisper we whisper too with those that speak loud we speak so also that the air of the Musitian stirs our members to conform to it and that our spirits are displeas'd with bad cadences as if the outward air had an absolute dominion over our spirits II. Of Harmony Upon the second Point it was said That Harmony is taken for any proportion and agreement but chiefly for that of sounds in which it is more perceptible and that even by the ignorant It s invention is ascrib'd to Tubal the first Smith upon his observation of the various sounds that the strokes of his Hammer made upon his Anvil which Pythagoras also made use of to find out the proportion of his musical numbers Of which having elsewhere spoken I shall only add here that Harmony presupposes many sounds for one alone makes but a Monotone and two an unpleasing reciprocation but six notes are requisite to perfect Musick industriously compriz'd in the Hymn VT queant LAxis REsonare fibris MIra gestorum c. This harmony is either vocal or instrumental the former whereof having graces and variations inimitable by instruments far surpasses the latter but their mixture is most agreeable The Second said Nature seems to have made a show of her goodliest effects to our Senses and conceal'd their causes from our knowledge Musical harmony aims at the instruction of men that of man's body is the admirable artifice of the Formative faculty which Galen calls divine but the harmony of the world puts our curiosity most to a non-plus 'T is the cause why water notwithstanding its fluidity gathers it self into a heap to leave dry land for the habitation of animals and that the earth which should settle about its centre by its equal gravity yet rises up in mountains The air is alter'd by all sort of qualities that it may give a good one to the earth The fire descends from its sphere to be captivated in Furnaces for our use and is imprison'd in cavities of the earth to promote the generation of Metals The Heavens move for the benefit of inferiour bodies in a place where they might enjoy eternal rest 'T is through this harmony that the water becomes thick at the bottom and contracts alliance with the earth while its surface resolves into vapours the rudiments of air whose highest region likewise approaches the nature of fire and this has somewhat of Aethereal and the constitution of the Heavens on which it borders and conjoyns with this inferiour world The cause of this chain and connexion is an universal vertue comprehended in the extent of each being besides the proper motive vertue destinated to content its appetite The necessity of this vertue is a certain evidence of its existence for since every thing conspires for the general good of the world and withstands the division of its parts Nature must have allotted them a power which may guide them to that end now this power is not extrinsecal since it resides in the subject it self Nor is it the motive vertue for this and that have two different objects and ends namely the publick and the particular good which are not always contain'd one in the other Besides 't would be a manifest contradiction to say that by one and the same vertue things expose themselves to the loss of their proper qualities for the publick good and keep them when only their particular is concern'd Wherefore there is one general law which having authority to force all things to contract amities not sorting to their inclination is above that vertue which leads things directly to their own good which is the cause of the excellent harmony observ'd in the whole world The Third said Indeed Harmony is every where between the Creator and his Creatures both spiritual and corporeal in the Hierarchies of bless'd Spirits one with another in the assistance of the motive Intelligences with their orbs between the great and the little world in the latter of which the Scripture sets forth to us a perpetual musick of the blessed in the the Empireal Heaven Plato a harmony proceeding from the motion of the Celestial bodies Daily experience makes us hear in the air a consort of winds the Sea beats a measure by its ebbing and flowing the Birds of the air perform the Cantus the Beasts the Base the Fishes the Tacet Man the Tenor who again in the structure of his body and soul is a perfect harmony In the body the temperature of the humours is so harmonical that their disproportion drives away the soul which Galen upon this account calls harmony In the soul so long as Reason holds the sovereignty and constrains the murmuring Appetite to hold its base there results from it a harmony delectable to God and Men. On the contrary if you would apprehend its discord do but imagine the disorderly uproar excited by choler and the other passions get the mastery over Reason Yea mans whole life is either a perpetual harmony or discord In Religion when one Head is acknowledg'd and every one submits thereunto for Conscience sake and keeps his station how beautiful are those Tabernacles of
foal'd whence it must be taken betimes else the Mare bites it off and if she be deceiv'd of it never affects the foal afterwards and therefore 't is call'd by Virgil Matri praereptus Amor. The same effect is attributed to the seed of Mares to a plant call'd Hippomanes and by Pliny to the hair of a Wolfs tail the fish Remora the brain of a Cat and a Lizard and by Wierus to Swallows starv'd to death in an earthen pot the bones of a green Frog excarnated by Pismires the right parts of which he saith conciliate Love and the left hatred But to shew the vanity and impurity of these inventions most Philtres are taken from Animals generated of corruption excrements and other filthy and abominable things and commonly all rather excite Fury then Love as appears by many to whom Cantharides have been given and Caligula who was render'd mad by a drink of his wife Cesonia one Frederick of Austria and the Poet Lucretius by a Philtre given him by his Wife Lucilia Love is free and fixes not by constraint 't is not taken in at the mouth but the eyes the graces of the body being the most powerful charm as Olympia Wife of Philip of Macedon acknowledg'd when being jealous that her Husband lov'd a young Lady that was said to have given him amorous potions the Queen sent for her and having beheld her great Beauty said that she had those Philtres in her self Now if these gifts of the body be accompany'd with those of the mind and the party endu'd therewith testifie Love to another 't is impossible but the affection will become mutual Love being the parent of Love whence the Poets feign'd two Cupids Eros and Anteros and Ovid an intelligent person in this matter knew no surer course then this Vt ameris amabilis esto The Fourth said Love is a spiritual thing and consequently produc'd by means of the same nature Hence an ill report which is a thing not onely incorporeal but commonly phantastical and imaginary extinguishes all Love for a person otherwise lovely as to the graces of the body And the choice between equal Beauties shews that Love is not founded upon the outside Wherefore they take the wisest course to get themselves lov'd who use inductions and perswasions which are the common means to make marriages By all which it appears that Amorous Madness is a distemper of the mind and as such to be cur'd CONFERENCE LXXVIII I. Why the Sensitive Appetite rules over Reason II. Whether Speech be natural and peculiar to Man I. Why the Sensitive Appetite rules over Reason APpetite is an inclination of every thing to what is good for it self There are three sorts in Man First the Natural which is in plants who attract their nourishment and also in some inanimate things as the Load-stone and Iron yea in the Elements as the dry earth covets water and all heavy bodies tend to their centre 'T is without Knowledge and Will even in Man for all natural actions are perform'd best in sleep Secondly the Sensitive common to Man and Beast which some erroneously deny to be a humane faculty because 't is the seat of the Passions the enemies of Reason which constitutes Man But the encounter of it with Reason argues their distinction Thirdly the Rational call'd the Will which is Mistress of the former two and besides makes use of Reason for the knowing of one or more things And because desire cannot be without knowledge therefore the Sensitive Appetite presupposes the knowledge of the Imagination and the Will that of the Understanding but the Natural Appetite depends on that of a First Cause which directs every natural form to its particular good though it know not the same Now 't is demanded how the Mistresse comes to obey the Servants notwithstanding the Maxime That the Will tends to nothing but what is good which cannot be without truth and this is not such unless it be approv'd by the Intellect It seems to me improper to say that the Sensitive Appetite prevails over Reason but rather hinders it by its disturbance from pronouncing sentence as a brawling Lawyer doth a Judge by his noise The Second said That Reason is alwayes Mistress For Men govern themselves according to Nature the universal rule of all things and this nature being rational they cannot be guided otherwise then the motions of Reason But some find Reason where other finds none The Thief accounts riches ill divided and therefore he may justly possess himself of what he wants and however he sees evil in the action yet he conceives more in his necessity which his Reason makes him account the greatest of all evils So that comparing them together he concludes the less evil to be good and wittingly attempts the crime not owning it for such whilst he commits it The same may be said of all other sins wherein the present sweetness exceeds the fear of future punishment If Conscience interpose they either extinguish it or else wholly forbear the action Unless the Mind happen to be balanc'd and then they are in confusion like the Ass which dy'd of hunger between two measures of corn not knowing which to go to For 't is impossible for the Will to be carry'd to one thing rather then another unless it find the one better and more convenient The Third said 'T is congruous to nature for the Inferior to receive Law from the Superior So Man commands over beasts and amongst Men some are born Masters and others slaves the Male hath dominion over the Female the Father over his Children the Prince over his Subjects the Body receives Law from the Soul the Matter from its Form the Angels of Inferior Hierarchies receive their intelligence from the Superior and the lower Heavens the rule of their motions from the higher the Elements are subject to the influences of those celestial bodies and in all mixts one quality predominates over the rest Since therefore the Sensitive Appetite is as much below Reason as a beast below a Man and the Imagination below the Intellect according to the same order establish'd in Nature Reason ought alwayes to have the command over it because having more knowledge 't is capable to direct it to its end But through the perversity of our Nature we more willingly follow the dictates of Sense then Reason of the Flesh then the Spirit because the former being more familiar and ordinary touch us nearer then Reason whose wholsome counsels move not our Will so much which being Mistress of all the faculties according to its natural liberty may sometimes command a virtuous action of whose goodnesse Reason hath inform'd it sometimes a vitious one by the suggestion of the Sensitive Appetite which makes it taste the present sweetness and delight whose attraction is greater then that of future rewards promis'd by virtue to her followers Hence the Law of the members so prevails over the law of the mind as sometimes wholly to eclipse the
proceed but from Heaven or the Elements there is no probability in attributing them to these latter otherwise they would be both Agents and Patients together And besides if the Elements were the Efficient Cause of the Mutations which come to pass in Nature there would be nothing regular by reason of their continual Generation and Corruption Wherefore 't is to the Heavens that it ought to be ascrib'd And as the same Letters put together in the same order make alwayes the same word So as often as the principal Planets meet in the same Aspect and the same Coelestial Configuration the Men that are born under such Constellations are found alike Nor is it material to say though 't is true that the Heavenly Bodies are never twice in the same scituation because if this should happen it would not be Resemblance longer but Identity such as Plato promised in his great Revolution after six and forty thousand years Besides there is no one so like to another but there is alwayes found more difference then conformity The Sixth affirm'd That the same Cause which produceth the likeness of Bodies is also that which rendreth the inclinations of Souls alike seeing the one is the Index of the other Thus we see oftimes the manners of Children so expresly imitate those of their Parents of both Sexes that the same may be more rightfully alledged for an Argument of their Legitimacy then the External Resemblance alone which consists onely in colour and figure This makes it doubtful whether we may attribute that Resemblance to the Formative Virtue Otherwise being connex'd as they are it would be to assign an Immaterial Effect as all the operations of the Rational Soul are to a Material Cause The Seventh ascrib'd it to the sole vigour or weakness of the Formative Virtue which is nothing else but the Spirits inherent in the Geniture and constituting the more pure part of it The rest serving those Spirits for Matter upon which they act for the organizing it and framing a Body thereof Now every Individual proposing to himself to make his like he arrives to his End when the Matter is suted and possess'd with an Active Virtue sufficiently vigorous and then this likeness will be not onely according to the Specifical Nature and the Essence but also according to the Individual Nature and the Accidents which accompany the same This seems perhaps manifest enough in that First Degree of Children to Fathers but the difficulty is not small how a later Son that hath no Features of his Fathers Countenance comes to resemble his Grand-father or Great Grand-father The Cause in my Judgement may be assign'd thus Though the Geniture of the Ancestor was provided with sufficient Spirits to form a Son like himself yet it met with a Feminine Geniture abounding with qualities contrary to its own which infring'd its formative vertue and check'd the Action thereof hindring the Exuberance of its Spirits from attaining to frame such lineaments of the Countenance as Nature intended or else it met with a Matrice out of due temper by some casual cold though otherwise both the Genitures were laudably elaborated For when those Spirits or Formative Virtue become chil'd and num'd they shrink and retire into their mass as he that is cold to his bed and wanting heat in which their Activity consists they remain in a manner buried and without Action in reference to this Resemblance And nevertheless there is left enough to make a Male like to the Father as to the species This Son thus form'd comes to Age to Generate and meeting with a Feminine Geniture proportion'd to his own in vigour and strength and a Matrice proper to receive them those Spirits of his Father which till then lay dormant are awaken'd to Action and concurring from all parts of the Body suddenly impregnate the Geniture of the Immediate Father having by their long residence in the corporeal mass been recruited refined and elaborated And as old Wine surpasseth new in strength and vigour of Spirits because it hath less Phlegme so those Spirits of the Grand-father having digested all the superfluous Phlegm wherewith those of the Father abound are more strong then they and win possession in the Geniture for the forming and organizing of it according to the shape of the Body from whence they first issued The Eighth said That he was very backward to believe that any Thing of our Great Grand-fathers remaineth in us seeing it is doubted upon probable grounds whether there remaineth in our Old Age any thing of our Child-hood and that the Body of Man by the continual deperdition of its Three-fold Substance Spirits Humours and solid parts is like the ship Argo which by the successive addition of new matter was the same and not the same That he conceiv'd not yet how the Geniture can proceed from all the parts seeing Anatomy teacheth us that the Spermatick Veines derive it immediately from the Trunk of the Hollow Vein Vena Cava and the Emulgent and the Arteries from the great Artery Aorta conveying it to be elaborated in the Glandules call'd Prostatae from whence it is set on work by Nature The solid Parts can have no Influence upon it for what humour or juice is brought to them for their nourishment goeth not away naturally but by sweat insensible transpiration and the production of hair The Spirits are too subtle and dissipable to preserve in themselves a Character and imprint the same upon any Subject That Resemblance in my Judgement proceedeth from the natural heat which elaborateth and delineateth the Body of the Geniture and by it the Embryo First with the general Idea of its species and then with the accidents which it hath and which it borroweth from the Matrice from the menstruous blood and the other Circumstances requisite to Generation and when chance pleaseth there is found a likeness to the Father Mother or others Which Circumstances being alike in the Formation of Twinns cause them to resemble one another unless when the Particles of the Geniture which is sufficient for two are of unlike Natures and are unequally sever'd by the natural heat So that for Example the milder and more temperate Particles are shar'd on one side and on the other the more rough and bilious As it hapned in Jacob and Esau the former of whom was of a sweet and the other of a savage humour and then Bodies as different as their Manners One the contrary many resemble one another in Countenance who are nothing at all related as Augustus and that young Man who being ask'd by the Emperour whether his Mother had never been at Rome answer'd No but his Father had And the true and false Martin Guerre who put a Parliament their Wife and all their kinred to a hard task to distinguish them II. Whether Letters ought to be joyned with Armes The Second Hour design'd for treating of the Conjunction of Armes and Letters began with this discourse That Armes seem not
else but an execess of heat which is a meer Accident as well in its little degrees as in its excesses More and less making no change in the species Our Fire then is an excessive heat which adheres to Things that have some crass and oleaginous humour in them and continues there by a continual efflux and successive Generation without any permanence like the Water of a River which Heat lasts so long till that humour be consumed If it be said that it ascends upwards seeking its own place I answer that 't is the Exhalation that carries it up yea that it descends too as we see in a Candle blown out and still smoaking if it be held beneath another burning one the flame descendeth along the smoak and lighteth it again So that the Fire is indifferent of it self where it goes for it lets it self be govern'd and carry'd by the Exhalation And it appears further That Fire is less subtile then Air for flame is not transparent and it engendreth soot which is very gross The Third added That indeed Fire cannot be a Substance because it hath a Contrary viz. The Water Besides every Substantial Form preserves its own Matter and acts not against it but Fire destroyes its own Moreover a certain degree of some Quality is never necessary to a Substantial Form as the Earth ceaseth not to be Earth though it be less cold or dry and so of the rest But Fire cannot be Fire unless the supreme degree of heat be in it Add hereunto that Fire may be produc'd in a Substance without corrupting it as we see in a Flint or a burning Bullet Now a Substantial Form is not produc'd in a Subject till the preceding be destroy'd the Generation of the one being the corruption of the other Lastly Every substance produceth by way of Generation an indivisible substantial Form But Fire produceth a divisible Quality For that which was cold becometh first warm then hot and by degrees becometh Fire which cannot be with a mixture of cold non consist therewith unless as degrees of qualities The Fourth said That Fire is a most perfect Element hot and dry according to Aristotle of the most perfect form and activity of all the Elements according to Plato the principal instrument of Nature according to Empedocles the Father of Things Whence it was that the Assyrians ador'd it The Persians carry'd it out of Honour before their Kings and at the head of their Armies The Romans made so great account of it that they assign'd it to the care of certain Virgins to be kept immortal Pythagoras believ'd it to be an Animal because it is nourish'd as Animals and for want of Aliment dyes And because a lighted Torch being cast into the Water the Fire extinguishing sendeth forth such a noyse as Animals do at the gasps of Death But he esteemed its natural place to be the Centre of the Subterranean World Whence it is said he that we see so many Volcanoes and other Fires issue out of the entrals of the Earth as those of Monte Vesuvio in the Kingdom of Naples Monte Gibello formerly Aetna in Sicily and Monte Hecla in Iseland and so many other burning Mountains The Fifth said That as the Sea is the Principle from whence all the Waters come and the end whether they return So the Sun is the Element of Fire from whence all other Fires come and whether at length they reascend as to their Source 1. For that all Effects Qualities and Properties of Fire agree particularly to the Sun seeing he heats burnes dryes and is the cause of all the Generations that are made here below 2. Because the Elements stay in their natural places Now the Fire not onely ascendeth from the Subterraneous places where it is detain'd by reason of a sulphureous and bituminous Matter which serves it for food but it passeth also beyond the Heavens of the Moon Mercury and Venus as appears by Comets which are igneous and particularly by that which appear'd in the year 1618. acknowledg'd by all the Astronomers upon the reasons of Opticks to have been above the said places The Sixth denyed That the Sun can be the Element of Fire 1. Because 't is a Coelestial and Incorruptible Body and by consequence not Igneous or Elementary 2. If all Fires come from the Sun it will follow that all his rayes are Igneous Bodies for there cannot be imagin'd other Fires to come from the Sun hither but his beams Now the Sun-beams are neither Bodies nor Igneous Not Bodies since Illumination and Eradiation being made in an instant it will follow that a Body cometh from Heaven to Earth in a Moment Which is absurd because No Motion is made in an instant Besides being those Rayes penetrate Glass and such other solid and diaphanous Bodies there would be a penetration of Dimensions which is impossible Nor are they Igneous seeing Fire being of its own nature light descendeth not but the beams of the Sun descend down hither Moreover Fire is actually hot but the Sun-beams are onely so in power viz. when they are reflected by an opake body as appears in the Middle Region of the Air where it is colder then upon the Earth though its beams are nearer Wherefore it is more reasonable to hold to the common opinion which placeth the Fire immediately under the Heaven of the Moon For there is no fear that that Fire how great soever can burn the World it s hear being allay'd and dull'd by the extreme humidity of the Air its Neighbour and by the great coldness of the same Air which is in the Middle Region and counter-checketh that heat which on one side hath already lost its violence and acrimony by its natural Rarity Nor is there any trouble to be taken for its nourishment for being in its own Centre and Empire it hath no enemies nor contraries and needeth no food for its support as our common Fire doth What if we behold it not 'T is not because there is none but because it is so rare and so pure that it cannot fall within the perception of our Senses As there is such a thing as Air though we see it not How many Colours Odours Sapours and Sounds are there which we never knew And as for what is observ'd in a Candle newly put out it is clear that the Fire descendeth not to it but inflameth the unctuous Matter which it toucheth and this the next even to the Candle from whence that Matter proceedeth II Of the Vniversal Spirit Upon the Second Point it was said That it must First be known what is meant by Universal Spirit 2. Whether there be one 3. What it is As for the First By the word Universal Spirit is understood some universal cause and principle of all the actions and motions which are made in Generation Just as they assign one same First Matter for the Subject of all Formes so they speak of an Vniversal Form which containes all the rest in
Body by the Umbilical Veins engrave upon it the Image configur'd to them The Third said That he could not ascribe this Effect to the Imagination no more then all other Monsters because the Girl resembling neither Father nor Mother seem'd to him by this uncouth and strange hairiness to deserve the name of a Monster For First The Imagination cannot produce any real Effect the Intentions of Men produce nothing such this belongs onely to the Deity Secondly All the Animal Faculties being almost intercepted in Generation how can the Formative Faculty which according to Erastus is the sole Agent conceive and apprehend those Images and Representations For there is little appearance that the formes of the Imagination are engraven upon Aerial Spirits in the same manner that these of the Formative Faculty of the Heavens or Vniversal Spirit are imprinted in the Air for the production of Mixt Bodies For if it were so then Children would have upon their Bodies marks or tokens of every thing that their Mothers had ardently desir'd and imagin'd and in their Imagination and desires they have no commendation for Constancy by reason of the continual Agitation of their blood which is incessantly attracted by the Foetus So that we should see strange portraits of the Mothers Phancies upon the Infants Body whereby would be sav'd much of the pains that Baptista Porta takes in his Natural Magick to teach how to produce Monsters Moreover as the Common Sense judgeth of the difference of Objects which it carrieth to the Imagination so the Imagination retaineth not those Species saving to present them to Reason which judgeth and determineth upon them Wherefore if for example the Common Sense represents to the Imagnation a Centaur or some other Monster and the Imagination represent the same to Reason this Reason of ours will never allow or consent that the Formative Faculty attempt to bring it to effect The Fourth said That he did not think this Girl ought to be termed a Monster unless in the large signification of the word as it comprehends every thing that is contrary to the intention of the agent or is extraordinary Thus Aristotle calls a Woman a Monster and a fault of Nature which always designes the making of a Male as the more perfect which being unable to do either in regard of the disposition of the Agent or of the Matter she makes a Woman And for the same reason he calls a Child which doth not resemble its Father a Monster because the Father design'd to beget a Man like himself But this person is not truly such since she is faulty onely in the excess of superfluities or excrements not of any part that varies the species As one that voideth more excrements then others or hath greater Nails then usual cannot be stil'd a Monster Besides what we account monstrous in this person we have the same our selves For were our Sight acute enough we might see that there is no part of the Body but is cover'd with Hair and perhaps not so fair and soft as hers in which we find nothing extraordinary but in the length For whereas she hath a light-colour'd beard of four or five fingers length the cause thereof is because the Hair is carefully shav'd off the rest of her countenance which otherwise would be all of the same length This Hair proceedeth from extreme Moisture and Moderate Coldness the former supplyeth the matter for its Generation and the latter helpeth the Action of Heat by the occlusion of the Pores which it causeth So that if among Children which according to Hippocrates are more humid then those who have attain'd to Adolescence there be found any who have such a degree of Coldness as is able to support the root of the Hair by condensing the skin it will grow in all parts of the Body though unequally according to the difference of humour The Fifth said That besides the Imagination already alledg'd which caus'd Perfina Queen of Ethiopia to bring forth a white Daughter and a Woman in our time to bring forth a Child like a Frog by having held a Frog in her hand for some disease this Hair proceeds from a certain temper proper for producing the same which temper is found in this little person as it is in other persons in some places onely and at a certain Age. This temper seemes to be cold for we see that Men and other Creatures are most hairy in the coldest Countries and cold hath a great influence upon Hair some persons having in one night had their Hair extremely grown and chang'd through an excess of fear and consequently of cold for fear causeth all the heat of the external parts to retire inwards As it hapned to a Gentleman of twenty eight years old who being condemned to death for an Adultery committed in the Palace of Charles V. the next morning was found all white in the Prison whereupon the Emperour granted him his pardon As the Grandfather of the same Emperour did formerly upon the same account to a Spaniard nam'd Osorio The like hapned to an other in shorter time who found the rope begin to break by which he was let down by the side of a steep rock to get an airy of Hawks Now this great abundance of Hair cannot proceed from extreme Humidity for then it must either be radical and consequently mild and no sit Matter for Hair or else adventitious sharp and corroding which would destroy their root Besides it is not credible that so little a Body as this can afford so much excrementitious matter Nor can it proceed from excess of Heat for we see heat makes Hair to shed in those that have a burning Fever or a Hectick and the Hair and Nails grow in dead bodies which have no natural heat II. Whether it be harder to resist Pleasure then Pain Upon the Second Point it was said That if Pleasure be consider'd as a Good and Pain as an Evil it is not to be doubted but that the latter is as insupportable to our Nature as the former is agreeable to it But there are two sorts of Good and Evil of Pain and Pleasure One of the Mind and another of the Body and many times the pains and sufferings of the Body are the joyes of the Mind and the pleasures and the gratifications of the flesh the crosses and torments of the Spirit Now there are scarce any pure and unmixt pleasures or pains in the world but they are usually mingled one with the other And if they could be separated Pain would turn the scale as being the more heavy and difficult to be supported In reference to which mixture the Greek Poet judiciously feigned that there are two vessels at the entrance of Heaven one full of Honey and sweetness the other of Gall and bitterness Of which two Liquors mingled together Jupiter makes all men to drink and tempers with them every thing that he pours down here below So that the Pains and Pleasures of the
as Imprisonment solitary and gloomy places immoderate watchings Agitations and Motions of Body and Mind especially Sadness and Fear immoderate fasting the use of base and black Wines gross food as Pulse Coleworts Beef especially salted and Animals that have black hair such as are the Stag the Hare and all Water fowle Aristotle conceiv'd that this Natural Melancholy was the fittest humour to make Men ingenious as he treats at large in his Problemes and shews that the greatest persons that have excell'd in Philosophy Policy Poetry and other Arts have partaken most of it yea of the atribilarious Humour as Hercules Ajax and Bellerophon And before him Hippocrates in his Book De Flatibus saith That nothing contributes more to Prudence then the blood in a good consistence as the Melancholy Humour is Galen will have Dexterity to proceed from Choler Integrity and Constancy from Melancholy The first reasons are taken from the similitude which Melancholy hath with Wine I. First as Wine is stronger upon its Lee and keeps longer so is the blood upon Melancholy II. The Spirit which is drawn from Wine mingled with its Lee is far better then that which is drawn from Wine alone So the Spirits which proceed from blood joyn'd with Melancholy are much more vigorous thereby III. As it easier to leap on high when one hath his foot upon firm ground then in a fluid place So Melancholy being more firm then the other Humours makes the Spirits bound the higher and they are also better reflected as the rayes of the Sun are better reflected by the Earth then by the Water IV. Melancholy persons have a stronger Imagination and so more proper for the Sciences because Knowledge is acquir'd by the reception of Phantasines into the Imagination V. Old Men who are prudent are Melancholy Whence came that saying The prudent Mind is in a dry Body And the blood of studious and contemplative persons becomes dry and Melancholy by study Therefore Plato said That the Mind begins to flourish when the Body is pass'd its flower In fine the Melancholy are very patient and are not discourag'd by any obstacles which they meet with And as they are very slow in taking resolutions so when they are once taken they perform them notwithstanding what ever difficulties they encounter therein The Second said He could not conceive how this Humour which causeth the greatest diseases in the Spleen and in the Veins the Hypochondriacal Dotage and the Quartan Ague in any part the Scirrhus and the Cancer and in the whole Body the Leprosie and other incurable diseases should increase Wit and contribute to Prudence For considering it even in its natural constitution it renders those in whom it predominates of a leaden colour pensive solitary slow in motion sad and timerous and causes them to have a small Pulse which is an argment of the weakness of their Spirits On the contrary the Sanguine Humour opposite to it hath none but commendable signes and effects a rosey colour a cheerful aspect a sociable humour an active promptitude In brief all actions in perfection Whence it follows that the Humours of a well temper'd Man being more exquisite the Spirits which proceed from purer blood must be also more more refin'd The Third Said That to know whether the Melancholy Temper be most proper for Prudence it behoveth to consider the nature both of Prudence and of Melancholy and see how they agree together Prudence is the Habit of acting according to Reason Whereunto is requisite a clear Knowledge of the End of Man and of his actions as also of the Means which conduce to that end together with an integrity and firmness of Mind to guide a Man in the election and practice of those means Wherefore it is not without good reason that Prudence is accounted the Queen and Rule of all Virtues and that all of them are but species or kinds of Prudence Whence he that hath all the Virtues and hath not Prudence cannot be said to have any Virtue For indeed it is to Action what Sapience or Wisedom is to Contemplation Melancholy not-natural which becometh such by adustion of the natural of the Blood Choler and salt Flegme is easily inflam'd and being inflam'd renders Men furious and so is very contrary to Prudence which requires a great tranquillity and moderation of Mind for right judging of the End of things and of the Means to attain thereunto Choler indeed makes good Wits capable of well judging of the End and the Means yea it gives Courage for the execution But the bilious Spirits are usually fickle and want constancy in resolutions and patience in executions which defects are very remote from Prudence The Flegmatick have as we say ny bouche ny esperon neither counsel nor dispatch They are dull both of Body and Mind and incapable of understanding and performing well The Sanguine have Wit good enough and gentle qualities but they they are too sensual and tender by reason of the softness and mildness of the numour which ought to be moderated in a Prudent Man But Natural Melancholy gives a solid Judgement Gravity Constancy Patience and Temperance which are the principal pillars of Prudence So then the Melancholy Temper alone is proper for it and of the rest that which nearest approacheth it namely the Sanguine Now every Temper being compounded of the Four Humours that in which Blood and Natural Melancholy predominate will be the most proper of all for Prudence For these two Humours make a very perspicacious Wit and a profound and solid Judgement Melancholy when moderately heated by the Blood and Choler carries a Man to undertake and execute boldly and confidently because it is with knowledge of the End and Means Thus I have given you the Common Opinion But I esteem it absurd to believe that the Elementary Qualities cause such noble Effects as the Inclinations to Prudence Magnanimity Justice and other Virtues For they are caus'd by the Influence of the Stars as is found most evidently in Nativities by which without seeing the person or his temper one may tell his Inclinations But because in every Generation the superior and inferior causes concur together and the temper almost alwayes corresponds to the Influences thence Aristotle and Galen who understood not the true Science of Coelestial Powers have affirm'd the former in his Physiognomy That the Manners of Man follow his Temper And the latter That the Temperament is by it self the first and true efficient cause of all the actions of the mixt Body and consequently of the Manners of a Man Whereby they ascribe that to the Temper which ought to be attributed onely to the Influences And indeed the Hermetick Philosophy assignes to the Elementary Qualities no other Virtues but of heating cooling moistning drying condensing and rarifying Now according to Astrologers Prudence is from the influence of Saturn and Jupiter who preside over Melancholly and Blood according as those Planets reign or favourably regard all the points
of the Ascendant and the Middle of Heaven in the Nativity which are the principal significators of the inclinations and actions of a Man The Fourth said That to attribute that property and Virtue to the Humours to make Men wise and intelligent is to prejudice the Rational Soul which being immaterial needeth no material instrument for the performing of its actions but as it is wholly Divine and the Image of God it is perfectly intelligent of its own Nature and by Reason the noblest of its Faculties of it self knows what ever is most hidden in Nature For if the actions of Knowledge and Prudence depend on the Temper of the Humours then that which now produceth ratiocination in me should have been the food which I took yesterday And so those things which whilst they were alive had no other actions but vegetative or sensitive should when they are dead produce intellectual The Spirits alone put our Humours in motion and action and when those fail these remain without any Virtue Nevertheless those Spirits onely the vehicles of the Rational Soul are not the Cause either of Knowledge or Prudence but onely of Life much less can those excellent Qualities be attributed to the Humours II. Whether is more necessary in a State Reward or Punishment Upon the Second Point the First said That Reward and Punishment are the two pillars of a State one for the satisfying of Merit and encouraging Men to Virtue the other for restraining Malefactors and turning them from Vice That consequently they are both necessary and almost inseparable Nevertheless Reward seemes to have some degree of necessity above the other because though Punishment with its eight species which are Fine Imprisonment Stripes Retaliation Ignominy Banishment Servitude and Death serves for Example and for satisfaction to Distributive Justice whose end is to extinguish Crimes and reform them and secure the Good against the Bad whence the Wise-man commandeth Magistrates to break off Iniquity and govern with a rod of Iron yet is it not good in all times nor in all places And Sylla did prudently in not punishing his Souldiers who slew the Praetor Albinus in a Sedition On the contrary Reward is alwayes necessary and every where welcome being the wages of Virtue as the other is of Vice 'T is for that the Labourer cultivates the Earth that the Souldier goes to the War and that good Wits employ their time in excellent and profitable inventions Darius preserv'd his Kingdom by having rewarded Zopyrus And on the contrary Philip lost the City of Damas for want of gratifying Milesius by whose means he had won it So that it is with good reason that Pliny saith in his Panegyrick That the recompences of good and bad deeds make Men good or bad The Second said That in the beginning of the World when our Nature was created in the perfection of a lust Aequilibrium we had on the one side the inferior part of the Soul wholly subject to the superior and on the other this superior Soul absolutely submissive to the Divine Will But the first Man having broken that Aequilibrium by his sin and turn'd the balance towards the side of Evil this Counterpoise which like infectious Leven is left in the flesh of Adam hath given us all a tendency and inclination to Evil. Hence it is that Men are lead into all sorts of Vices and because 't is the property of sin to blind the Mind and cloud the Memory with the Reason they have also forgotten the way which they ought to keep that they might live like reasonable Men. For remedy whereof not onely God who from all Eternity purposed our Reparation but also Men most vers'd in the knowledge of Good and Evil have establish'd Laws to restore Man to his Aequilibrium and contain him in his duty both towards God and Humane Society But because Original Sin powerfully inclines us to Evil from our Nativitie and it is very rare if not impossible to find any one that erres and perseveres so wilfully without fear or hope therefore God and Kings have appointed two powerful counterpoises Rewards and Punishments the former for good and virtuous actions the latter for the Transgression of their Laws Since then Punishment is onely for Transgression of Laws and Reward for those who besides observing them proceed further to virtuous actions and such as are profitable to the publick It is certain the former of the two is most necessary in a State as that to which Men are most prone For it is most true that Men are naturally more inclin'd to Evil then to Good because they are corrupted by Original Sin and we know the most part would willingly desire to grow great by the loss of others and to plunge themselves in Pleasures and Riches if they were not restrain'd by the rigor of Laws This is further confirmed because the Laws of Men are better observed then the Divine Laws not but that Men are as ready to infringe those as these of God who forbears and is patient after the sin of Man but because the penalties of Humane Laws are appointed for this Life and we behold Criminals publickly executed Wherefore Punishment is the most necessary in a State Nevertheless Reward is not unprofitable because it serves to excite to well doing and is frequently propos'd in the Divine Laws the corruption of our Nature not permitting us to be lead to do good for the sake of good alone Moreover our own necessity constrains us to seek the support of our Life by our Labours and to eat our Bread in the sweat of our Countenances as our Sentence importeth But to determine whether it be alwayes fit to reward or punish when there is occasion this depends upon many circumstances of Times Places and Persons wherein a good part of the skill of a States-man consists Yet when Reward or Punishment tends to the good of the publick or the honour of the Prince neither the one nor the other ought to be omitted in my opinion so far as is possible The Third said That the Distick which imports That the good hate sin out of the love of Virtue and the wicked out of the fear of Punishment voids the question For since the good have nothing to do with any other Reward but what they find in their own satisfaction knowing otherwise that they are oblig'd to do well and the wicked need no other salary but the Punishment due to their Crimes it seemes Punishment is not onely necessary but alone necessary in a State Not but that Reward serves for ornament and for its better being as Sauces do to raise the languishing Appetite But in reference to absolute necessity no person can say that they are to be compar'd together For although Plato calls Reward and Punishment the two grand Daemons of Humane Society yet it is not thence to be infer'd that the one ought to be parallel'd with the other which is better understood by experience For compare
follow For in such cases there are instances of great forgetfulness or Folly as Gaza forgot even his own Name It is divided into Deliration Phrensie Melancholy and Madness Though the word Deliration be taken for all sorts of Folly yet it more strictly signifies that which is caus'd by rising of the hot humours and vapours to the Brain and frequently accompanies Fevers and Inflammations of the internal parts Phrensie is an Inflammation of the membranes of the Brain caus'd by the bilious blood or humour usually with a Fever and a languid Pulfe in regard such phrenctick persons are intent upon other things whereby their respiration is less frequent Melancholy both the Ideopathical which is in the Vessels of the Brain and the Sympathetical or Hypochondrical which ariseth from the Liver the Spleen and the Mesentery ariseth from that humour troubling the Brain and by its blackness making the patients sad and timerous or as Averroes will have it by its coldness because Heat emboldens and Cold makes fearful as we see in Women As this humour causeth Prudence and Wisedom when it is in its natural quality so when it is corrupted it produceth Folly there being as little distance between the one and the other as between the string of a Lute stretch'd up to the highest pitch and the same when it is broken Which made Montaigne say That there is but one turn of a peg between Wisedom and Folly If this Melancholy humour be moveable and bilious it will cause imaginations of various absurd things like to those of Dreams Wherefore Aristotle compares the fame to waters in motion which alwayes represent objects ill If it be more fix'd it causeth insuperable Opiniastry As is observ'd in those who phancy themselves Pitchers Cocks Geese Hens Glass Criminals Dead Damned and so in infinitum according to the diversity of Phancies Conditions and Inclinations The Folly of Love is of this kind which hath caus'd desperation and death to many Lastly Mania or Madness is an alienation of the Mind not mingled with fear and sadness as Melancholy is but with boldness and fury caus'd by the igneous and boyling Spirits of the other Choler which possessing the Brain and at times the whole Body by their immoderate heat render Men foolish furious and daring Such a heat that they are insensible of cold in mid Winter though stark naked sometimes so excessive that it degenerates into Lycanthropy rage and many other furious diseases By the induction of all which species of Folly it appears that whence soever the matter which causeth Folly ariseth it makes its impression in the Brain For though the Soul be as much in the heel as the head yet it is improper to place Wisedom in the heel but it may reasonably be assign'd to the Brain Yet to circumscribe it to a certain place excluding any other me-thinks ought no more to be done then to assign some particular corner of a Chamber to an Intelligence of the Nature of which the Soul participates The Third said Melancholy is the cause of Prudence onely by accident hindring by its dryness the too great mobility of the Blood and by its coldness checking the too impetuous sallies of the Spirits but it is by it self the cause of Folly and also of the two other Syncopies Eclipses and Alienations of the Judgement which are observ'd in the Apoplexy and the Epilepsie or Falling-sickness If Melancholy abound in the Brain it either possesses its ventricles or predominates over its temper If it be in the ventricles it either molests them by its malignity and acrimony and causeth the Epilepsie or else it fills them and causeth the Apoplexy For as we put Oyl upon a piece of Wine that is prone to decay and sowre which Oyl being aerious and consequently humid by its subtile and unctuous humidity keeps its particles so united that the Spirits of the Wine cannot penetrate through it and so being cover'd by it they are restrain'd and tarry in the Wine In like manner Melancholy by its tenacious and glutinous viscosity like black shining pitch keeps its particles so conjoyn'd that the Spirit contain'd in the ventricles cannot issue forth into the Nerves to serve for voluntary motion and the functions of sense whence followes their cessation But if the Melancholy Humour presseth the ventricles by its troublesome weight then they retire and by their retiring cause that universal contraction of the Nerves If this Humour prevail over its temper then it causeth deliration or Dotage and that in two manners For if it exceed in dryness which is a quality that admits degrees then by that dryness which is symbolical and a kin to heat it attracts the Spirits to it self as it were to make them revolt from their Prince and to debauch them from their duty employes them to fury and rage and causes madness making them follow its own motions which are wholly opposite to Nature For being cold dry black gloomy an enemy to light society and peace it aims at nothing but what is destructive to Man But if the cold in this humour exceed the dry then it will cause the disease called Melancholly which is pure Folly and makes the timerous trembling sad fools for cold not onely compresseth and incloseth the Spirits in the Brain and stupifies them so as to become unactive but hath also a back blow upon the Heart the reflux of its infection exhaling even to that seat of life and streightning it into it self whereby its Spirits become half mortifi'd Moreover this Humour sometimes piercing through the Brain comes about with a circumference and lodges amongst the Humours of the Eye placing it self before the pupil and the Crystalline under the Tunicles which cover it by which means the Melancholy persons seem to behold dreadful Objects abroad but it is within his Eye that he sees them As for the same reason they who have the beginning of a suffusion imagine that flyes flocks of wool or little hairs because of the Humour contain'd there which if it be Blood they seem red if Choler yellow if Melancholy black But in all the cases hitherto alledg'd me-thinks the Seat of Folly is the same with that of Imagination which is the Brain and not any of the ventricles in particular for since the Intellect acteth upon the phantasmes of the Imagination this upon the report of the Common Sense and this upon the information of the External Senses which are diffus'd throughout all the Brain and each possesseth a part of it the whole Brain must necessarily contribute to Ratiocination II. Whether Women or Men are more inclin'd to Love Upon the Second Point the First said Women are of a more amorous complexion then Men. For the Spirits of Women being more subtile according to Aristotle's Maxime That such as have more tender flesh have more subtile Spirits they are carri'd with more violence to amiable Objects And Love being according to Plato the off-spring of Plenty and Indigence that of Women
Thus and more easily can the Devil trasfer the humours and managing them at his pleasure make them put on what figure he will to cause delusion In fine all this is perform'd by the Local Motion of the parts humours or Spirits The Fifth said That the foundation of doubting is that there is requir'd proportion between the Agent and the Patient Which is prov'd because it is requisite that the patient which is in Power be determin'd by the form receiv'd and it seemeth that a spiritual thing cannot produce a form that may determine a material thing That it produceth nothing material is evident because the action and the product are of the same Nature Now the action of a Spiritual Entity cannot be material to speak naturally Yet it is certain that God acts in corporeal things though he is a pure Spirit But it may be answered That an Infinite Power is not oblig'd to the Rules of Creatures Besides that his Ubiquitary Presence sufficeth to impart Motion to all as also that he containing all things eminently is able to produce all things But if to contain eminently is to have a more perfect Being capable to do what the lesser cannot this is not satisfactory For the Question is How that more perfect Immaterial Being can produce that which Material Beings produce To which the saying that it is a more perfect Being doth not satisfie For then an Angel should be naturally able to produce all the perfections which are inferior to him which is absurd It followes therefore that the Cause must contain the Effect that it may be able to produce it and that since a spiritual Being doth not contain material things either those which we call Immaterial are not so at all or else God immediately produceth in them the effects which we attribute to them For I see not how immateriality is infer'd from immortality since there may be an incorruptible matter such as that of the Heavens is Which nevertheless is spoken rather to make way for some better thought then that I hold it as my own The Sixth said That there may be some Medium serving for the union between the Body and the Soul beside the Animal Vital and Natural Spirits to which Medium the many wonderful effects which we are constrain'd to ascribe to Occult Qualities ought to be referd'd For as they who know not that the Ring which Juglers make to skip upon a Table according to the motion of their fingers is fasten'd to them by the long Hair of a Woman attribute that Motion to the Devil So they who cannot comprehend the subtility of the Medium uniting not onely the Body with the Soul which informes it but also the other Spirits with the Body which they agitate find no proportion therein and are constrain'd to let experience cross their reason Now to understand the Nature of this uniting Medium I conceive is as difficult as to give an account of the Sympathies and Antipathies of things II. Which is more powerfull Love or Hatred Upon the Second Point the First said That Eâ—pedocles had reason to constitute Love and Hatred for the two Principles of Nature which though Aristotle endeavours to confute yet is he constrain'd to acknowledge the same thing though disguis'd under other words For when he saith that two of his Principles are contraries and enemies namely Form and Privation and nevertheless that they are united in one common Subject which is the Matter what is it else but to confess that all things are made and compos'd by the means of Love and Hatred They who own no other Principles but the Four Elements are of the same opinion when they say that all Mixt Bodies are made with a discording concord and a concording discord For as the Elements united together will never compose an Animal unless they be reduc'd to a just proportion and animated by rebatement of some little of the vigor of their active qualities so if there be no kind of War and Amity between them if the Hot act not against the Humid the Animal will never live since Life is nothing but the action of Heat upon Humidity However Amity hath something more noble and excites greater effects then Enmity For the former is the cause of the Generation and Preservation of Mixt Bodies and the latter of their dissolution and corruption Now it is much more noble to give and preserve Being then to destroy it Whence God himself found such perfection in his Creation and was so pleas'd with his Divine Work that though it frequently deserves by its crimes to be annihilated yet his Punishments have not hitherto proceeded so far This is no less true in Spiritual and Intellectual Substances then in Natural Gods Love hath more noble effects then his Hatred For to leave to Divines the consideration of that Love which had the power to draw the Second Person of the Trinity from Heaven with that which produces the Third as also to leave them to proclaim that God loves Good Actions and that the effect of this Love is Eternal Bliss that he hates Sins and that the effects of this hatred are the punishments of Hell that it is manifest that the glory of Paradise is much greater then of those Chastisements since what ever penalties God inflicts upon Man for his mis-deeds he renders Justice to him and do's not reduce him into a state inferior to or against his Nature but when he rewards with Eternal Glory he exalts our Nature infinitely higher then it could aspire let us consider Love and Hatred in Men and particularly as Passions according as the Question propounded seemes principally to be understood and no doubt Love will be found more violent then Hatred To judge the better whereof we must not consider them nakedly and simply as Love is nothing else but an inclination towards Good and Hatred an Aversion from Evil nor yet as such Good or Evil is present For in these two manners they have no violence nor any Motions since according to the receiv'd Maxime When the End is present all Motion and Action ceaseth But to know which of these two passions acts with most force and violence for the attaining of its end we must contemplate them with all the train and attendance of the other Passions which accompany them not as the one is an inclination to Good and the other an Aversion from Evil present For in this sense no doubt a Present Evil which causeth Grief is more sensible and violent then a Present Good which causeth Pleasure but as the one is a Desire of the Absent Good which is propos'd and the other a Flight from an Absent Evil which is fear'd I conceive the Passions excited by an Absent Evil have no great violence but rather partake of heaviness and stupidity as Fear and Sadness which render us rather unmoveable and insensible then active and violent in our Motions The Passions which lead towards an Absent Good are otherwise For
Hope which is by the testimony of Aristotle a species of Love contemnes and surmounts all difficulties which hinder its attaining to its Good Here one objecting That Anger which arises from Hatred and inward Grief hath more violent effects then Hope and the other Passions It was answer'd that Anger consists of a mixture of Love and Hatred therefore Homer sayes that to be angry is a thing more sweet then Honey For Anger tends to Revenge and ceaseth when we are reveng'd for the wrong we apprehend done to us Now Revenge seemes a Good and delectable thing to the person that seeks it and therefore all the great Ebullitions and Commotions observ'd in Anger ought to be referr'd to the Love and Desire of Revenge Besides the Motions which attend Hatred are Motions of Flight as those which accompany Love are Motions of Pursuit and Anger being rather a Pursuit and seeking of Revenge then a Flight from any evil it is more reasonably to be rank'd under Love then under Hatred Again we see amorous persons are more easily put into heat then even those which are drawn up in battalia and ready to kill one another In fine if Hatred and all the Passions attending it have any force and violence Love is the prime cause thereof we hate no thing but because we love some thing and that more or less proportionably as we love Wherefore the Philosophers who would introduce an Apathy and banish all the Passions should have done well rather to extinguish Love For he who loves no thing hates no thing and when we have lost any thing our sadness and resentment is proportionable to the Love we had for it He that loves no thing fears no thing and if it be possible that he do's not love his own life he do's not fear death It is not therefore to be inquir'd which excites the greatest Commotions Love or Hatred since even those which Hatred excites proceed from Love The Third said That the Acts or Motions of the Appetite are called Passions because they make the Body suffer and cause an alteration in the Heart and Pulse Such as aim at Pleasure enervate the Motion of Contraction because they dilate the Spirits and augment that of Dilatation Whereas on the contrary those which belong to Sadness diminish the Motion of Dilatation because they further that of Contraction We may consider the Passions either materially or formally the former consideration denotes the Impression which they make upon the Body the latter the relation to their Object So Anger consider'd materially is defin'd An Ebullition and Fervour of the Blood about the Heart and formally A Desire of Revenge This being premiz'd I affirm That Hatred is much more powerful then Love if we consider them materially not as alone but as leaders of a party viz. Love with all the train of Passions that follow the same towards Good and Hatred with all its adherents in reference to Evil. For either of them taken apart and by it self make very little impression and alteration in the Heart Love is a bare acknowledgement of and complacency in good and goeth no further as Love Hatred is nothing else but a bare rejection disavowing and aversion of Evil. In verification of which conception of the Nature of those Passions it is evident that the Effects ascrib'd to Love as Extasie Languishing are the Effects not of Love but of Hope weary and fainting through its own duration Now these Passions being thus taken Love causeth less alteration upon the Body then Hatred For its highest pitch is Delight which is materially an expansion of the Spirits of the Heart towards the parts of the whole Body wherein appeareth rather a cessation from Action then any violence But Hatred which terminates in Anger makes a furious havock It dauseth the Blood to boyle about the Heart and calls to its aid the same Passions that are subservient to Love as Hope and Boldness conceiving it a Good to be reveng'd on the present Evil. The Case is the same also if they be consider'd according to their formality For the Object of Love is a Good not absolute but according to some consideration seeing the good of an Animal is its preservation to which that kind which is called Delectable Good or the Good of Delight is ordain'd as a means to the end But the Object of Hatred is the Evil which destroyes an Absolute and Essential being of an Animal For which reason it moves more powerfully then Good The Fourth said That for the better judging of the Question we must suppose that these two Passions are two Agents which tend each to their different End For the end of Love is a good Being That of Hatred which repels what destroyes our Being is the preservation of Being simply Now Being is much more perfect naturally then better being though morally it is not so perfect and the preservation of Being is of the same dignity with Being On the other side it is true that Love is the cause of Hatred and that we hate nothing but because we love Yet it doth not follow that Hatred is not more powerful then Love seeing many times the Daughter is more strong and fair then the Mother Now if they are brutish Passions they must be measur'd by the standard of Brutes But we see a Dog leave his Meat to follow a Beast against which he hath a natural animosity And Antipathies are more powerful then Sympathies for the former kill and the latter never give life Nevertheless sometimes Love prevailes over Hatred For a Man that loves the Daughter passionately and hates the Father as much will not cease to do good to the Father for the Daughters sake The shortness of the dayes and the enlargements upon this Subject having in this and some of the former Conferences left no room for Inventions every one was entrealed to prepare himself for the future and these two Points were chosen for the next day seven-night CONFERENCE XVII I. Of the several fashions of wearing Mourning and why Black is us'd to that purpose rather than any other colour II. Why people are pleas'd with Musick I. Of the severall fashions of wearing Mourning and why Black is us'd to that purpose rather then any other colour THe First said That the greatest part of Man-kind excepting some Barbarians lamented the death of their friends and express'd their sadness by external Mourning which is nothing but the change of Habit. Now they are observ'd to be of six sorts The Violet is for Princes The weeds of Virgins are white in reference to purity Sky-colour is in use with the people of Syria Cappadocia and Armenia to denote the place which they wish to the dead namely Heaven The Yellow or Feuille-morte among those of Aegypt to shew say they that as Herbs being faded become yellow so Death is the end of Humane Hope The Grey is worne by the Aethiopians because it denotes the colour of the Earth which receives
that evil is the cause that we are never contented therewith I add further If it were possible to heap all the goods of the world into one condition and all kind of evils were banish'd from the same yet could it not fill the Appetite of our Soul which being capable of an infinite Good if she receive any thing below infinite she is not fill'd nor contented therewith Nevertheless this dissatisfaction doth not proceed from the infirmity and ignorance of the Humane Soul but rather from her great perfection and knowledge whereby she judging all the goods of the world less then her self the goods intermingled with miseries serve her for so many admonitions that she ought not to stay there but aspire to other goods more pure and solid Besides these I have two natural reasons thereof First Every Good being of it self desirable every one in particular may desire all the goods which all Men together possess Yet it is not possible for him to obtain them wherefore every one may desire more then he can possess Whence there must alwayes be frustrated desires and discontents Secondly The Desires of Men cannot be contented but by giving them the enjoyment of what they desire Now they cannot be dealt withall butas a bad Physitian doth with his Patients in whom for one disease that he cures he causeth three more dangerous For satisfie one Desire and you raise many others The poor hungry person asketh onely Bread give it him and then he is thirsty and when he is provided for the present he is sollicitous for the future If he hath money he is troubled both how to keep it and how to spend it Which caus'd Solomon after he had deny'd his Soul nothing that it desir'd to pronounce That All is vanity and vexation of Spirit The Third conceiv'd That the Cause of this Dissatisfaction is for that the conditions of others seem more suitable to us and for that our Election dependeth on the Imagination which incessantly proposeth new Objects to the Soul which she beholding afar off esteemes highly afterwards considering them nearer sees as the Fable saith that what she accounted a treasure is but a bottle of Hay The Fourth said That because every thing which we possess gives us some ground of disgust and we do not yet perceive the inconvenience of the thing we desire therefore we are weary of the present and hope to find less in the future Whence we despise the one and desire the other The Fifth added That Man being compos'd of two parts Body and Soul which love change it is necessary that he love it too Choose the best posture and the best food you will it will weary you in a little time Let the most Eloquent Orator entertain you with the most excellent Subject suppose God himself you will count his Sermon too long if it exceed two hours or perhaps less Is it a wonder then if the Whole be of the same Nature with the Parts The Sixth attributed the Cause of this Discontent to the comparison which every one makes of his own State with that of others For as a Man of middle stature seemes low near a Gyant so a Man of moderate fortune comparing his own with the greater of another becomes discontented therewith Wherefore as long as there are different conditions they of the lowest will always endeavour to rise to the greatest and for the taking away of this Displeasure Lycurgus's Law must be introduc'd who made all the people of Sparta of equal condition If it be reply'd that nevertheless they of the highest condition will be contented I answer that our Mind being infinite will rather fancy to it self Epicurus's plurality of worlds as Alexander did then be contented with the possession of a single one and so 't will be sufficient to discontent us not that there is but that there may be some more contented then our selves The Seventh said That the Cause hereof is the desire of attaining perfection which in Bodies is Light whence they are alwayes chang'd till they become transparent as Glass and in Spirits their satisfaction which is impossible For Man having two principles of his Actions which alone are capable of being contented namely the Vnderstanding and the Will he cannot satiate either of them One truth known makes him desire another The sign of a moderate Mind is to be contented with it self whereas that of a great Mind is to have alwayes an insatiable appetite of knowing Whence proceedeth this It is for that it knows that God created every thing in the world for it and that it cannot make use thereof unless it have an exact and particular knowledge of the virtues and properties of all things It knows also that it self was created for God and the knowledge of the Creatures is nothing but a means to guide it to that of God So that if it take those means which lead it to the end for the end it self it deceives it self and finds not the contentment which it seeks and will never find the same till it be united to its First Principle which is God who alone can content the Vnderstanding His Will is also hard to be satifi'd The more goods it hath the more it desires It can love nothing but what is perfect It finds nothing absolutely perfect but goodness it self For the Light and knowledge wherewith the Understanding supplieth it discover to it so many imperfections and impurities in the particular goods it possesseth that it distasts and despises them as unworthy to have entertainment in it Wherefore it is not to be wonder'd if Man can never be contented in this world since he cannot attain his utmost End in it either for Body or Soul CONFERENCE XIX I. Of the Flowing and Ebbing of the Sea II. Of the Point of Honour I. Of the Flux of the Sea THe First said That if there be any other cause of this Flux then the heaping together of the Waters from the beginning under the Aequinoctial by Gods Command whence they descend again by their natural gravity and are again driven thither by the obedience which they owe to that Command which is so evident that they who sail under the Aequator perceive them selves lifted up so high by the currents that are usually there that they are many times terrifi'd thereat there is none more probable then the Moon which hath dominon overall moist Bodies and augments or diminishes this Flux according as she is in the increase or the wane The Second said That the Moon indeed makes the Flux and Reflux of the Sea greater or less yea she governes and rules it because being at the Full she causeth a Rarefaction of its Waters But this doth not argue that she is the Efficient Cause of the said Flux The Sea rises at the shore when the Moon riseth in the Heaven and retires again when the Moon is going down their motions are indeed correspondent one to the other yet I know not how
that of the Moon is cause of that of the Sea For if it were then when the Moon is longest above our Horizon as in long dayes the ebbing and flowing would be greatest but it is equal and regular as well when the Moon is below the Horizon as above it And why also doth not she move the other Seas and all sorts of Waters as well as the Ocean The Third said That there are two sorts of Water in the Sea one terrene thick and viscous which contains the Salt the other thin sweet and vaporous such as that which Aristotle saith enters through the Pores of a vessel of wax exactly stop'd and plung'd to the bottome of the Sea This thin Water being heated is rarifi'd and turn'd into vapours which consequently require more room then before They seek for it but being restrain'd and inclos'd in the thick and viscous Water can find no issue and therefore make the Water of the Sea to swell and rise till that Exhalation be disengag'd from those thick Waters and then the Sea returnes to its natural state by falling flat and becoming level This is abundantly confirm'd by the Tydes which are alwayes greater in March and August then at other seasons because at that time more abundance of vapours is drawn up But why have not Lakes also an Ebbing and Flowing Because their Water being more thin le ts pass those vapours which the Sun hath stirr'd and so not being hinder'd from going away as those of the Sea are they do not make the Water rise and swell So Heat having subtiliz'd and converted into vapours the most tenuious parts of the Milk upon the Fire the thicker parts of the same coming to enclose them are the cause that it swells and rises up But when it is remov'd from the fire or its vapours have gotten passage by agitation it takes up no more roome then it did at first But it is not so with Water plac'd upon the Fire the rarity of its Body giving free issue to the vapours which the Heat excites in it The Jewish Sea is bituminous and therefore no more inflated then pitch possibly because the parts thereof being Homogeneous cannot be subtiliz'd apart For as for the Mediterranean Seas having no Flux and Reflux I conceive it is hindred by another motion from North to South because the Septentrional parts being higher then the Austral all Waters by their natural gravity tend that way The Fourth said I acknowledge with Aristotle that 't is partly the Sun that causes the Flux and Reflux of the Sea because 't is he that raises most of the Exhalations and Winds which beating upon the Sea make it swell and so cause the Flux and soon after failing the Sea falls again which is the Reflux Nevertheless because this cause is not sufficient and cannot be apply'd to all kinds of Flux and Reflux which we see differ almost in all Seas I add another thereunto Subterranean Fires which sending forth continually abundance of Exhalations or subtile Spirits and these Spirits seeking issue drive the Water of the Sea which they meet till it overflows and thus it continues till being deliver'd from those Spirits it falls back into its channel till it be agitated anew by other Exhalations which successively follow one another and that more or less according to the greater or lesser quantity of those Spirits The Tydes which happen every two hours are an evidence of great quantity those which happen every four hours of less and those which happen every six of least of all So there is made in our Bodies a Flux and Reflux of Spirits by the motion of Reciprocation call'd the Pulse consisting of a Diastole and a Systole or Dilatation and Contraction caus'd by the Vital Faculty of the Heart the Fountain of Heat Moreover as the Pulse is ordinarily perceiv'd better in the Arms and other extreme parts then in the rest of the Body So the Flux and Reflux is more evident at the shores then in the main Sea Therefore Aristotle proposing the Question why if some solid Body as an Anchor be cast into the Sea when it swells it instantly becomes calm answers That the solid Body cast into the Sea makes a separation in the surface thereof and thereby gives passage to the Spirits which were the cause of that Commotion Now if it be demanded Why such motion is not so manifest in the Mediterranean Sea and some others as in the Ocean it is answer'd that the reasons thereof are 1. Because Nature having given sluces to the Mediterranean higher then to the Ocean it hath not room wherein to extend it self so commodiously 2. Because the Subterranean Fires being united and continually vented forth by the Out-lets which they have in Aetna Vesuvius and other Mountains within or near that Sea there remains less then is needful to make a rising of the Waters The Fifth said I conceive there is as little cause and reason to be sought of the Flux and Reflux of the Sea as of all other motions proceeding from Forms informing or assisting the Bodies which they move As it would be impertinent to ask what is the cause of the motion of a Horse seeing the most ignorant confess that it is from his Soul which is his Form So there is more likelihood of truth in attributing the motion of the Sea to its Form then to any other thing Yet because they who assign a Soul to the World and all its parts cannot make out such a proportion therein as is requisite to the parts of an Animal I think more fit to affirm that the Sea hath a Form and Intelligence assisting to it which was assign'd to it by God from the beginning to move it in the same manner as the Intelligences according to Aristotle are assistant to the Coelestial Orbes and continue their motion II. Of the Point of Honour It was said upon the Second Point That since Contraries give light to one another we may better understand what Honour is by considering the Nature of Dishonour For where ever there is Blame there is also Honour opposite to it Now there is no Man that sees a vile action as amongst Souldiers Murder or Cowardice Collusion or Perfidiousness in Justice but he blames the same and judges the Author thereof worthy of Dishonour On the conrary a brave Exploit and a Courageous Action is esteemed by Enemies themselves The incorruptible Integrity of a Judge is oftentimes commended by him that â—oses his Suit and the Courageous Fidelity of an Advocate in well defending his Client receives Praise even from the Adversary so odious is Vice and so commendable is Virtue Wherefore every one abhorring Blame and Dishonour doth so vehemently hate the memory and reproach of any thing that may bring it upon him that many imitate what the Fable telleth of Jupiter who going to shake off the ordure which the Beetle had laid upon the skirt of his garment by that means shook out the Eggs
temper a great quantity of subtile and brisk spirits quickness of wit a habit custom of doing some action as the Postilion who sadled bridled and rid his horse asleep and after making some careers brought him back to the Stable The Second said Though according to Aristotle in the 5. Book of the Generation of Animals there is some difference between a dream and this affection which causes men to walk in their sleep because saith he a dream is when the sleeper takes that for true which is presented to him though it be not so But when one dreams that he is in a place and is there indeed and doth really that which he imagines 't is rather a vision then a dream Nevertheless methinks their extraordinary motions may as well be referr'd to dreams as any other motions which are made in sleep considering that they come from the same cause are made by the same organs and differ not but in degree The one being made by a bare representation of the species and the other by a strong impression So that 't is no more wonder to see a man rise out of his bed walk get upon the ridge of a house climb a tree and do other like things without waking then 't is so see another dreamer speak in his sleep laugh cry stir his arms and legs both of them being led thereunto by the same means The Third said He wonder'd not so much to see a man walk in his sleep considering that 't is ordinary enough to those which travel provided they walk in a plain and even way as Galen records to have hapned to himself he having gone almost a league in that manner and not waking till he stumbled at the foot of a tree But he wonder'd indeed how they perform'd their actions better in the night then in the day and with more courage and wake not during those violent motions and stirrings The cause whereof is as I conceive that being awake they have a Reason which contradicts their Imagination and Appetite and which having an eye over all their actions the same are not so sure because they are less free in sleep at which time the faculties of the Understanding being as 't were consopited the others are carried towards their objects with more certainty then when they are controll'd and restrain'd by that superior faculty as we see servants are more brisk in their motions when they are out of their masters presence They act also with more boldness because having no knowledge of the present dangers they do not apprehend the same Which is observ'd in fools and children who do themselves less hurt in dangers because they apprehend them less Lastly the cause why they wake not during those great motions although they swim over rivers proceeds from the great quantity of those thick and glutinous vapours which stop the pores serving to the commerce of the spirits during the long time that they are dissipating according as 't is observ'd in drunkards or those that have taken somniferous medicaments who by reason of the excessive vapours of the wine or drugs awake not whatever be done to them Whence the melancholy temper is most prone to this affection because black choler which hath the consistence of pitch sends its gross vapours up to the brain and they are the most difficult to be resolv'd The Fourth said If men left themselves to be conducted by their natural inclination without making so many reviews and reflections upon what they do their actions would be much better and surer For as where two Masters are neither is obey'd so both the superior and inferior appetite striving to command in man neither the one nor the other is perfectly master Besides 't is an establish'd order of nature that things which have most proprieties and faculties have less certainty those which have most certainty have fewest proprieties Thus the Swallow makes its nest with more certainty then the Architect doth a house The Vine more assuredly makes the Grape then the Swallow its nest the stone more infallibly descends towards its centre then the Vine-makes the Grape because a stone hath only the first step of being the Vine besides hath a Vegetative being and the Swallow a Sensitive but Man who besides all these degrees hath Reason endeavours to make use of all these several Utensils and consequently makes use of none imperfection as he who is skill'd in sundry Crafts discharges not any so well as he who addicts himself but to one Now whilst a man is awake the variety of objects and of the powers which are mov'd in him hinder him from performing so perfect an action as when all the other faculties are bound up by sleep the sensitive alone remains mistress The Fifth said As there is but one straight line and infinite crooked so there is but one right manner of acting and infinite oblique The right line is that a man perform all his animal functions only awake the vital and natural as well asleep as awake Deviation from this rule happens a thousand several ways One is asleep when he should wake another is unquiet when he should sleep In a third inquietudes are only in the spirits the body remaining asleep In some both the spirits and the body are agitated only the judgement and reason are bound up Some Morbifick causes go so far as to inflame the spirits whence comes the Ephemera others more vehement alter and corrupt the humours whence the diversity of Fevers and amongst them Phrensies in which you see bodies scarce able to turn in the bed cast themselves out at a window run through the streets and hard to be restrain'd by the strongest So great a force hath the soul when she gets the head of Reason which serv'd as Bit and Cavesson to her Indeed if Naturalists say true that a spirit is able to move not only a Celestial Sphere but the whole world it self were it not restrain'd by a greater power 't is no wonder if the same spirit have a great power over a body which it informs when it hath shaken off the dominion of Reason as it happens in sleep-walkers The Sixth said 'T is probable that the more causes contribute to one and the same effect the more perfectly it is done Man being awake hath not only the action of all his parts but that of all his senses strengthned by the concourse of spirits renders his parts much more strong and vigorous then when his is asleep Reason assisted by daily experience avoucheth that he acts better waking then sleeping and yet we see the contrary in the persons under consideration Wherefore their agitation cannot be attributed to the soul alone which informs the body but to some spirit good or bad whether such as they call aerial Hob-goblins or others which insinuating into the body as into a ship whose Pilot is asleep governs and guides it at pleasure and as a thing abandon'd to the first occupant carries
Christ-mass day exercise many cruelties even upon little children and those who in our time confess that they have put on the shapes of Wolves Lyons Dogs and other Animals that they might exercise their cruelty upon Men with impunity For I am not of their mind who think such transformation is made by natural causes To which neither can that be attributed which the Scripture relates of Nebuchadonozor K. of Babylon who became an Ox and ate the grass of the field for the space of nine years and afterwards resum'd his former shape that the rods of the Aegyptian Magicians were turn'd into Serpents as well as that of Moses that Lot's Wife was chang'd into a Statue of Salt no more then the most fabulous metamorphoses of Niobe into stone Lycaon Demarchus and Moeris into Wolves the companions of Vlysses into sundry Animals by the Enchantress Circe those of Diomedes into Birds Apuleius into an Ass that an Aegyptian Lady became a Mare and was restor'd into her former shape by S. Macarius the Hermite as the Historian Vincent reports in his 18. Book Seeing a Rational Soul can not naturally animate the Body of a Wolf The least distemper of our Brain suffices to hinder the Soul from exercising its functions and can it exercise them in that of a Beast 'T is more credible that some evil Spirit supplies the place and acts the part of the Sorcerer who is soundly asleep in his Bed or in some other place apart from the commerce of Men. As it happen'd to the Father of Praestantius mention'd by St. Augustine in his Book De Civitate Dei who awaking out of a long and deep sleep imagin'd himself to have been turn'd into a Horse and carry'd provisions upon his back to Soulders which he obstinately believ'd though his Son assur'd him that he had not stirr'd out of bed Nevertheless the thing was verifi'd by witnesses but it was done by an evil Spirit who on the one side personated him abroad and on the other so strongly impressed those species upon his Phancy that he could not be disswaded from the error For otherwise how should the Sorcerer reduce his Body into so small a volumn as the form of a Rat Mouse Toad and other such Animals into which it sometimes is turn'd Now if it happens that the wound which the Devil receives under that form is found upon the same part of the Sorcerers Body this may be attributed to the action of the same evil Spirit who can easily leave his blow upon such part as he pleases of the Body which he possesses For want of which possession all his designes upon those whom he would injure become ineffectual notwithstanding the imposture of all their waxen Images But if 't is the Sorcerer himself that hath the form of a Wolf either he clothes himself in a Wolf's skin or else the Devil frames a like Body of Vapours and Exhalations and other materials which he knows how to choose and can gather together with which he involves the Sorcerer's Body and fits the same in such manner that the Eye of the Beast answers to that of the Man and so the other parts according to the measure requisite to represent a Wolf Or else that subtile Spirit deludes our Eyes The Second said If the Proverb be true That one Man is oftentimes a Wolf to another we need not recur to extraordinary causes to find Men-wolves Now the word Wolf is here taken for mischievous because the wealth of the first Ages consisting in Cattle they fear'd nothing so much as the Wolf As for the causes of this brutish malady whereby a Man imagines himself a Wolf or is so indeed they are of three sorts the biting of a mad Wolf the atrabilarious humour or the Imagination perverted It seemes at first very strange that a drop of foam entring into the flesh of a Man at an orifice made by the point of a tooth should have the power to convert all the humours into its own nature But seeing the stroke of a Scorpion which is not perceivable to the sight kills the strongest person that admiration ceases at the comparison of a thing no less marvellous For 't is no more wonder that the humour which issues from an Animal imprints its Image other where then that it kills an other When the foam drop'd from a mad Wolf produces its like with its furious spirits it doth nothing but what other animate bodies with other circumstances do Thus the kernel of the Pear or Apple which subverts our Senses call'd therefore malum insanum so well containes in power the Pear or Apple-tree which produc'd it that it reproduces another wholly alike yea the salt of Sage Marjoram Baum and some others being sown produces the like Plants without slip or seed The atrabilarious humour sending up black and glutinous fumes into the brains of melancholy people not onely make them to believe that the species represented thereby to them are as true as what they see indeed but impresse an invincible obstinacy in their Minds which is proof against all reasons to the contrary because Reason finds the Organs no longer rightly dispos'd to receive its dictates And if he who sees a stick bow'd in the water can hardly rectifie that crooked species in his Common Sense by reasons drawn from the Opticks which tell him that the visual ray seemes crooked by reason of the diversity of the medium how can he whose Reason is not free be undeceiv'd and believe that he is not a Wolf according to the species which are in his Phancy But can the Phancy alone do all this He who feign'd and frequently pretended that he was one-ey'd by the power of Imagination became so indeed and many others whom Phancy alone makes sick and the fear of dying kills sufficiently shew its power which causes that these distracted people perswading themselves that they are Wolves do the actions of Wolves tearing Men and Beasts and roaming about chiefly in the night which symbolizes with their Humours Not but that a fourth cause namely evil spirits interposes sometimes with those natural causes and particularly with that gloomy black Humuor which for that reason Saint Jerome calls Satan's bath The Third said That besides those causes the food taken from some parts of Aliments contributes much to hurt the Imagination of Men in such sort that they account themselves really brutes Thus a Maid of Breslaw in Silesia having eaten the brain of a Cat so strongly conceited her self a Cat that she ran after every Mouse that appear'd before her A Spaniard having eaten the brain of a Bear thought himself to be one Another that had very often drunk Goats milk fed upon grass like that Animal Another who had liv'd long upon Swines blood rowl'd himself in the mire as if he had been truly a Hogg And 't is held that especially the arterial blood of Animals as containing the purest of their Spirits produces such an effect But to believe
kind is when onely the Spirits are enflam'd and 't is call'd Ephemera because it continues but one day unless the Humours too become of the party as it falls out usually and it admits of three differences according to the three sorts of Spirits Animal Vital and Natural The Humoral Fever is either Simple or Compounded The Simple is either Continual or Intermitting The Continual is caus'd when the putrefaction of the Blood possesses the great Vessels or some noble Part. The Intermitting produc'd by the three other Humours putrefying out of the Veins is either Quotidian which is produc'd by Phlegme or Tertian by Choler or Quartane by Melancholy The Compounded or complex Humoral Fever is caus'd by the mixture of those Humours which then cause a double Quotidian double Tertian and double Quartane yea sometimes but very rarely a Quintane and others of longer interval which may be attributed to all the different from which Fevers arise The Efficient causes is in my opinion the strength of Nature and every one's particular Temper as he who is more robust and upon whom the disease is more violent will have longer Fits the Fight of Nature with the Malady being more stoutly maintain'd by the parties and consequently shorter intervals because that which increases to the one decreases to the other The Cholerick will have longer Fits of a Tertian Fever and shorter of a Quotidiane The Material Cause contributes very much herein being that which supplies Ammunition to this intestine War which is continu'd or discontinu'd according to the proportion and quantity of the Matter 'T is more easie to name the Formal Cause then to understand it But as for the Final 't is certain that Nature makes the intervals of Fevers purposely to rally and recruit her strength as truces and cessations of Armes use to be made when the Country is almost spent or the Souldiers too much harrass'd and out of heart The Second said That the Periods of Fevers have been matter of torture to the best wits who could not without admiration consider how e. g. one sick of a Quartan and appearing to day at the point of Death should nevertheless for two days together perform all his actions perfectly and then upon the fourth many times too at the same hour in more contumacious Fevers become in the like pitiful condition again Now the Cause hereof is commonly attributed to the time which is requir'd for producing the matter of the Fever and consuming it They hold that it is so long in consuming as the Fit lasts the the end whereof is the Crisis like as the ancient water-clocks of the Romans did not signifie nor strike the hour till the vessel was full Some have imputed the cause to the motion of the Humour and believ'd that as the humid mass of the Sea hath its flux reflux and interval so have the Humours of our Bodies when the natural heat which regulated them being disorder'd and its effect suspended by the disease governes the same no longer but abandons them to their own Capricio Of which motion 't is no easier to render a reason then of that of the Sea the Load-stone and all other occult motions Hence many have recurr'd to the Asylum of Last Differences the knowledge whereof is interdicted to Humane Capacity And therefore they have ventur'd to assign no other cause saving that the Interval of these Fevers being their most proper Difference it must not be wonder'd if we understand their nature as little as those of all other things in the world The Third said That the time which is requisite for generating the Humour cannot be the cause of these Intervals since the Fits of a Fever are longer or shorter though the Fever change not its Nature yea it will become double or trebble sometimes and still keep the name of a Quartan As on the contrary when there is so little matter left for it that it is almost quite gone yet it alwayes returnes on the fourth day although the Fit lasts a shorter time Yea it comes to pass oftentimes that he who hath had a Quartan and is cur'd of all other Symptomes of his Ague yet for a long time after feels the chilness and weariness at the same day and hour that his Disease was wont to seize upon him In the mean time while 't is manifest that the Fever being gone the Melancholy Humour is no longer gather'd together in sufficient quantity to produce it and therefore the cause cannot be attributed to the Melancholly Humour since it no longer causeth the fever Whereby we may judge that the quantity of the matter contributes to the lengthening or diminishing of the fit but gives not the fever its name or form Now as for the motion which they attribute to the Humour like that of the Sea and their calling this Interval the form of the Fever 't is a confession of their Ignorance but not a solution of the Question Galen in the second Book of the Differences of Fevers and the last Chapter refers the cause of these regular and periodical motions to the dispositions of the parts of the whole Body which being distemper'd cease not to transmit or receive generate or attract superfluous and excrementitious humours and he holds that so long as the cause of these dispositions lasts so long the circuits continue and consequently the reason why a Tertian which is caus'd by Choler returnes every third day is because the distemper'd parts transmit or receive or generate bilious humours and excrements every other day But the question remains still whence it is that these parts are affected in such manner that they cause such just and regular periods For though it be true that the parts by reason of pain or heat e. g. yellow putrid Choler nevertheless this doth not infer that they attract the same rather the third day then the fourth or every day as they ought to do since the cause being alwayes present viz. the pain or heat which incessantly attracts this humour the effect should alwayes follow and make a Quotidian circuit although indeed 't is but once in three dayes The Fourth said That as Physitians refer the unusual motions of Epileptical and the violent sallies of the Frantick not barely to the phlegmatick or atrabilarious humour but to a certain quality of it so ought we to do touching the periodical motions of Fevers which proceed not simply from the humours corrupted but from a particular condition and virtue of each humour whereby it is that putrifying Phlegme makes its approaches every day Choler every third and Melancholy every fourth day And as these humours so long as they retain their natural constitution have a regular motion which carries one into the Bladder of Gall and the Guts the other into the Spleen and the other into the Stomack so being corrupted each acquires a certain new quality and putrefaction which is the cause of other periodical motions namely those of Fevers The Fifth
naturally keep up above the water yet by enclosing it in some sort of vessel you may violently make it continue under the water II. Of the capricious or extravagant humours of women Upon the second Point it was said It is not here pronounc'd that all women are capricious but only the reason inquir'd of those that are such and why they are more so then men To alledge the difference of souls and suppose that as there is an order in the Celestial Hierarchies whereby the Archangels are plac'd above Angels so the spirits of men are more perfect then those of women were to fetch a reason too far off and prove one obscure thing by another more so Nor is the cause to be found in their bodies taken in particular for then the handsome would be free from this vice the actions which borrow grace from their subject appearing to us of the same nature and consequently their vertues would seem more perfect and their defects more excusable whereas for the most part the fairest are the most culpable We must therefore recur to the correspondence and proportion of the body and the soul. For sometimes a soul lights upon a body so well fram'd and organs so commodious for the exercise of its faculties that there seems more of a God then of a man in its actions whence some persons of either Sex attract the admiration of all world On the contrary other souls are so ill lodg'd that their actions have less of man then of brute And because there 's more women then men found whose spirits are ill quarter'd and faculties deprav'd hence comes their capricious and peevish humour For as melancholy persons whose blood is more heavy are with good reason accounted the more wise so those whose blood and consequently spirits are more agile and moveable must have a less degree of wisdom and their minds sooner off the hooks The irregular motions of the organ which distinguishes their Sex and which is call'd an animal within an animal many times have an influence in the business and increase the mobility of the humours Whence the health of their minds as well as that of their bodies many times suffers alteration A woman fallen into a fit of the Mother becomes oftentimes enrag'd weeps laughs and has such irregular motions as not only torment her body and mind but also that of the Physitian to assign the true cause of them Moreover the manner of living whereunto the Laws and Customs subject women contributes much to their defects For leading a sedentary life wherein they have always the same objects before their eyes and their minds being not diverted by civil actions as those of men are they make a thousand reflections upon their present condition comparing it with those whereof they account themselves worthy this puts their modesty to the rack and oftentimes carries them beyond the respect and bounds which they propos'd to themselves Especially if a woman of good wit sees her self marri'd to a weak husband and is ambitious of shewing her self Another judging her self to merit more then her rival not knowing to whom to complain of her unhappiness does every thing in despight And indeed they are the less culpable inasmuch as they always have the principles of this vice within themselves and frequently find occasions abroad The Second said that the word Caprichio is us'd to signifie the extravagant humour of most women because there is no animal to which they more resemble then a Goat whose motions are so irregular that prendre la chevre signifies to take snuffe without cause and to change a resolution unexpectedly For such as have search'd into the nature of this animal find that its blood is so sharp and spirits so ardent that it is always in a Fever and hence it is that being agitated with this heat which is natural to it it leaps as soon as it comes into the world Now the cause of this temper is the conformation of the Brain which they say is like that of a woman the Ventricles of which being very little are easily fill'd with sharp and biting vapours which cannot evaporate as Aristotle affirms because their Sutures are closer then those of men those vapours prick the Nerves and Membranes and so cause those extraordinary and capricious motions Hence it is that women are more subject to the Meagrim and other diseases of the head then men And if those that sell a Goat never warrant it sound as they do other animals there is no less excuse in reference to women Which caus'd the Emperour Aurelius to say that his Father in law Antoninus who had done so much good to others had done him mischief enough in giving him his daughter because he found so much bone to pick in a little flesh Moreover the Naturalists say that the Goat is an enemy to the Olive-tree especially which is a symbol of peace whereunto women are not over-well affected For not to mention the first divorce which woman caus'd between God and man by her lickorishness her talking her ambition her luxury her obstinacy and other vices are the most common causes of all the quarrels which arise in families and in civil life If you would have a troop of Goats pass over any difficult place you need force but one to do it and all the rest will follow So women are naturally envious and no sooner see a new fashion but they must follow it And Gard'ners compare women and girles to a flock of Goats who roam and browse incessantly holding nothing inaccessible to their curiosity There is but one considerable difference between them the Goat wears horns and the woman makes others wear them The Third said There is more correspondence between a woman and a Mule then between a woman and a Goat for leaving the Etymology of Mulier to Grammarians the Mule is the most teasty and capricious of all beasts fearing the shadow of a man or a Tree overturn'd more then the spur of the rider So a woman fears every thing but what she ought to fear The obstinacy of the Mule which is so great that it has grown into a Proverb is inseparable from the whole Sex most of them being gifted with a spirit of contradiction Mules delight to go in companies so do women the bells and muzzles of the one have some correspondence with the earings and masks of the other and both love priority The more quiet you allow a Mule it becomes the more resty so women become more vitious in idleness neither of them willingly admits the bridle between their teeth The Mule is so untoward that it kicks in the night time while 't is asleep so women are oftner laid then quiet Lastly the Mule that hath seem'd most tractable all its time one day or other pays his master with a kick and the woman that has seem'd most discreet at one time or other commits some notorious folly The Fourth said That those who invented the little
made for man the greatest happiness that can befall them is to serve him in something though by the loss of their lives But this is rather a fair excuse to cover our cruelty and luxury seeing Animals are no more proper then Plants to nourish man Witness our first Fathers before the flood who were so long-liv'd although they liv'd not of flesh Whence 't is inferr'd too that inanimate things may nourish us better then Plants For the taste is an ill judge in this cause the Eele amongst animals and the Peach amongst fruits affording the worst nourishment though they rellish most deliciously The Similitude of substance is of little consideration for Animals live not of their like and the Cannibals are ordinarily all Leprous That a thing may be food 't is sufficient that it have an humidity or substance proportionate to ours in what order of things soever it be found And nature has had no less care of nourishing an animal then of healing it but she has endu'd all sublunary bodies with properties medicinal to man Lastly we cannot reckon among Plants those excrescenses which we call Truffes and are held to be produc'd by thunder in some kinds of earth whence they are gather'd and yet they nourish extremely The Sixth said When that which enters into the Stomack is alter'd by it 't is call'd aliment for heat is the chief Agent by which it is united and assimulated whence it comes to pass that according to the diversity of this heat Hemlock serves for nourishment to the Starlings but kills man Now to judge whether that which hath had life be more proper for nutrition then that which hath not we need only consider upon which of the two the natural faculty which disperses this heat acts most powerfully which no doubt it doth upon that which hath had life since it hath the conditions requisite to food being in some sort like as having been alive and also qualifi'd to become so again because when a form forsakes its subject it leaves dispositions in it for a like form to ensue 't is also in some sort unlike being actually destitute of life Wherefore as that which hath life really cannot nourish a living thing because of its total resemblance and there is no action between things alike otherwise a thing might act against it self since nothing is more like to any thing then it self So that which never had life cannot nourish an animal by reason of its intire dissimilitude and because between things wholly unlike there is no action II. Of Courage Upon the second Point If 't is worthy admiration that amongst Animals a little dog gives chase to a multitude of Oxen whence the Hebrews call a Dog Cheleb that is to say All heart in regard of his courage 't is more to be wonder'd that amongst men who are of the same species and fram'd after the same manner one puts to flight three others greater stronger and oftentimes more dextrous then himself The cause hereof is attributed to heat but besides that we see many sufficiently heated in every other action but cold when it comes to fighting as they say there are good Grey-hounds of all sizes so there are great courages of all tempers and although the hair complexion stature and habit of body are the most sure witnesses yet every body knows that there are valiant men found of all hairs and statures yea of all Ages the seeds of courage being manifest in children and the remainders in old men It seems therefore that courage proceeds from the fitting and well proportion'd temper and structure of the heart and arteries for when these are too large the spirits are more languid and the actions less vigorous either to repell present dangers or meet those which are future Yet the Cholerick are naturally more dispos'd to magnanimity the Phlegmatick and Melancholy less and the Sanguine are between both Education also and custom are of great moment as we see Rope-dancers and Climbers perform strange feats with inimitable boldness because they have been us'd to walk upon Ropes and climb the Spires of Churches from their youth So a child that has been accustom'd to dangers from his infancy will not fear any Moreover Honour and Anger are great spurs to valour especially when the latter is sharpned by the desire of revenge which is excited by injury derision or ingratitude Exhortations too are very effectual And therefore when ever Caesar's Souldiers did not behave themselves well he observes that he had not had time to make a speech to them Nor is Necessity and the consideration of present danger to be omitted for the greatest cowards oftentimes give proofs of courage upon urgent occasions when there 's no hope of flight and one of the best wiles of a General is to take from his Souldiers all hope of retreat and safety otherwise then in victory Example also prevails much both as to flying and to fighting Wherefore those that run first ought to be punish'd without mercy as they who first enter a breach or are farthest engag'd amongst the enemies deserve great acknowledgement of their vertue But particularly amongst persons acquainted and mutually affectionate courage is redoubled by the presence of the thing belov'd witness the sacred Legion of the Thebans But the desire of honour and hope of reward are the most powerful incitements to valour Upon which account the King's presence is always counted equivalent as all his Troops together The Second said Courage is a vertue plac'd between boldness and fear Yet it is chiefly conversant in moderating fear which is an expectation of evil Amongst the evils and adversities which cause terrour to men some are to be fear'd by all and cannot be slighted by a vertuous man as ignominy punishment for a crime or other infamy Others may be fear'd or despis'd without blame if our selves be not the causes of them as Poverty Exile and Sickness And yet a man is never the more couragious for not fearing them For a Prodigal is not couragious for not fearing Poverty an impudent fellow that hath lost all shame may easily despise banishment as Diogenes did and a Sot will be insensible of an incurable disease which a wise man supports patiently Lastly some evils are to be contemn'd as all dangers and misfortunes which necessarily come to pass in life and death it self in the despising of which the greatness of courage principally appears especially in that which happens in the wars fighting for one's Prince and Country as being the most honourable and glorious of all The Third said No vertue can keep us from fearing death which gave so great apprehension to the most wise and to our Lord himself and which Aristotle deservedly calls the most terrible of terribles the same Philosopher also teaching us that a vertuous man infinitely desires to live and ought to fear death because he accounts himself worthy of long life during which he may do service to others and he knows
obstruction hinders the afflux of the spirits to it as in a Gutta Serena there is no vision made An Evidence that seeing is an action of both and consequently the Senses are as many as the several Organs which determine and specificate the same But the Taste being comprehended under the Touch by the Philosophers definition must be a species thereof and therefore there are but four Senses as four Elements the Taste and the Touch which it comprehends being exercis'd in the earth gross as themselves the Sight in Water in which its Organ swims and of which it almost wholly consists the Smelling by the Fire which awakens odours and reduces them out of power into act and the Hearing in the Air which is found naturally implanted in the Ear and is the sole medium of this sense according to Aristotle the hearing of Fishes being particular to them in the Water and very obscure The Third said He was of Scaliger's mind who reckons Titillation for the sixth sense For if the Taste though comprehended under the Touching as was said constitutes a distinct sense why not Titillation which is a species of Touching too considering that it represents things otherwise then the ordinary Touch doth and hath its particular Organs as the soles of the Feet the palmes of the Hands the Flanks the Arm-pits and some other places Yea Touching may be accounted the Genus of the Senses since all partake thereof The Fourth said That those actions which some Animals perform more perfectly then we as the Dog exceeds us in Smelling the Spider in Touching the Eagle in Seeing and many in presaging the seasons and weather seem'd to be the effects of 6 7 or 8 Senses there being no proportion between such great extraordinary effects and their Organes the structure whereof is the same with those of other Animals which come not near the same Yea that 't is by some supernumerary sense found in each Animal that they have knowledge of what is serviceable or hurtful to them in particular For example who teaches the Dog the virtue of Grass the Hart of Dittany their ordinary Senses cannot Nor is it likely that so many occult properties have been produc'd by Nature to remain unknown But they cannot be understood unless by some Sense which is not vulgar considering that all the Senses together understand not their substance The Fifth said There are five external Senses neither more nor less because there needs so many and no more to perceive and apprehend all external objects And as when one of our Senses is deprav'd or abolish'd another cannot repair it nor succeed it in all its functions so if there were more then five the over-plus would be useless there being no accident but falls under the cognisance of these five Senses And although each of them is not sufficient thereunto severally yet they serve well enough all together as in the perception of motion rest number magnitude and figure which are common objects to divers Senses Now if there were need of more then five Senses 't would be to judge of objects wherein the others fail So that the supernumeraries being unprofitable 't is not necessary to establish more then five And as for substance 't is not consistent with its Nature to be known by the external Senses The Sixth said Man being compos'd of three Pieces a Soul a Body and Spirits of a middle Nature between both the five Senses suffice to the perfection and support of these three parts Knowledge which is the sole Good of the Soul is acquir'd by invention and discipline for which we have Eyes and Ears Good Odours recreate and repair the Spirits The Touch and Taste are the Bodie 's guards the first by preserving it from hurtfull qualities which invade it from without and the second from such as enter and are taken in by the mouth And therefore 't is in vain to establish more The Seventh said Since according to the Philosophers Sense is a passive quality and Sensation is made when the Organ is alter'd by the object there must be as many several Senses as there are different objects which variously alter the Organs Now amongst Colours Odours and other sensible objects there are many different species and the qualities perceiv'd by the Touch are almost infinite Nor is it material to say that they all proceed from the first qualities since Colors Odours and Tasts are likewise second qualities arising from those first and nevertheless make different Senses The Eighth said Although it be true that Faculties are determin'd by objects yet must not these Faculties be therefore multiply'd according to the multitude of objects So though White and Black are different nevertheless because they both act after the same manner namely by sending their intentional species through the same medium to the same Organ the Sight alone sufficeth for judging of their difference The Ninth said Since four things are requisite to Sensation to wit the Faculty the Organ the Medium and the Object 't is by them that the number of Senses is determin'd The Object cannot do it otherwise there would not be five Senses but infinitely more Nor can the Faculty do it being inseparable from the Soul or rather the Soul it self and consequently but one and to say that there is but one Sense is erroneously to make an external Sense of the Common Sense Much less can the Medium do it since one and the same Medium serves to many Senses and one and the same Sense is exercis'd in several Mediums as the Sight in the Air and the Water It remains therefore that the diversity proceed from that of the Organs which being but five make the like number of Senses II. Whether is better to be silent or to speak Upon the Second Point it was said 'T is a greater difficulty and consequently more a virtue to hold one's peace then to speak the latter being natural to Man and very easie when he has once got the habit of it but the former is a constrain'd Action and to practise which handsomely the Mind must be disciplin'd to do violence to the itch of declaring it self every one conceiving it his interest that the truth be known And there are fewer examples of those that have sav'd themselves by speaking then of those that have lost themselves by not keeping Secrecie justly term'd the Soul of the State and of affairs which once vented of easie become impossible Whence arose the name of Secretaries for principal Ministers and Officers of States and great Houses and indeed 't is at this day a title affected by the meanest Clerks testifying thereby in what esteem they have Silence And the unworthiest of all Vices Treachery ordinarily takes advantage of this defect of Secrecie which renders Men full of chinks and like a sieve so that many can more easily keep a coal in their mouths then a secret On the contrary Silence is so much reverenc'd that the wisest persons when they are
Mathematicians and many other Professors of Arts acknowledg'd nevertheless very useful to humane society If some of them have been lascivious others impious others slanderous these are the vices of the Poets not of Poetry And as the more delicate any Wine is the more hurtful its excess is to the body so Poetry is so much the more excellent by how much its abuse is noxious Plato who advis'd the banishing of it out of his imaginary Commonwealth calling it a sweet poyson deserv'd more then it to be really interdicted there not being in all the Poets such fables impieties and impurities as that of his Convivium his Phaedrus and some other pieces In the mean time he is forc'd to admire them to call them the sons and interpreters of the gods yea divine and the fathers of wisdom For their raptures cannot be call'd folly unless in that sence that Aristotle saith To Philo sophize well a man must be besides himself But their wisdom being extream and their motions unknown to the vulgar therefore they call that fury which they ought to call the highest point and pitch of Wisdom term'd Enthusiasm or Divine Inspiration because it surpasses the reach of man And indeed every one acknowledges in Poetry some character of Divinity and therefore 't is receiv'd by all the world and serves for a guide and introducer to great personages who otherwise would not give audience but like that well in Verse which they would blame in Prose Which oblig'd Sylla to reward the good that they might be encourag'd to continue their divine works and the bad Poets on condition that they made no more And 't is of these as of some Rithmers of our time that they speak who blame Poetry in whose reproaches the true Poets are no more concern'd then Physitians in the infamy of Mountebanks The Fables of the ancient Poets are full of mysteries and serve for ornament to the Sciences and to Divinity it self as the gold of the Egyptians did to the Sanctuary But if they have in all ages complain'd of not advancing their fortune this doth not argue any demerit of theirs but rather the want either of judgement or gratitude in others CONFERENCE LVI I. Of the Smelling II. Of Eloquence I. Of the Smelling THis Sense which is the perception of Odours intromitted by the Nose through the spungy bone into the Mammillary processes which are appendices of the Brain rather then Nerves shews by the structure of its Organ that it is more particular to the Brain then any other For the Nerves which carry the Spirits for the performance of the other Senses are communicated elsewhere too some of them to all the rest of the Body Only these two nervous appendices of the Brain have nothing to do with any other part It makes use of odours as a perfume sometimes to redress its native coldness as when it is pleas'd with Pomanders Musk L'eau d'ange a sort of delicate compound water Orange flower-water and other Aromatical things sometimes to cool its spirits overheated by continual action as by the Violet the Rose or Jasmin but always for their refreshment For the Spirits being of an aerial nature nothing recreates them so much as what resembles them to wit the Air especially when it is tinctur'd with some friendly quality Hence arise those different phancies upon occasion of smells One swoons at the smell of Musk and the Rose which others love so much Another loves the scent of Rue and Worm-wood so abominated by others that some women have miscarri'd by it And indeed of all the wonders resulting from the consideration of odours there is none greater then the relation they have to the womb which is known to move it self to and approach towards and fly away at the motion of good or bad smells which work upon this part by means of the animal spirits call'd for this reason Impellers by the Greeks which the odours powerfully move and they all the other parts but especially the womb which hath a particular sympathy with the Brain the Conservatory of the Spirits or else because the contraction of the Nerves which is caus'd when an odour displeas'd drives the Spirits downwards who by their impetuosity hurry along with them the more fluid and moveable parts as the Matrix is when a pituitous humour has slackned its ligaments as on the contrary the spirits being dilated to receive the steam of an odour grateful to the Brain with a full torrent they attract it upwards by the same reason The Second said Because Faculties cannot be understood but by the correspondenc they have to their objects therefore to understand the Nature of the Sense of Smelling 't is first requisite to understand the Nature of Odour and by what Medium it is carry'd to its Organ Odour is a patible Quality arising from the temperament of siccity predominant above humidity for though many drugs waters essences and liquors in which humidity is necessarily found and siccity seldome are very odoriferous yet they borrow their smell from the dry exhalation mingled with their humid Body from which if the same be separated the humour remains inodorous Neverthelesse this exhalation is not the Odour but the subject and vehicle of it otherwise an Odour should be a Substance and not an Accident as it is 'T is convey'd to its Organ sometimes by species call'd Intentional when it is remote from the same or the Medium is so dispos'd that it cannot alter its Substance thus the species of the Odour of a Worm hanging upon the hook so exquisitely penetrates the water that the fish though very remote instantly repairs to it and many Animals scent powder at two or three leagues distance But when the Odour is present to the Organ of Smelling it hath no need of species with which the Senses have nothing to do but so far as they serve to supply the absence of their Objects The Nose receives Odours by its two passages and for this reason it hath somewhat a long shape a substance partly boney for firmnesse sake lest closing together the passage should be stop'd but cartilaginous in the lower part for the more easie dilatation in breathing smelling and purging the Brain the three prime uses of the Nose The true seat of Smelling are two small sponges made of the anterior part of the Brain passing through the Cuneal Bone near the cavity of the Eyes call'd the Mammillary Processes or Productions spirituous and vaporous the better to receive Odours and nervous to distinguish them lying upon the Cribrous or spongy bone which is full of small bones lest the Brain might be hurt by smells if they were carry'd directly and impetuously to it which danger is avoided by their being disunited and allay'd by this transcolation and these two Caruncles like the nibbles of Womens breasts have alone among all the parts of the Nose a proper figure a certain sign for distinguishing the Organs of the Senses For the Brain
be a corporeal substance and Democritus and Epicurus conceiv'd saying that Light is an Emanation of particles or little bodies from a lucid body or as they who make it a species of fire which they divide into That which burnes and shines That which burns and shines not and That which shines but burns not which is this Light For no natural body is mov'd in an instant nor in all sorts of places as Light is but they have all a certain difference of position or tendency some towards the centre others towards the circumference and others circularly The Sixth said 'T is true Light is not of the nature of our sublunary bodies for it is not generated and corrupted as they are It is not generated since generation is effected by corruption of one form and introduction of another But we have instances of incorruptible Light even here below as that in the Temple of Venus which could not be extinguish'd nor consum'd though neither oyle nor wick were put to it and that other found in a Sepulchre where it had burn'd for fifteen hundred years but as soon as it took Air went out And indeed the subtilety and activity of Fire is such that it may be reasonably conceiv'd to attract the sulphurous vapours for its subsistence which are in all parts of the Air but especially in Mines whose various qualities produce the diversity of subterraneal fires as to their lasting continuance and interval which some compare to the intermitting fevers excited in our bodies by a praeternatural heat II. Of Age. Of the Second Point it was said That Age is the measure of the Natural Changes whereunto Man is subject by the principles of his being which are various according to every ones particular constitution some being puberes having a beard or grey haires or such other tokens sooner then others according to the diversity of their first conformation Whence ariseth that of their division Aristotle following Hippocrates divides them into Youth Middle Age and Old Age or according to Galen into Infancy or Child-hood vigour or Man-hood or old age or according to most they are divided into Adolescence Youth the Age of Consistence and Old Age. Adolescence comprehends Infancy which reacheth to the seventh year Puerility which reacheth to the fourteenth year Puberty which reacheth to the eighteenth and that which is call'd by the general name Adolescence reaching to the five and twentieth Youth which is the flower of Age is reckon'd from twenty five to thirty three years of age Virile and Consistent Age from thirty five to forty eight where Old Age begins which is either green middle or decrepit These Four Ages are the Four Wheeles of our Life whose mutations they denote the First being nearest the original hot and moist symbolizing with the blood the Second hot and dry with Choler the Third cold and dry with melancholy the Fourth cold and moist with Phlegme which being contrary to the radical humidity leads to death Now if it be true that they say that life is a punishment and an Abridgement of miseries Old Age as being nearest the haven and the end of infelicities is the most desirable Moreover being the most perfect by its experiences and alone capable to judge of the goodnesse of Ages 't is fit we refer our selves to the goodnesse of its judgement as well in this point as in all others The Second said Since to live is to act the most perfect and delightful of all the Ages of life is that in which the functions of body and mind whereof we consist are best exercis'd as they are in Youth which alone seems to dispute preheminence with Old Age not onely by reason of the bodily health and vigor which it possesses in perfection and which supplies Spirits and Courage for brave deeds whereof that declining Age which is it self a necessary and incurable malady is incapable but also in regard of the actions of the mind which is far more lively inventive and industrious in young persons then in old whose wit wears out grows worse with the body whence came that so true Proverb That old men are twice children For 't is a disparagement to the original of wisdom to deduce it from infirmity to name that ripe which is rotten and to believe that good counsels can come only from the defect of natural heat since according to his judgement who hath best described wisdom old age causes as many wrinkles in the mind as in the face and we see no souls but as they grow old smell sowre and musty and acquire abundance of vices and evil habits of which Covetousness alone inseparable from old age which shews its weakness of judgement to scrape together with infinite travel what must shortly be forsaken is not less hurtful to the State then all the irregularities of youth Now if the supream good be in the Sciences then the young men must infallibly carry the cause since sharpness of wit strength of phancy and goodness of memory of which old men are wholly destitute and ability to undergo the tediousness of Lucubration are requisite to their acquisition If it consists in a secret complacency which we receive from the exercise of vertuous actions then young men who according to Chancellor Bacon excel in morality will carry it from old men it being certain that the best actions of life are perform'd between twenty and thirty years of age or thereabouts which was the age at which Adam was created in Paradise as our Lord accomplish'd the mystery of our Redemption at the age of 33 years which shall also be the age at which the blessed shall rise up to glory when every one shall enjoy a perfect youth such as given to the Angels and put off old age which being not much different from death may as well as that be call'd the wages of sin since if our first Parent had persisted in the state of Innocence we should have possess'd the glory of perpetual undeclining Youth Moreover 't is at this Age that the greatest personages have manifested themselves we have seen but few old Conquerors and if there be any he hath this of Alexander that he aspires to the conquest of another world not having long to live in this Wherefore in stead of pretending any advantage over the other ages old men should rather be contented that people do not use them as those of Cea and the Massagetes who knock'd them on the head or the ancient Romans who cast them head-long from a Bridge into Tiber accounting it an act of piety to deliver them from life whose length was displeasing to the Patriarchs the Scripture saying that they dy'd full of days The Third said That the innocence of Infants should make us desire their age considering that our Lord requires that we be like them if we would enter into his Kingdom and the Word of God speaks to us as we do to children Moreover since Nature could not perpetuate infancy she
our Senses in regard of its aethereal nature the most searching Naturalists give its name to the most subtile extracts especially such as are made by fire although the same be not eternal as Quintessence ought to be but only of long duration The Fourth said 'T is the humour of unsetled heads instead of cultivating the precepts of antiquity to go about to fabricate new and hence comes the contemplation and the extraction of Quintessences For besides that 't is not certain that what is drawn out of a Plant was there before it being probable that the action of the fire may have introduc'd it in part or in whole into the compositum this Quintessence hath not the conditions requisite to merit that name because it has both first and second qualities and consequently is not only corporeal but also corruptible And if it were incorruptible it would be wholly unprofitable yea hurtful to mans body since it could not be chang'd or alter'd by it and none but poysons are such For Medicaments and aliments are alter'd by our nature But however the Empyrema or Adustion which these Quintessences commonly acquire in the fire renders their activity too great and disproportionate to our temper Which is the cause that things already excessive in quality as Salt and Vitriol are very hurtful being made into Quintessences because there is no more proportion between them and us And therefore I am of the judgement of the Vulgar who never speak of those drawers of Quintessences but with contempt considering that they make profession of a thing which is not and which if there were any such would be either unprofitable or hurtful The Fifth said That the Chymical Quintessence is an aethereal celestial and most subtile substance compos'd of the Salt Sulphur and Mercury of bodies dissolv'd spoil'd of all their elementary qualities corruptible and mortal united to a spiritual body or corporeal spirit which is the medium and bond uniting bodies and spirits in nature and call'd by some for its rarity Elixir for its wonderful use in preserving the health of mans body the Sovereign Medicine by which they hold that youth may be restor'd and all sorts of diseases cur'd it not being requisite in its action that it be alter'd by our natural heat which on the contrary it changes and perfectionates taking the part of nature as all poysons destroy it And 't is certain that since there are bodies which are barely alter'd by our nature as aliments others which are alter'd by it but reciprocally alter it as medicaments others which destroy it without being alter'd by it so there is a fourth sort which preserves it without being alter'd by it which is the Quintessence thoroughly separated from the four Elements yea from every thing that enters into the composition as is seen in Treacle whose vertue proceeds from some body which is not any of all the ingredients but results from them all together after convenient fermentation And possibly they who blame this curious inquisition do it to decline the pains or because they understand it not as 't is said the Fox that wanted a tail counsell'd all his fellows to cut off theirs The Sixth said Being all the Chymical Principles are resolv'd into our four Elements their Quintessence which is compounded thereof will be nothing else but these Elements more pure and refin'd and consequently no more a Quintessence then all mixts are in respect of the Elements whereof they consist For a Quintessence must be a simple body not any of the four Elements much less compounded of them and Heaven alone is such whatever certain Philosophers have said some holding it to be onely a continuation of the air others that 't is of an igneous nature because its denser parts appear such and its name Aether signifies Fire some that 't is a fluid and aqueous substance others on the contrary a pure and solid earth For Heaven hath a simple to wit a circular motion which as the most perfect of all ought to belong to the most noble of all bodies and this circular motion belongs not to any of the Elements since each of them moves in a direct line two from the Centre and two others towards the Centre But a simple body cannot have two motions it follows therefore that Heaven hath a motion different from that of the four Elements since motion particularly local the first and commonest of all is an effect of the nature of every thing which is the principle of motion Moreover Heaven alone is exempt from all elementary and corporeal qualities 'T is neither heavy nor light because it neither moves towards the Centre nor the circumference but about the Centre 'T is neither generated nor corrupted because it hath no contrary And for this reason it hath neither augmentation nor diminution inasmuch as these are species of generation and corruption 'T is not any way alter'd since alteration is caus'd by the action of some contrary Lastly it cannot enter into any composition and consequently there is indeed a Quintessence but 't is not in sublunary bodies II. Which is most in esteem Knowledge or Vertue Upon the second Point it was said That 't is first requisite to remove the equivocation of those who comprehend Knowledge under Vertue since by the word Vertuous we understand here not a Virtuoso but a good man who though he deserves to be more yet is always less esteem'd then a knowing or learned man because every one esteems that most which hath most shew and price Now a vertuous man is not only destitute of this but his greatest vertue consists in not seeking vain-glory whereof the greatest part of manking being adorers and every one affecting such as resemble themselves therefore the learned is commonly esteem'd above the other Moreover the reasoning of man being wholly deprav'd since the Fall he is rather for Verisimilitude then Verity Now the learned easily perswades that he is more to be esteem'd then the vertuous who doth good because it is good and not to be esteem'd for it whereas the other is like those bad Officers who make amends for their ill deeds by fair writing So Demosthenes having run with the first from the Battel made such an excellent Oration that he was commended for that which deserv'd perpetual shame But that which makes vertue less priz'd is because it falls upon all sorts of conditions and sexes a poor man and a poor woman exercising not less vertue in supporting their misery with constancy then a great Captain in overcoming his enemy and learning being not so common especially that which is sublime 't is the more esteem'd for its rarity They who judge of the worth of mens actions account of them according to the pains that there is in performing them But 't is judg'd more painful to become learned then to live well Others say 'T is best to be vertuous for the other world and knowing for this good Nature which is no way
them by the underminings of the wicked and envious who are the greatest number then obtain new by performing as much good as he will either because they who are able to reward him are not always well inform'd thereof or because they want both the means and the will to do it Therefore although God would have us hope for Paradise yet he requires that we serve him in fear and draw neer to him with trembling So that the thing we most hope for eternal life mixing our hope with fear 't is not credible that any other thing is exempt from it Yet there are some fears without any hope Now the passion which acts powerfully alone is stronger then that which acts onely in the company of another The Second said That if the greatness of causes is to be judg'd by that of their effects that Passion must be strongest which leads us to the greatest attempts And so Hope will carry it above Fear since 't is that which makes a Souldier run up a breach and which hath induc'd so many illustrious men both ancient and modern to generous actions whereas Fear by its coldness chilling the spirits and penning them within renders them incapable of any action For all our actions depending on the dispositions of the spirits the instruments of all motions both Internal and External if these spirits be heated active and nimble as they are render'd by Hope then the Mind is boldly carry'd to the most difficult actions On the contrary if they be cool'd and fix'd by Fear then the soul finding her self enfeebled can do nothing but what is mean and pusillanimous The Third said To examine the power of Hope and Fear aright we must look upon them as two Champions who are to encounter But Fear already shews by the paleness of its Countenance that it wants Heart and yields to Hope which animates it self to the pursuite of the good it aims at by driving away all sort of Fear which would cause apprehension of obstacles and crosses opposing the enjoyment of that good Moreover Fear is contemptible and not found but in abject spirits whereas Hope resides in sublime souls where it produces actions worthy of its grandeur and original which is Heaven towards which men naturally lift their eyes in their adversities as Fear derives its original from below towards which it depresses the bodies and minds of those whom it possesses So that to compare Hope with Fear is to put Heaven in parallel with Earth The Fourth said That both these Passions belong to the Irascible Appetite both of them look to the future and are employ'd to surmount the difficulties which are presented to the Concupiscible Appetite Hope is the expectation of a good hard to be obtain'd yet apprehended possible It is found most frequently in young men because they live onely upon the future and 't is the Anchor of all unfortunate persons none of which are out of Hope of being deliver'd from their miseries 'T is Physick to all our evils never abandoning the most desperately sick so long as they breathe Yea 't is the refuge of all man-kind of what sex age or condition soever herein the more miserable in that being destitute of real good there remains no more for them but imaginary and phantastick Hence the Hebrews denote Hope and Folly by the same word Chesel The truth is as if the evils that oppress us were not numerous enough our souls frame and phancy infinite more through Fear which dreads as well that which is not as that which is being properly the Expectation of an approaching evil which gives horrour to our senses and cannot easily be avoided For men fear not the greatest evils but those which are most contrary to their nature Whence it is that they more apprehend the halter the gallies or infamy then falling into vices or losing the Grace of God For although these be the greatest evils of the world yet men do not acknowledge them such but by a reflection of the Understanding Hence also the wicked fear the wheel more then Hell because Gods punishments of sin are accounted slow and those of men speedy But to judge of the strength of Hope and Fear by their proper essence we must consider that Good being much less delightful to Nature then Evil is painful and sensible because Good onely gives a better being Evil absolutely destroyes being Fear which is the expectation of this Evil is much more powerful then Hope which is the expectation of that Good Which appears further by its effects far more violent then those of Hope for it makes the Hair stand an end and hath sometimes turn'd it white in one night it makes the Countenance pale the whole body quake and tremble the Heart beat and not onely alters the whole habit of it but perverts Reason abolishes Reason and Memory intercepts the use of Speech and of all the Senses so that it hath caus'd sudden death to divers persons But Hope never gave life to any Fear adds wings wherewith to avoid an Evil Hope barely excites to move towards Good In a word Fear needs sometimes the whole strength of all the Virtues to repress its violence and check its disorders CONFERENCE LXV I. Of the Intellect II. Whether the Husband and Wife should be of the same humour I. Of the Intellect THe Intellect is a Faculty of the Soul whereby we understand For of the Faculties some are without knowledge as the natural common to man and inanimate bodies and the vegetative which he hath in common with plants namely the powers of Nutrition Accretion and Generation others are with the knowledge And these again are either exercis'd without the use of Reason as the Internal and External Senses or else stand in need of Reason as the Intellect and the Rational Appetite which is the Will the former to distinguish true from false the latter good from evil Now as the Understanding acquires its notions from the inferior powers so it imitates their manner of perception and as sensible perception is passion so is intellectual and the intelligible species are receiv'd in the Intellect after the same manner that the sensible are in the organs of the outward senses For as their organs must be free from all the qualities whereof they are to judge so must the Understanding which is to judge of every thing be from all intelligible species yea more then the organs of the Senses For the Crystalline humour of the Eye hath tangible qualities the hand visible because the former is not destinated to touch withall nor the latter to see But the Intellect being to understand every thing because every thing is intelligible must be wholly clear of all Anticipations contrary to Plato's opinion who admitting a Transmigration of souls conceiv'd that entring into other bodies they carryed with them the species of things which they had known before but darkn'd and veil'd with the clouds and humidities of the bodies which recloth'd them
and these being dissipated by age the species put forth themselves by little and little as Characters engraven on wood or stone cover'd over with wax appear proportionably as it melts off And therefore he term'd all our knowledge a remembrance but although he err'd herein yet reason'd better then Aristotle who admitted the Metempsychosis but deny'd the Reminiscence both which are necessary consequents one of the other The Second said That the operations of the Intellect are so divine that not being able to believe the same could proceed from it self it refers them to superiors For it invents disposes meditates examines and considers the least differences it compounds and divides every thing apprehends simple termes conjoynes the subject and the attribute affirms denyes suspends its judgements and alone of all the Faculties reflects upon it self yea by an action wholly divine produces a word For as in speaking a word is produc'd by the mouth so in understanding is form'd the word of the Mind Yet with this difference that the former is a corporeal patible quality imprinted in the Air and not the latter for intellection is an immanent operation Hence some have thought that all these divine actions were perform'd by God himself whom they affirm'd to be that Agent Intellect which irradiating the phantasmes produces out of them the intelligible species which it presents to our Intellect Others ascrib'd them to an Assisting Intelligence Some to a particular genius But as I deny not that in supernatural cognitions God gives Faith Hope and Charity and other supernatural gifts in which case God may be said to be an Agent Intellect I conceive also that in natural and ordinary knowledge of which alone we speak now no concourse of God other then universal is to be imagin'd whereby he preserves natural causes in their being and do's not desert them in their actions ' This then the Understanding it self which performes what ever it thinks surpasses its strength which it knows not sufficiently and the Agent and Patient Intellect are but one being distinguish'd onely by reason As it formes that species 't is call'd Agent as it keeps and preserves them Patient For as the Light causes colours to be actually visible by illuminating them together with the Air with their medium so the Agent Intellect renders all things capable of being known by illustrating the phantasmes separating them from the grosness of the matter whereof they have some what when they are in the Imagination and forming intelligible species of them Otherwise if these phantasmes remain'd still in their materiality the Understanding being spiritual could know nothing since that which is sensible and material remaining such cannot act upon what is spiritual and immaterial Besides the species of the Phancy representing to us onely the accidents of things it was requisite that the Intellect by its active virtue subliming and elevating those species to a more noble degree of being should make them representative species of their own essence Which it doth by abstraction of the individual properties of their subject from which it formes universal conceptions which action is proper to the Intellect This supreme Faculty being so noble that it ennobles all beings rendring them like to it self The Third said That the Intellect is to the Soul such as the Soul is to the body which it perfectionates And as it knows all corporeal things by the senses so it knows incorporeal by it self This Faculty serves for a medium and link uniting all things to their first cause and 't is Homer's golden chain or Jacob's ladder which reaches from Earth to Heaven by which the Angels that is the species and most spiritual notions ascend to the heaven of man which is his brain to inform him and cause the spirits to descend from thence to reduce into practice the excellent inventions of the Understanding Now as Reason discriminates men from brutes so doth this Intellect men amongst themselves And if we believe Trismegistus in his Pimander God has given to all men ratiocination but not Understanding which he proposes for a reward to his favourites Aristotle saith 't is the knowledge of indemonstrable principles and immaterial forms Plato calls it Truth Philo the Jew the chief part and torch of the Soul the Master of the little world as God is of the great both the one and the other being diffus'd through the whole without being mix'd or comprehended in any part of it The fourth said That the humane is a substance wholly divine and immortal since it hath no principle of corruption in it self being most simple and having no contrary out of it self Eternal since 't is not in time but above time Infinite since its nature is no-wise limited and is every thing that it understands changing it self thereinto not by a substantial mutation but as the First Matter is united with the formes remaining alwayes the same Matter the wax remaining entire receives all sort of figures So the intellect is not really turn'd into the things which it understands but only receives their species wherewith it is united so closely that it is therefore said to be like to them As likewise though it be call'd Patient when it receives them 't is not to be inferr'd that it is material since these species are material and acting upon the Intellect alter it not but perfectionate it Moreover it hath this peculiarity that the more excellent these species are the more perfect it is render'd whence after the highest things it can as easily comprehend the less An assured token of its incorruptibility and difference from the senses which are destroy'd by the excellence of their objects But as the soul being freed from the body hath nothing to do with sensitive knowledg because then it ratiocinates no more but beholds effects in their proper causes commanding and obeying it self most perfectly exempted from the importunity of the sensitive appetite so while it is entangled in the body it receives some impressions resulting from the parts humours and spirits destinated to its service being in some sort render'd like to them So the soul of one born blind is ignorant of colours the cholerick are subject to frowardness and the melancholy timerous by reason of the blackness of that humour The Fifth said All actions of men depending on the temper those of the Understanding so long as it is entangled in the bonds of the body are not free from it For as that of Plants gives them the qualities proper to attract concoct and convert their aliments and generate their like and beasts having a temper sutable to their nature are lead as soon as they come into the world to what is convenient for them without instruction So men are lead of their own accord to divers things according as their souls meet dispositions proper to certain actions yea they are learned without ever having learn'd any thing as appears in many phrantick and distracted persons amongst whom some although ignorant
had good drinking in such repute that they establish'd Magistrates call'd Oenoptae to preside at feasts and give order that every one did reason to his companion The Fourth said According as heat or moisture predominate in Wine so they imprint their footsteps upon our bodies The signs of heat are nimbleness of action anger boldness talking ruddiness of the countenance a pimpled Nose Eyes twinkling and border'd about with scarlet Those of humidity are slothfulness numness and heaviness of the head tears without cause softness and humidation of the Nerves which makes the Drunkard reel and lispe which effects nevertheless are different according to the qualities of the Wine and the Drinker's Brain For if the streams of the Wine be hot and dry and they be carri'd into a hot and dry Brain or a small Head they cause watchings and render the man raging and furious If they be more humid as those of Wine temper'd with water which is held to intoxicate more then pure Wine because the water assisted by that vehicle stays longer in the Brain and the Brain be moist too they cause sleep and laughter when the sanguine humour meets a more temperate Wine For which variety of the effects of Wine the ancients represented Bacchus mounted upon a Tyger with a Lyon a Swine and an Ape by his side The Fifth said That to drink fasting or when one is hot furthers intoxication because the passages being open'd by heat more speedily attract the Wine and its vapours are more easily lift up to the brain as also when the stomack is empty and the fumes of the Wine are not allay'd by those of meat But as drunkenness may be procur'd by several means so there are others that preserve from it Some make Wine utterly abhorr'd as the water that distills from the Vine the Eggs of an Owle or Wine wherein Eels or green Froggs have been suffocated Others repress its violence as the Amethyst which derives its name from its effect a sheep's lungs roasted the powder of swallow's bills mingled with Myrrhe Saffron bitter Almonds Worm-wood Peach kernels the Wine of Myrtle Oyle Colworts and Cabbage which preservatives were more in use among the Ancients who needed them more then we their Wines being more vaporous and hurtful then ours Witness Homer who speaking of the Wine which Apollo's Priest gave Vlysses saith he could not drink of it without tempering it with twenty times as much water as the strongest of our Wines can bear The Sixth said That Drunkenness as vicious as it is wants not its benefits For besides that 't is the Anodyne wherewith all laborious people relieve their pains it dispels cares and loosens the Tongue Whence Wine is call'd Lyaeus Which made one of Philip's Souldiers say when he was accus'd of having spoken ill of his Prince That he should have spoken far worse of him if he had not wanted more Wine So that the Proverb may be more true that Liberty rather then Verity is in Wine And therefore some Lawyers advise rather to inebriate such as are accus'd of a crime then put them to the rack according to the example of Josephus who by this means discover'd a conspiracy lay'd against him by a Souldier whom he distrusted indeed but had not proof enough to convict him II. Of Dancing Upon the Second Point it was said That Harmony hath such power over the Soul that it forces it to imitation Whence those that hear an Air which they like cannot forbear to chant it softly and sometimes it makes such impression in their Minds that they cannot be rid of it when they would as they experiment who fall asleep upon some pleasing song for many times they awake repeating it And because its powers delight not to be idle therefore the Soul being mov'd stirs up the spirits they the humours and the parts constraining them to follow their bent and motion which is call'd Dancing This Dancing therefore is a part of Musick which leads our members according to the cadence of the notes of a voice or instrument It imitates the manners passions and actions of men and consequently is of different species But their principal division was anciently taken from their place and use For either it was private and serv'd at marriages or Theatral which again was of three sorts the the first grave and serious practis'd in Tragedies the other more free in Comedies and the third lascivious and dishonest fâ—â— Satyrs The other differences relate to the Countries where they were in request as the Ionick to their Authors as the Pyrrick invented by Pyrrhus the Son of Achilles or by Pyrrichius the Lacedaemonian to their subject to the instrument whose eadence they follow to what they imitate as that which was call'd the Crane lastly to the habits and other things which were worne in dancing The most ancient as the easiest of all was that which took its name from a net whereto it resembles which is our dance in round of which Thesius is made the Author as well as of that in which the dancers intermix and pass under one anothers arms imitating by these turnings and windings those of the Labyrinth But the Theatral which the Mimes and Pantomimes represented in the Orchesters were like those of our ballads and express'd all gestures so well that a King of Pontus lik'd nothing so much in Rome as one of these Mimes which he obtain'd of Nero to serve him for an interpreter to Ambassadors For gestures have this above voices that they are understood by all Nations because they are the lively and natural images of things and actions whereas the voice and writing are but signes by institution And hence Dancing is very dangerous when it imitates dishonest things for it makes the strongest impression upon the Mind The Second said That the God of Wine sirnamed by the Ancients Chorius which signifies Dancer argues the mutual relation of dancing and Wine It hath alwayes been in so great esteem amongst warlike people that the Lacedaemonians and Thebans went to charge their Enemies with the musick of Flutes and Hoboys and the former had a solemn day in which the old the young the middle-ag'd danc'd in three companies with this Ditty We have been we are and we shall be brave fellows The Athenians went so far as to honour Andronicus Caristius an excellent dancer with a statue and to choose Phrynicus their King for having gracefully danc'd the Pyrrhick measures which Scaliger boasts he had often danc'd before the Emperor Maximilian Moreover the Romans committed the charge thereof to their most sacred Pontifs whom they call'd Salij that is Leapers Lucian in the Treatise which he writ of it ascribes the original of dancing to Heaven since not onely all the celestial bodies but also the ocean the hearts of living creatures and other sublunary bodies imitate them following the course of the first mover And indeed as if dancing had something of divine it hath alwayes been employ'd in Sacrifices
The contact above spoken of hath no difficulty nor yet the objection why other wounded persons residing in some intermediate place between the anointed Instrument and the Patient are not rather cur'd then he considering that the same thing is observ'd in the Load-stone which draws not the wood or stone laid neer it but the Iron beyond them and the Sun heats not the Sphere of the Moon and the other Heavens nor yet the two higher Regions of the air but only ours cross that vast interval of cold and humid air because he finds no congruency thereunto besides the not reflexion of his beams Wherefore the contact of the anointed Javelin and the Wound may as well be call'd Physical as that of the Sun and us which never stirs from his Sphere Besides that we have examples of many contacts made without manifest mediums as those of pestilential and contagious Fevers of blear'd-eyes of the Wolfes aspect causing hoarsness and the killing looks of the Basilisk And indeed if you take away all cures that are wrought by occult and inexplicable means there will be nothing admirable in Physick The Fourth said That in assigning the reason of effects men ordinarily mistake that for a cause which is not so The Rose is not cold because it is white for the Red-rose is so too Spurge is not hot because it hath a milky juice for so have Lettice Eudive c. which are cold Aloes is not hot because it is bitter for Opium which kills through its coldness is of the same taste They also erroneously attribute the cure of diseases to sympathy to the power of characters words images numbers celestial figures and such other things which have no activity at all and most extraordinary cures are effects of the strength of the Mind which is such that where it believes any thing firmly it operates what it believes and that with efficacy provided the subject on which it acts do not repugne But if it comes to have a firm belief of the effect then it follows far more easily For if the understanding is identifi'd with what it knows why shall it not make things like to it self To which firm belief I refer the magnetick cure of wounds and not to that sympathy of the blood on the weapon with that in the veins since if two parts of the same body be wounded the healing of the one will not suffice to the healing of the other and yet there 's more sympathy between the parts of the same body animated with the same form then they have with a little extravasated blood which hath lost all the dispositions that it had like the whole mass II. Of Anger Upon the second Point it was said That Nature has so provided for the contentment of animals that she has given them not only an appetite to pursue good and avoid evil when both may be done without difficulty but also a different one to give courage to the former and to surmount the difficulties occurring in the pursuite of that good and the eschewance of that evil term'd the Irascible appetite from anger the strongest of its passions which serves to check the pungency of grief as fear and boldness come to the assistance of flight and desire is guarded with hope and despair This is the opinion of Plato who makes three sorts of souls one which reasons another which covets and the third which is displeas'd the former of which he places in the Brain the second in the Liver and the last in the Heart Anger then is a passion of the Irascible Appetite caus'd by the apprehension of a present evil which may be repell'd but with some difficulty It s principle is the soul its instrument the spirits its matter the blood its seat the heart not the will as Cardan erroneously conceiv'd for the actions of the will not being organical make no impressions or footsteps upon the body It proceeds either from a temper of body hot and dry and easie to be inflam'd or from the diversity of seasons times ages and sexes Hence the cholerick and young persons are more inclin'd to it then the phlegmatick and aged because they have a temper more proper to this passion Women and children are easily displeas'd through weakness of spirit as 't is a sign of a sublime spirit not to be troubled at any thing but to believe that as every thing is below it self so nothing is capable to hurt it Which reason Aristotle made use of to appease the choler of Alexander telling him that he ought never to be incens'd against his inferiors but only against his equals or superiors and there being none that could equal much less surpass him he had no cause to fall into anger The Second said That the Faculties extending to contraries the eye beholding both white and black and the ear hearing all sort of sounds only the sensitive appetite is carri'd both to good and evil whether accompani'd with difficulties or not as the will alone is carri'd towards all kind of good and evil And as the same gravity inclines the stone towards its centre and makes it divide the air and water which hinder it from arriving thither so the sensitive appetite by one and the same action is carri'd to good flees evil and rises against the difficulties occurring in either Thus anger and grief are in one sole appetite yea anger is nothing but grief for an evil which may be repell'd For it hath no place when the offender is so potent that there is no hope of revenge upon him although 't is rare that a man esteems so low of himself as not to be able to get reason for a wrong done him or apprehended to be done him this passion as all others being excited by causes purely imaginary Thus a single gesture interpreted a contempt offends more then a thrust with a sword by inadvertency And this the more if the contemners be our inferiors or oblig'd to respect us upon other accounts Which makes the enmities between relations or friends irreconcileable For as a good not foreseen rejoyces more so the injury of a friend displeases us far above one done us by our enemies against whom he seem'd to have some reason who implor'd not so often the aid of Heaven because he said Nature taught him to beware of them as against his friends because he did not distrust them The Third said Anger may be consider'd two ways either according to its matter or its form In the former way 't is defin'd an Ebullition of the blood about the Heart In the latter a desire with grief to be reveng'd for an injury done to himself or his friends whom a man is oblig'd to uphold especially if they be too weak to avenge themselves Injury consists either in deeds or words or gestures The first is the most evident and oftimes least sensible for words offend more because being the image of thoughts they shew us the little esteem made of us
blemish Cato's reputation by making him appear 46 times in full Senate to justifie himself from the accusations Envy had charg'd upon him made him more famous And the poyson which it made Socrates drink kill'd his body indeed but render'd his memory immortal The truth is if the Greek Proverb hold good which calls a life without envy unhappy Envy seems in some manner necessary to beatitude it self Whence Themistocles told one who would needs flatter him with commendations of his brave actions that he had yet done nothing remarkable since he had no enviers The Fourth said 'T is such an irregular passion that it seems to aim at subverting the establish'd order of nature and making other laws after its own phancy yea so monstrous that 't is not a bare grief for another's good or a hatred of choler or such other passion but a monster compos'd of all vicious passions and consequently the most mischievous and odious of all CONFERENCE LXXIV I. Whence comes trembling in men II. Of Navigation and Longitudes I. Whence comes trembling in men THe correspondence of the great to the little world requir'd that after the tremblings of the earth those should be spoken which happen to men some of which seize but one part of the body as the head lips hands or legs some the whole body with such violence sometimes that Cardan relates of a woman taken with such a trembling that three strong persons could not hold her 'T is a symptom of motion hurt in which the part is otherwise mov'd then it ought being sometimes lifted up and sometimes cast down For in trembling there are two contrary motions One proceeds from the motive faculty endeavouring to lift up the member which is done by retraction of the muscles towards their original which by shortning themselves draw their tail to the head and at the same time what is annex'd thereunto This motive power serves also to retain the elevated member in the posture wherein we would have it continue the abbreviation of the Muscles not suffering it to return to its first situation The other motion is contrary to the will and to that of the motive power the member being depress'd by its own gravity From which contrariety and perpetual war of these two motions arises trembling one of them carrying the part as the will guides it and the other resisting thereunto which is done more speedily then the pulse and with such short intervals that the senses cannot distinguish any middle and makes us doubt whether there be two motions or but one as a ball sometimes returns so suddenly towards him that struck it that the point of its reflexion is not perceiv'd The causes are very different as amongst others the debility of the part and of the animal faculty as in decrepit old men impotent persons and such as are recovering out of long and dangerous diseases or who have fasted long the weakness of the Nerve the instrument of the animal spirits its obstruction contraction or relaxation the coarctation of the Arteries which send the vital spirits to the Brain there to be made animal spirits and proper for motion as in fear which puts the whole body into an involuntary trembling An Ague also do's the same the natural heat which resides in the arterial being carri'd to the relief of the labouring heart and so the outward parts particularly the nerves whose nature is cold and dry becoming refrigerated and less capable of exercising voluntary motion The Second said That the actions of the motive faculty as of all others may be hurt three ways being either abolish'd diminish'd or deprav'd They are abolish'd in a Palsie which is a total privation of voluntary motion They are diminish'd in Lassitude caus'd either by sharp humors within or by tension of the muscles and tendons or by dissipation of the spirits They are deprav'd in trembling convulsion horror and rigor or shivering Convulsion is a contraction of the muscles towards their original caus'd either by repletion or inanition Rigor shaking and concussion of all the muscles of the body accompani'd with coldness and pain is caus'd according to Galen by the reciprocal motion of natural heat and its encounter with cold in the parts which it endeavours to expell or according to some others by any sharp mordicant and troublesome matter which incommoding the muscles and sensitive parts the expulsive faculty attempts to reject by this commotion Horror differs not from Rigor but in degrees this being in the muscles and that only in the skin produc'd by some matter less sharp and in less quantity But trembling being a depravation and perversion of motion cannot be known but by comparison with that which is regular Now that voluntary motion may be rightly perform'd the brain must be of a due temper for supplying animal spirits and the nerves and parts rightly dispos'd Hence the cause of tremblings is either the distemper of the brain or the defect of animal spirits or the defect of animal spirits or the bad disposition of the nerves and parts A fitting temper being the first condition requisite to action every intemperature of the brain but especially the cold is the cause it cannot elaborate spirits enough to move all the parts But this defect of spirits comes not always from such bad temper but also from want of vital spirits which are sent from the heart to the brain by the arteries to serve for matter to the animal spirits These vital spirits are deficient either when they are not generated in the ventricles of the heart through the fault either of matter or of the generative faculty or are carri'd elsewhere then to the brain by reason of their concentration or effusion As in all violent passions these spirits are either concentred in the heart as in fear and grief or diffus'd from the centre to the circumference as in joy and not sent to the brain and in these cases the motive faculty remains weakned and uncapable of well exercising its motions Lastly the nerves being ill dispos'd by some distemper caus'd either by external cold or other internal causes or else being shrunk or stop'd by some gross humors not totally for then there would be no motion at all they cause tremblings which are imperfect motions like those of Porters who endeavouring to move a greater burthen then they are able to carry the weight which draws downwards and the weakness of their faculty which supports it causes in them a motion like to those that tremble The Third said That to these causes Mercury Hellebore Henbane Wine and Women must be added For they who deal with Quick-silver who have super-purgations use stupefactives and things extreamly cold and Venery in excess and Drunkards have all these tremblings according to the diversity of which causes the remedies are also different Gold is an Antidote against Mercury which will adhere to it Repletion against the second Heat Continence and Sobriety against the rest Galen saith that blood
famous Simon Magus as Saint Clement reports seem'd to create a man in the Air render'd himself invisible appear'd with several faces flew in the Air penetrated rocks turn'd himself into a sheep and a goat commanded a sickle to reap corn as it did more alone then ten labourers and by this means deluded the eyes of all the world except those of Saint Peter Such was also in the dayes of our Fathers one Trisulcan who to defame his Curate made him think that he was playing at cards whereas he was turning over his breviary whereupon he flung it upon the ground and M. Gonin being hang'd on a gibbet the first presidents mule was seen hanging in his place Their transports are sometimes real sometimes imaginary the Devil keeping them in a deep sleep all the while The Third said That the power of Evil Spirits whose instruments Sorcerers are is so limited that they cannot either create or annihilate a straw much lesse produce any substantial form or cause the real descent of the Moon or hinder the Stars motion as Heathen Antiquity stupidly believ'd Indeed they are able to move all sublunary things so they cause Earthquakes the Devil either congregting Exhalations in its hollownesses or agitating the Air included therein Sopater having been put to death for so tying up the winds that no merchandize could be transported to Byzantium And Philostratus relates that Apollonius saw two tubs or tuns among the Brachmans which being open'd there arose most vehement winds and rain and shut again the Air became calm and serene Olaus also testifies the like of the Laplanders and Finlanders who sold winds to Merchants Moreover the Devils are call'd by the Apostle Princes of the Air they cause Hail Thunder Rain and Fire to fall where they please yet alwayes conditionally that God lets the bridle loose to them as he did when he burnt Job's servants and flocks and overthrew the house wherein his children were with a whirl-wind So in the year 1533. a Sorcerer burnt the whole Town of Silthoc in Sweden to the ground And as they can obscure so they can infect the Air and more easily the waters stopping them and making them run backwards which Pliny saith himself saw in his time They kill Animals by infecting them or their pastures or else suffocate them by entring into them as they did the swine of the Gadarenes They can also extinguish the plenty of a Country by transporting the fatness of it elsewhere not by virtue of the Sorcerers words much lesse is it by those that they introduce flies grashoppers and catterpillars or other insects into a place either assembling them together or producing them out of congruous matter The Fourth said That the effects of Nature and Art are to be distinguish'd from those of enchantments for want of which satisfaction some juglers pass for Sorcerers among the vulgar who are apt to apprehend supernatural means when they are ignorant of the natural or artificial causes For removing of which calumny C. Furius Cresnius being accus'd of having bewitch'd his neighbours fields and transported all their fertility into his own brought his servants his oxen and plough into the Senate declaring that these were all his charms Moreover many times the sterility imputed to Sorcerers proceeds from Gods anger who makes the Heaven iron and the Earth brass for their wickedness So when a private person arrives to great honour or estate suddenly though it be by his merit yet the generality of people the meanest of which account themselves worthy of the same fortune attribute such extraordinary progresses to the Devil And yet 't is a rare thing if ever heard of that any one was enrich'd by the Devil either because he reserves his riches for Antichrist wherewith to seduce the Nations or because God doth not suffer it lest men should forsake his service for that of Devils and the good should be too sorely afflicted by the wicked II. Of Amorous Madness Upon the Second Poynt it was said That Love being not very wise of it self 't is no hard matter for it to become extravagant for it cares not for mediocrity and consequently is subject to most tragical accidents It s Excess is call'd Erotick or Amorous Madness which is a species of melancholy deliration caus'd by the continual representation of the thing lov'd which possesses the Phancy of the poor Lovers that they can think of nothing else and many times forget to eat drink and sleep and the other necessary actions of life 'T is different according to diversity of temper of brain and body the degree of the melancholly humour and the profession of those that are possess'd with it Hence melancholy persons are fullest of flatuosities and Spirits and the sanguine as having most blood are most subject to it They are known by their hollow and languishing eyes inequality of pulse and visage especially when the party lov'd is spoken of or seen by which means Galen discover'd the Love-sickness of a Roman Lady and Erasistratus that of Seleuous's Son for his Mother in law Stratonice This distemper is the more dangerous because 't is pleasing to those that are tormented with it and hard to cure because they fear nothing more then their cure being fond of their fetters But being a disease of the Mind the surest remedy is to divert from the thought of what they love and to avoid idleness the mother of lasciviousness The body also must be conveniently purg'd from its predominant humours according to which these patients differ the sanguine are merry and laugh continually and oftentimes alone love songs and dances the cholerick are froward and so furious that some have kill'd themselves through the violence of their passions and Romances are full of such persons The melancholy are pensive solitary and sad that dull and cold humour hebitating the souls motion If this distemper proceed from abundance of geniture remedies must be us'd which extinguish it as Rue Purslane Lettice Water-lilly Willow-leaves Coriander seeds Agnus Castus Camphir and Mint The Second said As Love is the original so 't is the Abridgement of all Passions You may see these poor Lovers in the same hour love and hate fly and desire rejoyce and sorrow fear and dare be angry without a cause and be pacifi'd again with less reason in brief never to have their Minds setled any more then their bodies in the same posture and complexion alike Whence many have thought this malady produc'd by enchanted Drinks or Philtres which may indeed make one amorous but not determine him to a certain person besides that these Drinks cannot act upon our Will which is incorporeal nor captivate its liberty to a particular object unless the Devil have a hand in the business The Third said That the famousest of all Philtres is Hippomenes powder'd and taken knowingly by the Lover 'T is a little black and round piece of flesh about the bigness of a dry fig found upon a Colt's fore-head new
the soul corporeal there would be a penetration of dimensions in its union with the body consequently 't is no Element nor any Compound of them as Empedocles and Plato phanci'd upon this ground that the soul being to judge of all things should therefore have all their principles and elements in it self Which is absurd for it knows divers things not compos'd of the Elements as the Angels and Heavens So that the soul must be concluded in the number of those things which 't is easier to affirm what they are not then what they are The Fifth said That the soul is a fire whose centre is Heaven and God the source who is call'd by the name of fire in the Holy Text. Hence life an effect of the soul is nothing else but heat and death cold Moreover as fire makes bodies lighter so living bodies are less heavy then dead And the Hebrews call man Isch from the word Esch fire as the Greeks do Phôs which signifies light which is a species of fire lucid but not ardent which light appears upon bodies whilst living and dis-aspears as soon as they are dead Now the different sorts of souls are produc'd of different lights Those of Plants are form'd of that of the air whence they have no sensible heat as the sensitive have which are generated of the Sun which also gives them local motion rational souls are beams diffus'd from God who inhabits light inaccessible And as waters ascend as high as their springs so the souls of Plants exalt themselves into the air whose mutations they follow those of Beasts return into the Sun and those of men are reflected towards God having this common with light that they perish not but return to the place of their nativity Agreeably whereunto Solomon saith That there is nothing new under the Sun since even the forms of things are not new but only appear in their turn one after another as when light forsakes our Hemisphere it no more perishes then shadow but they both make a continual circle which follows that of the Sun II. Of the Apparition of Spirits Upon the second Point it was said That the perfection of the Universe requires the existence of Intellectual Creatures such as Angels and Rational Souls A truth acknowledg'd by Aristotle who assigns nine Spirits subservient to the First Mover according to the number of heavens which they are to move although Mercurius Trismegistus acknowledges but two which hold the Arctick and Antarctick Poles Which Avicenna also denoted by his Chain of Intelligences Amongst these Spirits some are destinated for the preservation of men as Guardian Angels call'd by the Apostle ministring Spirits which were the Genii of the ancients by which they made their greatest Oathes Others have continual war with mankind as the Devils Others animate bodies as Rational Souls which after the bodies dissolution are happy or miserable according as they have done good or evil As for Angels and Demons History both sacred and prophane testifies their frequent apparition to men Daily experience proves the same of the souls of the dead though some question it But besides that 't is presumption to dis-believe all antiquity which tells us of a Ghost which spoke to Brutus one which shew'd a Sceleton in chains to Athenodorus the Philosopher and that of Cleonice which tormented Pausanias who had slain her as long as he liv'd as also the Ghost of Agrippina did her son Nero. The authority of Holy Scripture instructs us of the return of Samuel Moses and Elias and the same reason which makes the soul loath to part from its body argues it desirous to visit the same or the places and persons wherewith it was most delighted Nor is it more difficult to conceive how a separated soul can move it self then how it moves the body which it animates the one and the other being equally incomprehensible The Second said Spectres exist not saving in the Phancy those who think they see them conceding that they are not palpable nor beheld alike of all by standers and men being prone to acquiesce in their own imaginations though misguided by the passions of fear hope love desire especially children and women who are more susceptible of all impressions because their phancies are so weak as to be no less mov'd with its own fictions then real external representations by the Senses But strong minds are not subject to such delusions The Third said He is too sensual who believes nought but what he sees for according to this account nothing but accidents which alone fall under the cognizance of sense should be admitted So the Saduces and all Libertines deny spirits whilst they appeal only to Sense Although it be an universal Doctrine of all sober antiquity that there are spirits and that they appear oftentimes to men in cases of necessity wherewith according to Aristotle himself the souls of the dead friends are affected a manifest argument of the soul's immortality which he believ'd only by the light of nature As Apuleius reports the Platonists make three sorts of Spirits First Demons or Genii which are souls whilst they animate bodies Second Lares or Penates the souls of such as had liv'd well and after death were accounted tutelary gods of the houses which they had inhabited Third Lemures or Hobgoblins the souls of the wicked given to do mischief or folly after death as they did during their life Some others especially the Poets conceiv'd man compos'd of three parts Body Soul and Shadow which latter appeared after dissolution of the two former the body returning into its elements and the soul going either to Heaven or Hell as the shadow did into the Elysian fields from whence it had no liberty to return but only wander'd up and down so long as the body wanted burial The Fourth said We must distinguish between Vision and Apparition The former is when we think we behold a thing which afterwards comes accordingly to pass as it appear'd the latter is when some visible forms present themselves to us either waking or asleep and 't is of three sorts intellectual imaginary and corporeal The intellectual is when separated substances insinuate themselves into the mind without borrowing any external shape The imaginary is when they imprint some strange forms or species in the phancy and by this means make themselves known to us The corporeal is when they present themselves to our outward senses To omit the first which is rare and an image of the Beatifical Vision the imaginary apparition of souls is caus'd when Angels or Demons according to the quality of the souls pourtray in our phancy the species and signs of their countenance and personage which they had during life which appears sad cover'd with black whilst they yet indure the punishments of their sins but cheerful and in white habit when they are deliver'd from the same And although this apparition is imaginary yet 't is real too Thus Judas Maccabaeus knew Onias and
sign so neither is an effect to be infer'd from one line so and so but from many together although they are commonly fallacious too unless the inclinations likewise be known by Physiognomy and Astrology The Fifth said All effects are either natural or free those come from a necessary and infallible which hath no affinity with the lines of the hand erroneously alledg'd to signifie the same and these being from the Will cannot be caus'd by a concurrence of lines differing either fortuitously or according to the various situations of the bones or several foldings of the child's hands in his mothers belly or by different exercises and variety of Climates they of hot Countries having scorch'd skins and more lines otherwise configurated then Northern people and Artisans then Courtiers and idle people And so there would need different rules of Palmistry according to Countries and qualities which is absurd The truth is if any thing may be conjectur'd 't is from the parts which contribute something to what they are signes of So a large fore-head may be the note of good capacity because it shews that the Ventricles of the Brain are large and a bony and sinewy man is with reason judg'd strong But the hand can afford no indication if you except its largenesse or thicknesse by proportion of which with the other parts that are not seen one may judge of its strength 'T is therefore a fallacious Art which takes that for a cause and a sign which is nothing lesse The sixth said Chiromancy is of two sorts Physical or Astrological The former is grounded upon the same principles with Physiognomy and is a part of it discovering by the several accidents of the hand it s own temper with that of the whole body and consequently the manners and inclinations Hence the Chiromancers affirm with great probability that those that have thick hands have the other parts which are unseen alike and consequently a dull wit and so on the contrary But that which is purely Astrological and is founded upon imaginary principles seems not only faulty but very ridiculous yea and pernitious too and therefore is prohibited by Laws both Humane and Divine II. Which is the noblest part of the Body Upon the Second Point 't was said That man's body being a structure compos'd of many parts not onely similary as in plants and stones but organical destinated to each action which being their end will also be the measure and standard of their noblenesse as Officers and Ministers of State or Family are esteem'd according to their imployment Now an Animals noblest action is Life and therefore the Heart the author thereof and source of heat and spirits is the noblest of all parts Moreover Aristotle sayes it lives first and dyes last and is in the little world what the Sun is in the great imparting light and motion to all the parts of the body as the Heavens do to all sublunary things Therefore many Animals want other parts but none a heart which is so absolutely necessary that its least wound is mortall The Second said Whether Nobility betaken from Antiquity or necessity the Liver is the noblest of all For the Animal at first lives the life of a Plant and so needed nourishment first the supplying of which being the Livers office it is therefore form'd before any of the entrails Nor could we exercise our senses or reasonable actions if we were not nourish'd the functions of all faculties ceasing as soon as the Livers provision is spent Yea no animal action can be perform'd without spirits the matter of which is blood elaborated in the Liver Which as 't is the cause of the four humours and consequently of Health or Sicknesse so 't is the seat of Love the noblest of all the passions The Third said As much nobler as the species is then the Individual comprehended under it so much are the parts serving to its conservation nobler then others which conserve onely the particular Therefore Galen reckons them among the principal parts They serve to enliven the body whose temper colour beauty voice and other qualities their deprivation not only destroys but also changes the manners of the Mind and extinguishes Courage as appears in cocks when castrated Add hereunto that they are hardest to be tam'd and therefore most noble The Fourth said That Generation being common to men not onely with beasts but also with plants being an action of the natural faculty it cannot be the noblest action of man but rather the Understanding which being exercis'd in the brain the seat of the Rational Soul this without dispute is the noblest of all whence 't is call'd Heaven by Homer a divine member by Plato and generally accounted the mansion of wisdom and temple of divinity which appears chiefly in the structure of its rete mirabile labyrinth and ventricles Moreover all the parts were made for the brain For man was born to understand and the intellectual faculty holds its seat in the brain To understand well it needed phantasmes and species which were to be receiv'd by the senses plac'd for that purpose in the head and to judge of the diversity of sensible objects it ought to have local motion and in order thereunto muscles tendons nerves and bones These actions of the Understanding are perform'd by help of the Animal Spirits the matter whereof are the vital of the Heart as the matter of these are the natural whence learned men are commonly lean and unhealthy because their natural spirits go to the brain instead of being carry'd to the parts in order to nutrition The Fifth said That to omit Aesop's opinion who prefer'd the tongue before any other part and found it most powerful to do either good or evil the hand seem'd to him as much more excellent then the brain as the active is to be estimated above the contemplative Therefore Aristotle calls it the Organ of Organs and 't is the symbol of faith strength and civility whence remain still the termes of kissing the hands CONFERENCE LXXXII I. Which is most powerful Art or Nature II. Whether Wine is most to be temper'd in Winter or in Summer I. Which is most powerful Art or Nature THe power of Nature and Art cannot be better judg'd then by their opposition yet how should any be between them whilst Art can do nothing without Nature For if the hand be off of Industry 't was Nature that made it a hand If the Sword be valued for the Art which fashion'd it and brought it into a condition to give Law to him that hath none 't is to the Iron produc'd by Nature in the Mines that it owes its matter And thus making the same induction through all disciplines 't will be found that they cannot be imagin'd without Nature not Logick without natural reason nor Grammar without speech nor Speech without a tongue nor writing without ink and paper nor these without the matter whereof they are made no more then a
a good while And whereas the air kills fishes when they are long expos'd to it it cannot serve for the support of their natural heat which is very small Wherefore they respire with water which is more natural and familiar to them causing the same effects in them that the air doth in land-animals The Second said As the aliments ought to be sutable to the parts of the body which they nourish the soft and spungy Lungs attracting the thin bilious blood the spleen the gross and melancholy so the spirits of the animal must be repair'd by others proportionate thereunto and of sutable matter for recruiting the continual loss of that spiritual substance the seat of the natural heat and radical moisture Wherefore animals which have aqueous spirits as fishes repair the same by water which they respire by the mouth the purest part of which water is turn'd into their spirits and the more gross omitted by their gills But land-animals whose spirits are aerious and more subtile and whose heat is more sensible have need of air to serve for sutable matter to such spirits for which end nature ha's given them Lungs Yet with this difference that as some fish attract a more subtile and tenuious water to wit that of Rivers and some again a more gross as those which live in Lakes and Mud So according as animals have different spirits some breathe a thin air as Birds others more gross as Men and most Beasts others an air almost terrestrial and material as Moles and amongst those which have only transpiration flyes attract a thin air and Worms a thick The Second said That our natural heat being celestial and divine may indeed be refresh'd by the air but not fed and supported as the parts of our body are by solid and liquid food For food must be in some manner like the thing nourish'd because 't is to be converted into its substance Now there 's no proportion between the gross and impure air which we breathe and that celestial and incorporeal substance Nor can nutrition be effected unless the part to be nourish'd retain the aliment for some time to prepare and assimilate it but on the contrary the air attracted by respiration is expell'd as soon as it hath acquir'd heat within and is become unprofitable to refresh and cool This respiration is an action purely animal and voluntary since 't is in our power to encrease diminish or wholly interrupt it as appears by Licinius Macer and Coma who by the report of Valerius Maximus kill'd themselves by holding their breath The Fourth said That Respiration being absolutely necessary to life is not subject to the command of the will but is regulated by nature because it doth its actions better then all humane deliberations Nor is it ever weary as the animal faculty is whose action is not continual as this of respiration is even during sleep which is the cessation of all animal actions and wherein there is no election or apprehension of objects a necessary condition to animal actions yea in the lethargy apoplexie and other symptoms wherein the brain being hurt the animal actions are interrupted yet respiration always remains unprejudic'd The Fifth said That respiration is neither purely natural as concoction and distribution of the blood are nor yet simply animal as speaking and walking are but partly animal partly natural as the retaining or letting go of urine is 'T is natural in regard of its end and absolute necessity and its being instituted for the vital faculty of the heart which is purely natural animal and voluntary inasmuch as 't is perform'd by means of 65 intercostal muscles the organs of voluntary motion whereby it may be made faster or slower II. Whether there be any certainty in humane Sciences Upon the second Point 't was said That all our knowledge seems to be false First on the part of the object there being but one true of it self namely God whom we know not and cannot know because to know adaequately is to comprehend and to comprehend is to contain and the thing contain'd must be less then that which contains it To know a thing inadaequately is not to know it Secondly on the part of our Intellect which must be made like to what it knows or rather turn'd into its nature whence he that thinks of a serious thing becomes serious himself he that conceives some ridiculous thing laughs without design and all the longings of Child-bearing-women end where they begun But 't is impossible for us to become perfectly like to what we would know Thirdly this impossibility proceeds from our manner of knowing which being by some inference or consequence from what is already known we can never know any thing because we know nothing at all when we come into the world And should we acquire any knowledge it would be only by our internal and external senses Both both are fallacious and consequently cannot afford certain knowledge For as for the external the eye which seems the surest of all the senses apprehends things at distance to be less then they really are a straight stick in the water to be crooked the Moon to be of the bigness of a Cheese though 't is neer that of the Earth the Sun greater at rising and setting then at noon the Shore to move and the Ship to stand still square things to be round at distance an erect Pillar to be less at the top Nor is the hearing less subject to mistake as the Echo and a Trumpet sounded in a valley makes the sound seem before us when 't is far behind us Pronuntiation alters the sense of words besides that both these senses are erroneous in the time of their perception as is seen in felling of woods and thunder The Smell and Taste yea the Touch it self how gross soever it be are deceiv'd every day in sound persons as well as in sick and what do our drinkers in rubbing their palates with Salt and Spice but wittingly beguile it grating the skin thereof that so the wine may punge it more sensibly But the great fallacy is in the operation of the inward Senses For the Phancy oftentimes is perswaded that it hears and sees what it doth not and our reasoning is so weak that in many disciplines scarce one Demonstration is found though this alone produceth Science Wherefore 't was Democritus's opinion that Truth is hidden in a well that she may not be found by men The Second said That to know is to understand the cause whereby a thing is and to be certain that there can be no other but that the word cause being taken for principle Therefore when men know by the Senses by effects by external accidents or such other things which are not the cause they cannot be said to know by Science which requires that the understanding be fully satisfi'd in its knowledge wherein if there be any doubt it hath not Science but Opinion This scientifical knowledge is found in
constitution inclines them before the contraction of any habit vertuous or vicious some of courage others of timidity some of modesty others of impudence and as soon as they begin to speak some are lyers others love truth And of two children taught by the same Master the hardest student is many times a less prosicient then the other who hath a temper proper for learning and is as inclin'd to it as another is to Merchandize Mechanicks Travel War or this will be quarrelsome the other respectful and discreet one is born to servitude and the other prefers his liberty before a Kingdom So that not only the moral actions of the will but also those of the understanding absolutely depend on the body the soul being of a spiritual nature which of it self can never produce any sensible effect without the mediation of some body not so much as exercise its proper actions of Willing and Understanding both which depend on the phantasms which are intellectual species fabricated by the agent intellect in the Patient upon the model of those that were brought by the senses into the imagination hence if these be alter'd or deprav'd by the spirits or humous flowing to the brain reasoning becomes either diminish'd or deprav'd or else wholly abolish'd the spirits so confounding these phantasms that the intellect cannot make its reviews nor compose or divide them in order to elicite its conclusions and frame its notions For souls differ only by the spirits the tenuity and lucidity whereof is proper for contemplation their abundance makes a man bold their inflammation renders him frantick their defect causeth sloth and cowardize and being design'd to serve equally to the actions of the soul and body they were made of a middle nature between body and spirit whence they are called spiritual bodies and are the cause of union between them and mutual communication of their passions and affections So the bodies diseases affect the soul and disturb its operations the spirits abandoning the brain to succour the grieved parts the bilious humour in the ventricles of the brain or a tumour and a Sphacelus cause madness the blood overheated causeth simple folly accompani'd with laughter melancholy produceth serious folly In like manner the body resents the passions of the soul fear causeth trembling and paleness shame blushing anger foaming and all this by the spirits The Fifth said If manners depended on tempers vertues might be easily acquir'd by the course of diet which seems ridiculous For then the divine faculties of the soul should depend not only upon meats but upon all other things not natural which would be to subject the Queen to her servants to enslave the will and take away its liberty which makes it to be what it is Besides Theology cannot consist with this conclusion which would acquit persons of blame and lay it upon nature as its author For he that should commit some evil cholerick action or other sin could not avoid it being lead thereunto by the bilious humour produc'd by nature whereunto 't is almost impossible to resist and so he would seem innocent and unjustly punish'd for what he committed not voluntarily though without the will there is no sin Moreover men would not be variable but always the same the bilious always angry the sanguine ever in love c. and yet we see men exercise all sorts of virtues and capable of all vices Many beasts have not only the same constitution of brain but also external shape like that of man as Apes whose bones are so like those of men that in Galen's time Anatomists consider'd only their Sceletons yea the same temper and all internal parts alike as Swine and there 's little or no difference between the brain of man and a calf and yet none of these animals have actions like those of men which being purely spiritual and intellectual must depend upon another cause the rational soul whose actions are not any way organical for then it should be corporeal because proceeding from the body and consequently mortal II. Of Sights or Shews Upon the second Point 't was said That the communication of the ills and goods of the soul and body has put men upon searching what may relieve the languishing strength of either And as the soul is delighted by bodily pleasures so it also in gratitude returns the like pleasure to the body by the contentment which it receives in acquiring knowledge the least laborious of which is that most recreative as that is which is convey'd by the sight For the hearing makes us know things only one after another but the sight shewing them all at once more fully satisfies our natural desire of knowing Hence all people from the highest to the lowest are so delighted with shews or spectacles that the Romans kept Actors and Comedians with publick pensions and Cicero publickly commended Roscius who alone had 12000 crowns for a stipend from the Roman people They employ'd the incomes of the woods about Rome dedicated to their gods for the maintaining of Theatres Amphitheatres Cirques and other places destinated to shews wherein the Senators and Knights had the fourteen first ranks or seats for whose conveniency Q. Catulus cover'd the Scene with veils of sine linen Lucius and Cinna made a versatile or shifting Scene P. Claudius was the first that adorn'd it with pictures and tables C. Antonius cover'd it with silver Murena made one of pure silver Trebonius one guilded others inlay'd with Ivory Nero sprinkled all the place of the Cirque where the horses run with gold-sand and cover'd it with veils beset with stars in form of a sky Heliogabalus made an Euripus of wine at the Circensian plays in which he caus'd a Naval Battle to be represented as if the wickedest Princes could not have cover'd their enormities with a more specious liberality or more agreeable to the people These spectacles were likewise us'd at the funerals of great Princes and made part of their service of the gods They divert the great make the miserable forget their affliction are the true physick of the soul the book of the ignorant and the only way truly to revive the transactions of former ages The Second said Nothing is so destructive to good manners as the frequentation of Theatres and most other spectacles which is the most dangerous for that things represented to the eyes make deeper impression in the mind then by any other sense Which made Aristotle advise the prohibiting of Comedies and S. Augustin declare them contrary to piety and honesty The same is the opinion of all the Fathers particularly Tertullian who in an express treatise blames all sort of spectacles as proceeding from the superstition of Paganism causing troubles and quarrels yea rendring men capable of all sort of wickedness by the impression of their examples For the sights of Mimes and Pantomimes are ridiculous Rope-dancers unprofitable Farces or Enterludes dangerous and enemies to purity Comedy the least dangerous of all sights
or triple The Second said That every thing that is mortal and corruptible is such in that it hath in it self some cause of this corruption All mortal bodies being compos'd of contrary ingredients have in themselves the principle of corruption from which as well simple bodies as the Elements and Heavens as Spirits and separate intelligences are free because a thing simple in its own nature cannot act upon it self by a destructive action though even those Spirits have but an arbitrary existence from their first cause on whom they depend But in the first sence and of their own nature they are absolutely incorruptible for were they corruptible then must some new substance be generated out of that which is corrupted which is absurd because they are simple and free from composition and consequently from corruption Now were reasonable Souls which are part of man who is compounded of matter and form again compounded of matter and form there would be a progression to infinity in causes which is contrary to natural reason Moreover nothing is corrupted but by its contrary and therefore that which hath no contrary is free from corruption But such is the rational soul which is so far from having any contrary that the most contrary things in Nature as habits and their privations being receiv'd in the Understanding are no longer opposites or enemies but friends and of the same nature whence the reason of contraries is alike and there is but one Science of them The Third said That such as a thing is such is its action A corporeal and material substance cannot produce an action which is not corporeal and an immaterial action owns no other principle but what is immaterial and incorruptible Hence the same reasons which prove the souls of brutes mortal because their operations exceed not the bounds of the body and tend onely to self-preservation and sensible good conclude also though by a contrary sense for the immortality of the rational soul whose operations are spiritual and abstracted from the body For nutrition concoction assimilation sense motion and other such actions being corporeal because terminated upon sensible and corporeal objects must consequently be produc'd by a faculty of the same nature corporeal and material But the reasonable soul besides those actions which are common to it with those of beasts hath some peculiar and much more sublime as by the Intellect to understand eternal truths to affirm deny suspend its judgement compare things together abstract them from matter time place and all other sensible accidents by the will to love and embrace vertue in spight of the contrary inclinations of the sensitive appetite to do good actions though difficult to avoid the evil which flatters the senses and the like which actions being above the body and material objects cannot be produc'd but by an immaterial and incorruptible substance such as the reasonable soul is Moreover since the soul can know all sorts of bodies it must consequently be exempt from all corporeal entity as the tongue to judge aright of sapours must have none and the eye to discern colours well The Fourth said That Nature which makes nothing in vain hath imprinted in every thing a desire of its end whereof it is capable as appears by induction of all created Beings Now the greatest desire of man is immortality whereunto he directs all his actions and intentions and therefore he must be capable of it But since he cannot accomplish this end in this life as all other things do it must be in another without which not only good men would be more unhappy then wicked but in general the condition of men would be worse then that of beasts if after having endur'd so many infelicities which brutes experience not the haven of our miseries were the annihilation of the noblest part of our selves Yea if the soul could not subsist without the body its supream good should be in this life and in the pleasures of the body and its chiefest misery in afflictions and the exercises of vertue which is absurd For whereas 't is commonly objected that the soul cannot exercise its noblest functions but by help of corporeal organs rightly dispos'd and that when it is separated from those organs it can act no longer and consequently shall exist no more action and subsistence being convertible this is to take that for granted which is in controversie namely that the soul cannot act without the organs of the body when it is separated from the same since it operates sometimes more perfectly when 't is freest from the senses as in Extasies burning Fevers in the night time and in old age The Fifth said As in Architecture the principal piece of a building is the Foundation so the most necessary of a Science is to lay good Principles without which first establish'd all our Sciences are but conjectures and our knowledge but opinion Now in order to judge whether the souls immortality be demonstrable by natural reasons 't is to be enquir'd whether we can find the principles of this truth whose terms being known may be naturally clear and granted by all The most ordinary are these 1. Every thing which is spiritual is incorruptible 2. That which is material is mortal 3. That which is immaterial is immortal 4. That which God will preserve eternally is immortal 5. A thing acts inasmuch as it exists and some other principles by which this so important verity seems but ill supported For the first is not absolutely true since habits of grace and natural habits which are spiritual are annihilated and corrupted those by sin these by intermission of the actions which produc'd them Then for the second 't is notoriously false since not only the forms of the Elements which are material and the Elements themselves consider'd according to their whole extent but also the first matter are incorruptible and eternal and according to the opinion of many Doctors of the Church 't is not an article of faith that the Angels are incorporeal although it be de fide that they are immortal to say nothing of igneous aerious demons and other corporeal genii of the Platonists As for the third the actions of the understanding and the will are immaterial and nevertheless perish as soon as they are conceiv'd and the intentional species are not incorruptible though not compos'd either of matter or form on the contrary the Heavens which are so compos'd are yet incorruptible Whereby it appears that immortality depends on something else As for the fourth 't is as difficult to prove that God will eternally preserve reasonable souls as that they are immortal And for the last 't is certain that many things act above their reach and the condition of their nature since that which exists not as the end nevertheless acts by exciting the efficient cause motion begets heat which it self hath not and light a corporeal quality is mov'd in an instant which is the property of incorporeal substances as also
to weep and a time to laugh as the Wiseman testifies so that to do either continually is equally vicious Yet laughter being most sutable to man who is defin'd by the faculty he hath to laugh and not by that of weeping which is common to Harts and Crocodiles who shed true tears and other beasts weep after their manner but none laughs I conceive that the laughter of Democritus was lesse blameable then the weeping of Heraclitus whose tears render'd him odious and iusupportable to all the world which on the contrary is greatly pleas'd with the company of laughers and easily side with them Moreover their Jovial and sanguine humour is always to be preferr'd before the Saturnine and melancholy humour of weepers who are their own greatest enemies exhausting their moisture and by concentration of the spirits hindring the free functions of reason Whereas laughter which is a sign of joy and contentment dilates the spirits and causes all the actions of life to be perform'd better And the laughter of Democritus exciting the like motion of joy in the spectators their joy dilated their spirits and render'd them more docible and capable to receive his counsels The Third said That as a Physitian were no lesse impertinent in laughing at his Patient then imprudent in weeping for the malady which he sees him endure So Democritus and Heraclitus were as ridiculous the one as the other in laughing at or lamenting the misery of men Moreover it seems to be a sign of repentance that he put out his own eyes and not to Philosophize the better otherwise he should have done as one that cut off his own legs that he might leap the better since the eyes are the windows of the soul whereby it admits almost all its informations Heraclitus therefore was more excusable because tears proceed from charity and compassion but laughter is an effect of contempt and procures us as much hatred as the other do's affection Besides Democritus's laughter could neither make others better nor himself for what profit can be made by the ironies and gibes of a mocker On the contrary tears are so perswasive that Augustus as subtle as he was suffer'd himself to be deceiv'd by those of Cleopatra and believ'd her willing to live when she had resolv'd to dye The Fourth said That both of them had reason considering the vanity of the things of the world which are equally ridiculous and deplorable For though laughter and weeping seem contraries yet they may proceed from the same cause Some Nations have wept at the birth of their children whereas we make exultations Many have laugh'd at Alexander who wept because he had no more worlds to conquer Xerxes wept when he beheld his goodly Army of which not one person was to be left after a hundred years whilst a Philosopher of his train laugh'd at it And in both passions there is a retraction of the nerves whence the features of the countenance of one that laughs are like those of him that weeps Moreover the three subjects which may oblige men to laughter namely the crosses of furtune and what they call Virtue and Science afford equal matter of laughing and weeping When fortune casts down such as she had advanc'd to the top of her wheel are not they as worthy of commiseration as of derision for having trusted to her inconstancy When our Gentry cut one another's throats for an ambiguous word lest they should seem cowards are they not as deplorable as ridiculous in taking the shadow of virtue for it self And as for Science should these two Philosophers come from the dead and behold our youth spend ten years in learning to speak and all our Philosophy reduc'd to a bundle of obscure distinctions would not they dye once more with equal reason the one with weeping and the other with laughing CONFERENCE XCI I. Whether heat or cold be more tolerable II. Who are most happy in this World Wise Men or Fools I. Whether heat or cold be more tolerable COmparison moves us more then any other thing And though no sense be less fallacious then the Touch yet 't is guided by comparison as well as the rest Thus Caves seem cold in the Summer because we come out of the hot air and hot in Winter because the same air which we forsake is cold the Cave remaining always in the same temper without recurring to those Antiperistases which have no foundation in the thing the organs of the Touch being the sole competent judges of the several degrees of tangible qualities the first of which are heat and cold provided those Organs be neither too obtuse as in the Paralytical nor too exquisite as when the nerve lyes naked 'T is requisite also that the man who judges be in health for he that has an Ague thinks nothing too cold in his hot fit and nothing too hot or so much as temperate during the cold fit so the phlegmatick and melancholy bear heat better then cold the bilious and sanguine the latter better then the former as correcting the excess of their own temper Now at first sight heat seems more supportable because more congruous to life which consists in heat by which Galen defines the soul as death in its contrary cold Moreover nature hath made the hot Climates more large and capacious then the cold which are two very streight ones although she hath supply'd those Regions with the remedy of Furs all the rest of the world is either hot or temperate and always more hot then cold Nevertheless I conclude for cold because heat joyn'd to our heat renders it excessive whereas cold being encounter'd by it there results a temperate third Besides the opposition of cold redoubles the natural heat whence we have greater appetite in Winter then in Summer sleep longer and perform all natural functions better and are more cheerful in mind whereas in Summer our bodies and minds are languid and less capable of labour and 't is more dangerous in reference to health to cool our selves in Summer then to heat our selves in in Winter the first occasioning the latter preventing most diseases The Second said That cold being an enemy to nature it excess must be more hurtful and consequently more insupportable then that of heat particularly that of the Sun For this grand Luminary the soul of the Universe and whose heat is the cause of all generations must also be that of their preservation not of their destruction Whence the excess of his heat is much more tolerable then that of cold Moreover hot Countries are more fertile and the Scripture teaches us that the first Colonies came from the South Yea some Doctors place the Terrestrial Paradise under the Aequinoctial whence it follows that hot Regions having been first inhabited have also been most habitable even the Torrid Zone thought unhabitable by all antiquity experience hath found very populous whereas the cold are but very little habitable and not at all beyond the 78 degree The
vapour hath humidity from the water and exhalation siccity from the earth yet this siccity must be joyn'd with some unctuosity to admit the heat which acts not upon bodies destitute of all humidity as the driest ashes are not alter'd by the hottest fire The driest and least unctuous of these Exhalations are in the middle Region transform'd into winds and tempests in the entrails of the earth they cause Earth-quakes and if they be somewhat more unctuous they make subterranean fires in the upper Region they form Comets and in the lower our Ignes fatui which are different according to the divers coition of their matter in length breadth or circularly whence comes the difference of these Meteors call'd falling Stars Flames leaping Goats flying Dragons Beams Lances Javelins and other like names from the figure of their matter Yet all these differences are chiefly taken from the magnitude figure colour time motion and place of these fires Magnitude because some are large and spatious others very small Their figure comes from chance their colour from the mixture rarity or density of the matter Their time is chiefly the night being then most visible Their place from the Heaven of the Moon to the centre of the Earth Their motion according to the six differences of place and the situation of their subject Hence they pursue those that fly them and on the contrary fly before those that pursue them whereupon the ignorant vulgar takes them for evil spirits because they drive and lead them into precipices and bogs which is from their following the unctuous matters which they exhale from those places whence also they commonly appear near places of execution and Church-yards II. Of Eunuchs Upon the Second Point 't was said That the Canons make three sorts of Eunuchs the natural the factitious and the voluntary congruously to our Lords division in the Gospel that some are born others are made by men and others make themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven which is no more to be taken literally then the plucking out of the eyes or the cutting off of the hands when they offend us but mystically for those who voluntarily renounce the pleasures of the flesh Their original is as ancient as the Law of Nations whereby the Conquerors giving law to the conquer'd chang'd the punishment of killing them into mutilation of some members and amongst the rest of these to make them more faithful and affectionate by depriving them of the means of getting children and more trusty in keeping of their goods and wives Hence they have come to be so highly esteem'd that not only the Emperors of Constantinople the Kings of Egypt Persia and Chaldea have entrusted them with the management of all their affairs but also in the Roman Empire an Eunuch Slave was valu'd at five times as much as another Besides that their purity has qualifi'd them amongst the Heathen for Priests of their Deities amongst which the Goddesses Isis and Cybele admitted no other which possibly by antiphrasis were call'd Galli Even in Christianity the Eunuch of the Queen Candace was the first Gentile call'd to the light of the Gospel the expressions whereof Origen understanding literally castrated himself by an example so singular that St. Jerome chose rather to admire then to blame the greatness of his courage The Second said If it be true that good consists in the perfection of all parts and evil in their least defect the deficiency of those necessary to the conservation of the species is the greatest of all since it devests us of the noble quality and character of man which an Eunuch is no longer nor yet a Woman but something less then both And as the propagation of men is an effect of the divine benediction at the beginning of the World so the barrenness and impotence of Eunuchs contrary to that fruitfulness is abhorr'd by all the world and was taken by the Jews for a curse Moreover Nature which is the principle of motions and generations seems to disown those who want the parts requisite to this action The Laws forbid them the priviledge of adoption and most Offices and Dignities God himself in the old Law prohibited them entrance into his Church and in the New the Church forbids them the use of her Sacraments namely Orders and Marriage Nor is it any wonder since every thing in nature is fruitful even accidents reproducing their species which are so many generations Wherefore finding no place among natural things nor in the Categories it follows that they are monsters The Emperor Adrian extended the penalty of the Law Cornelia against those who make Eunuchs or consent any way thereunto L. 4. S. ad L. Corn. And before him the Pretors had introduc'd divers actions touching this matter as the action of Injuries of the Edict of the Aediles and of Quadruple in the Law 27. S. ad leg Aquil. And lastly the Emperor Constantine expresly interdicted Castration in all the Empire under pain of life and others contain'd in two Laws De Eunuchis in the Code The Third said That whether you consider Eunuchs in reference to the body or the mind they are happier then others They are out of danger of being gouty and bald two maladies whereof the one extremely torments a man and the other dishonours him and it cures the most horrible of all maladies the Leprosie On the other side it puts the same difference between the manners of men as it doth between untractable horses and others Hence the Castrated are more pleasant company and to contribute thereunto Nature has afforded them the grace of a delicate voice all their lives which forsakes children as soon as they come to puberty and being exempted from the diseases which the excess of Venery brings to others they are longer-liv'd and more easily bear the excess of wine They are deliver'd from the cruel servitude of lust and all the other passions which attend it And in recompence of those parts wherewith Asses and Mules are better provided then men they are early furnish'd with wisdom and continence which as the example of Susanna's old Lovers shews happens later to man then grey hairs Moreover Eunuchs have a fit temper for goodness of wit which according to some occasion'd the Greek name Eunuch and not their charge of guarding the bed and observing the deportments of Wives whole subtilty and infidelity may delude their Husbands but could never deceive the vigilance of these Argusses who in this alone shew what they can do since they have the skill to govern that sex which is indisciplinable by all other CONFERENCE C. I. Of the Green-Sickness II. Of Hermaphrodites I. Of the Green-sickness AS women have commonly more defects in mind so their bodies are subject to more diseases then those of men amongst which this is call'd Love-sickness because it ordinarily happens to marriageable Virgins and the Green-sickness by Hippocrates Chlorosis from a colour between green and livid which it imprints upon the
more extinct it turns into other colours as the Blew which we behold in a clear Sky and forward into others till it come to black which is no colour but a privation of it as darkness is nothing but the privation of light So that to dispute the reality of colours is to question whether the clearest thing in the world viz. Light be real The Seventh said Light and Colour differ in that Light is the act of the Diaphanous body inasmuch as 't is Diaphanous and Colour the extremity of the Diaphanum as it is terminated For no Diaphanum whilst it remains such is colour'd but colour ariseth from the condensation and thickness of the Diaphanum which terminates our sight And though colour be as much in the inside of bodies as in their surface yet 't is not call'd colour saving when 't is visible and 't is visible only in the surface Light is incorporeal and immaterial colour on the contrary is a material and corporeal quality Light makes colour to be seen but makes it self seen by its own vertue Yet there is this resemblance between them that every thing which we see colour'd we see it as luminous whence Plato in his Timaeus call's colour a flame issuing out of bodies and every thing that we see luminous we see it inasmuch as 't is colour'd Whence the Stars appear to us of a pale yellow or red colour And as that which is terminated is seen by means of the illuminated Diaphanum so this Diaphanum is seen because 't is terminated For when we see the colour of a terminated body we judge that there must be a transparent and diaphanous body between it and our eye Wherefore as the Intellect doth not know it self but by another so the eye doth not see the Diaphanum but by seeing that which is not diaphanous But both the one and the other seems partly real and partly imaginary and arising from the various relation and proportion of the eye to the object and the medium since as for colours not only some Pictures represent several personages but one and the same Taffeta changes colour according to the divers situation of the spectator's eye And as for light you shall have a worm that appears great and shines in the night but is little and grey in the day II. Whether is better to speak well or to write well Upon the second Point it was said There is so great an affinity between Speech and Reason that the Greeks have given the same name to both As Reason is peculiar to man so is Speech and therefore saith Aristotle he alone has a large soft and moveable tongue not only for the distinguishing of Tastes as other Animals but for the uttering of words which are the interpreters of his thoughts call'd words of the mind as the other are external words 'T is this Speech which protects Innocence accuses Crimes appeases popular Tumults and Seditions inflames Courage excites to Vertue disswades from Vice and gives praise to God and vertuous Men. Writing it self hath not much force unless it be animated by Speech which gives weight and grace even to the least things This was imply'd by the Ancients when they feign'd that Orpheus assembled even Trees and Rocks by the sound of his Harp which is the Emblem of Speech And therefore I judge Speech to have the precedence of Writing The Second said There are persons who speak well and write ill others on the contrary write better then they speak others but very few do both well And yet if it be not through fault of the outward Organs it seems hard to conceive how 't is possible for a man to write well and speak ill since 't is the same judge which dictates to both Clerks the hand and the tongue For though one ordinarily goes swister then the other yet they must both express the same thought But 't is oftentimes with Speech as 't is with faces which seem handsome if you behold but a glance of them whereas fixing your eye more wistly to consider them you discern even the least faults so a discourse upon which you have not leisure to reflect may seem elegant yet displease you when 't is unfurnish'd of its external ornaments Pronunciation and Gesture Moreover we see how little effectual a Letter is in comparison of animated words to which I also give the precedence 'T is of little importance to an Advocate whom his want of Eloquence causes to dye of hunger whether his reputation be made to live after his death Nor was it from the eyes or hands of our Gallic Hercules that our Fathers made the golden chains proceed which drew the people by the ears 't was from the tongue And 't was with the voice that the Father of Roman Eloquence oversway'd the mind of Caesar and Demosthenes that of all Greece The Third said I much more prize Writing which refines and polishes our conceptions which otherwise escape from great persons but ill digested Whence arose the saying That second thoughts are usually the best Moreover Writing is of long duration and is communicated to many how remote soever in time and place Which astonish'd the people of the new world when they saw that the letters which the Spaniards carri'd to their comrades communicated the mind of one to another and they thought them to be familiar spirits But when this Writing is well perform'd it hath great weight with Posterity too whence it is that we still admire the brave conceptions of antiquity which would have perish'd had they been deliver'd only in words which dye as they are born The Fourth said Writing hath this inconvenience that it cannot be comprehended by more then one or two persons at a time whereas the Voice reaches to many thousand together without receiving any diminution which is some resemblance of Divinity and consequently is the more noble The Fifth said If we judge of the preeminence of Speech or Writing by the difficulty there is in either according to the Proverb which saith that the most difficult things are the most excellent the question will remain undecided For there was never either a perfect Pen-man or perfect Orator but if we judge of the advantage by the effects 't is certain that Writing hath more weight then Speech and is therefore much more considerable And though words once utter'd cannot be recall'd no more then a written thing be retracted yet being consign'd to a very flitting and inconstant element they are of little duration whereas being written they last to eternity Which consideration so highly incens'd M. Anthonie against Cicero for publishing his Philippicks against him and made Bubalus hang himself for what Hippanax had written against him as Lycambes did upon Archilochus's Jambicks For the benefits and mischiefs of Writing are great Which makes for it since the more excellent a thing is the more hurtful the abuse of it is and according to Aristotle Men abuse every thing except Vertue The
Sixth said 'T is true Speech is peculiar to man but 't is a token of the impotence and weakness of our mind which cannot know other's thoughts in their purity as Angels and blessed Spirits do who understand one another without external Speech But the soul of man is so subjected to the Senses that it cannot apprehend spiritual things unless they be represented to it as corporeal Besides Speech belongs not so to man alone but that brutes especially those who have soft large and loose tongues as Birds can imitate it but Writing they cannot Moreover a thing is more excellent by how much nobler the cause is on which it depends But to speak well depends on the Organs rightly dispos'd to write well on the understanding alone For the Air the Lungs the Tongue the Teeth and the Lips make the Speech but the mind alone begets the thoughts which writing consigns to the sight the noblest of the Senses Eloquence is diminish'd by Diseases old Age or the least indisposition of the Organs but the style which depends on the Mind alone which never grows old becomes more vigorous as the body waxes weaker At length it was said That the present Question making up the Century of those propounded since the resolution of printing it seem'd fit to make them the first Volume of Conferences and because this Number the Season the Example of others the affairs which many have in the Country and the necessity for minds as well as bodies to take some relaxation require a Vacation for this Company it is therefore adjourn'd till Monday before the Feast of St. Martin The End of the First Part. PHILOSOPHICAL CONFERENCES PART II. Monday November 6. 〈…〉 FOr Introduction to the Ensuing Conferencs it seems requisite that an Account be given of two things I. Of what pass'd during the Vacation II. Of some difficulties touching these Exercises As for the first The Vacation was spent in the proposal and examination of divers Secrets and Curiosities of some Arts and Sciences a few whereof shall be summarily mention'd in the order as they were propos'd and most of which were found true by the person◠appointed by the Company to examine and make experiments of the same The First was a way to describe a Circle of what greatness soever without knowing the Centre of it but supposing the Centre were inaccessible II. A way to make the Vernish of China black and yellow gilded III. To make a plain Looking-glass representing the objects upon its surface and not inwards as they usually appear IV. To make a Spherical Mirror representing the Figures in their true proportion and not corrupted as they are in the vulgar ones V. To make one or more very conspicuous figures appear in the Air by the help of a Concave Glasse VI. To cool Wine speedily in Summer and to freeze water for that purpose VII To decypher all common and decypherable Cyphers VIII To give the Invention of almost a number of Cyphers which cannot be decypher'd as among others to write with a single point for each Letter with two Books in which no extraordinary mark is to be seen IX To write with a Cypher which may be read in two different Languages X. To comprise under a manifest sense an other hidden signification as ample as the first XI To write upon a body which will never perish not even by Fire at which alone it is to be read and to answer thereunto by the same way making the Letters disappear and return again at pleasure XII A way of writing or impression which represents all the properties of every thing with as few Letters as the ordinary way of writing XIII A way to give intelligence in six hours at a hundred leagues distance without Bells Canons or the like means XIV A way to give intelligence in an instant of what is done at fifty leagues distance and more and that of a sudden accident XV. A way whereby a person being in his Closet may make his Mind understood in a hundred places of the house and receive answers by the same way without noise and without notice taken thereof by those that shall be in his company XVI To shew and teach the true Proportions of Mans Body in one Lecture as exactly as Albert Durer hath done XVII To describe all Plat-forms and designe all the orders of Columnes exactly according to their true proportion XVIII A way to engrave very easily with Aqua Fortis without knowing how to hatch XIX To cast Account without pen or counters by a way which cannot be forgotten XX. To learn the method of Writing in one hour by retaining onely three letters XXI To keep Flowers yea a whole Garden fresh throughout the year XXII To learn all the tricks and subtleties of Juglers and consequently to cease admiring them XXIII To make two solid bodies actually cold which being together shall become so hot of themselves immediately as not to be touch'd and to keep their heat for several moneths and possibly for some years XXIV To shew in a portable Instrument in small or greater proportion all objects that shall be presented XXV To teach a Mother-language of which all other Languages are Dialects and may be learn'd by it Which the Proposer affirmes so easie that he will teach the whole Grammar of it in six hours but six moneths are requisite to learn the signification of all its words XXVI To teach all persons to argue without errour in all kind of Modes and Figures in a quarter of an hour XXVII To shew a secret by help whereof any man may pronounce any strange Language as naturally as his own be it Astatick African or American and he an European or on the contrary which is a way to remedy the bad Accents and pronuntiations both in strangers and natives whereby they are so manifestly distinguish'd XXVIII To make a Girder or Joint broken in two or three places to serve without pins XXIX To pierce a door immediately with a Candle not lighted XXX To make a Pistol of a foot and half in length carry three hundred paces XXXI To make a good quantity of fresh water speedily in the main Sea XXXII To measure the depth of the Sea where the plummet cannot reach or where it is unperceiveable XXXIII To shew all the feats and subtleties that are perform'd with Cards as to make the Card you think of come at what number is requir'd to tell 15. persons who have two Cards a piece what Cards every one hath c. XXXIV To draw two lines which being extended infinitely shall always come nearer but never meet XXXV To make a light without Oyle Wax Tallow Gum or Fat at small charge which shall less offend the sight in a whole nights reading then the light of an ordinary Candle doth in a quarter of an hour XXXVI To make Glasses through which the Sun doth not penetrate though his light do XXXVII To make old defac'd Characters legible XXXVIII To continue
not eat the meat she sees for fear of the whip which she sees not All which he said were so many Syllogismes and concluded with an induction of sundry Animals which gave Man the knowledge of building as the Swallow of spinning as the Spider of hoarding provisions as the Pismire to whose School Solomon sends the sluggard of presaging fair weather as the Kings-fisher the downfall of houses as Rats and Mice of making Clysters as the Ibis of letting blood as the Hippopotamus or Sea-horse That to accuse our Masters of want of Reason is an act of notorious ingratitude The Fourth said Faculties are discover'd by their actions and these are determin'd by their end Now the actions of Men and beasts are alike and have the same End Good Profitable Delightful or Honest. There is no Controversie concerning the two former And Honesty which consists in the exercise of Virtue they have in an eminent degree Witness the courage of the Lyon in whom this Virtue is not produc'd by vanity or interest as it is in men Nor was it ever seen that Lyons became servants to other Lyons as we see Men are to one another for want of courage which prefers a thousand deaths before servitude Their Temperance and Continence is apparent in that they are contented with pleasures lawful and necessary not resembling the disorderly Appetites of Men who not contented with one sort of food depopulate the Air the Earth and the Waters rather to provoke then satiate their gluttony The fidelity of the Turtle and the Chastity of the Dove are such as have serv'd for a Comparison in the Canticles of the Spouse The fidelity of the Dog to his Master exceeds that of Men. The Raven is so Continent that 't is observ'd to live 600. years without a Male if her own happen to be kill'd For their good Constitution gives them so long a life which in Men Nature or their own disorders terminate within a few years As for Justice the foundation of all Humane Laws is the Natural which is common to beasts with Men. The Fifth said Reason is a proportion correspondence and adjustment of two or more things compar'd one with another whence it follows that being Comparison cannot be made but by Man he alone is capable of Reason Moreover he alone exercises Justice which is nothing else but the same reason which he judges to every one under which is comprehended Religion a thing unknown to brutes when Prudence Fortitude and Temperance are improperly attributed because these are habits of the Will which Faculty brutes have not and presuppose a knowledge which they want too of the vicious Extremes of every of their actions The Sixth said 'T was not without Reason that the first Age of Innocence and afterwards Pythagoras upon the account of his Metempsychosis spar'd the lives of beasts that when God sav'd but four couple of all Mankind from the deluge he preserv'd seven of every clean Animal and made the Angel which with-stood the Prophet Balaam rather visible to his Ass then to him that this Animal and the Ox whose acknowledgement towards their Masters is alledg'd by Isaiah to exprobriate to the Israelites their ingratitude towards God were the first witnesses of our Saviours Birth who commands to be innocent and prudent like some of them Which presupposes not onely Reason in them but that they have more thereof then Man with what ever cavillation he may disguise their virtues saying that what is Knowledge in God Intelligence in Angels Reason in Man Inclination in Inanimate Bodies is Instinct in brutes For since a beast attaines to his End better then Man and is not so subject to change as he it may seem that a nobler name should be given to that Faculty which accomplisheth its work best then to that is for the most part deficient therein And therefore either a brute hath more reason then Man or that which Man calls Instinct in a beast is more excellent then his Reason a Faculty ordinarily faulty subject to surprize and to be surpriz'd The Seventh said 'T is too rustick an impiety to use Saint Austine's words against the Manichees who inclin'd to this Error to believe that beasts have Reason since they have not a perfect use of all the outward Senses but onely of such as are altogether necessary to their being Touching and Tasting For Smells Sounds and Colours move them not further then the same are serviceable to those two senses Nor must we deceive our selves by their having a Phancy or Inferior Judgement so long as they have nothing of that Divine Piece by which Man knows Universals defines composes and divides comprehends similitudes and dissimilitudes with their causes They have an Appetite too by which they are carry'd towards their proper Good But because their knowledge of this Good is neither sufficient nor intire as that of Man is who alone knows Good as Good the End as such this Appetite is rul'd and guided by a superior cause as a Ship by the Pilot which cause necessarily leads this Appetite to good as it also inclines the stone to its centre which it never fails to find So that this infallibility alledg'd in the works of brutes is rather a sign of their want of Reason which is the cause that Man endued with sufficient knowledge and for this reason plac'd between Good and Evil Fire and Water can alone freely move towards the one or the other whence it comes to pass that he frequently fails in his purposes because his Reason oftentimes takes appearance for truth CONFERENCE LIII I. Whether there be more then five Senses II. Whether is better to speak or to be silent I. Whether there be more then five Senses THe Maxime That things are not to be multipli'd without Reason is founded upon the capacity of the Humane Mind which being one though its faculties be distinct in their Operations conceives things onely under the species of unity So that when there are many in number it makes one species of them of many specifically different one Genus and consequently can much less suffer the making two things of that which is but one This has given ground to some to affirm That there is but one External Sense which ought no more to be distributed into five species under pretext that there are five Organs then one and the same River which here makes bellows blow and hammers beat presses cloth and decorticates oats or grinds flour For 't is one breath which passing through several Organes and Pipes renders several tones one and the same Sun which penetrating through various glasses represents as many colours Moreover their end is to all the same namely to avoid what may hurt and pursue what may profit the Creature The Second said This would be true if the Soul alone were the Subject of Sensation but when the Eye is pull'd out although the visual spirits remain entire or if the Eye being sound and clear yet some