Melancholly in regard of their heat and driness which resolve and dissipate the animal Spirits as a vapourous humidity hinders their effusion by the obstruction which it causeth in the original of the Nerves or which is most probable because the clouds of those vapours occupying the ventricles of the Brain by their humidity moisten and relax the animal Spirits which remain immovable till they be deliver'd from the importunity of those vapours which moreover more easily ascending when the Body is at rest it happens that Sleep is frequently caus'd not only by watchings cares labour bathing heat and other things which dissipate the Spirits but also by sounds gentle murmurs of water frictions and motions silence and darkness unless we had rather say That the animal Spirits being most subtle and luminous bodies retire inwards during the darkness which is contrary to them The Sixth said That Sleep being not only a depravation but a total privation of actions since a thing exists but so far as it acts at the same proportion that we love our own Being we ought to hate Sleep and love Watching The great George Castriot the scourge of the Turks never slept more then two hours and the Poets had reason to term Sleep The Image of Death which the Scripture also expresses by Sleeping As therefore Death is to be avoided as much as possible so also ought Sleep were it not that both of them being inevitable evils all we can do is to keep as far off them and suffer our selves to be led as little to them as may be The Poets themselves seem willing to imprint in us a horror of Sleep when they feign it the Son of Hell or Erebus and Night the brother of Death the father of Morpheus and that his Palace was amidst the darkness of the Cimmerians Moreover the most imperfect Animals sleep more then others which is the reason Zoophytes or Plant-animals as the Sponge Coral and Oisters sleep continually Snails and some Flys three or four months Bears longer then other Animals and amongst these Birds as partaking more of the nature of Heaven sleep less then four-footed Beasts A Child so long as it approaches a bestial life in its Mothers belly and for the first years sleeps more than when 't is grown to Manhood and being again become by Age a Child sleeps more than formerly till he comes to the last sleep of death which reduces him to nothing Women phlegmatick persons drunkards and block-heads sleep more then Men sober and witty persons For we are no more to refer to the abuse of these Times in sleeping very much then to other Vices of the Age amongst the rest Idleness Eating and Drinking wherein there is none sober at this day but exceed their just measure Upon the Second point it was said That Strength as well as most other things in the World hath not an absolute but only a relative Being a thing being called strong in comparison of others which are less so Thus Antaeus was strong in respect of all other men but weak compared to Hercules And as Achilles was invulnerable in every other part saving the heel so Nature seems to have left in us a certain weakness and defect in some parts wherein some are more tender then others So that 't is hard to find one thing alike powerful towards all men since by reason of our several inclinations every one is differently affected The Ambitious will hold for Honours the Amorous for Women the Drinker for Wine and Truth which in the Scripture was judg'd strongest by King Darius who propos'd the present Problem to his four Courtiers would possibly be deemed the weakest in the Judgment of the most for to them that should take her part the same question might be put which Pilate ask'd our Lord What is Truth It is so frequently disguis'd by lying in moral matters so invelop'd in darkness and subject to the deceit of our Senses in natural things that as it is the least understood so we may say 't is the least follow'd our inclinations never tending towards an unknown object The strongest thing therefore is that which hath most power to incline our Will towards it self which Will following the counsel of the Understanding as again this acts not but by the species wherewith the Imagination supplies it 't is to the Imagination that I ascribe the greatest strength in the world since all other things borrow all their power from the Imagination by the opinion of Honour Profit and Pleasure which that Faculty makes us conceive therein and on the contrary the same Imagination ruines and destroys the force of all things accounted the most powerful whilst it considers them with a different biass 'T is by it that one abhors nothing more then Women whom so many others idolatrize Pleasures Honours Riches and all the Goods of Fortune are but so many crosses and punishments to those who have conceiv'd an aversion against them Death it self as terrible as it is oftentimes is despis'd and sought after out of a powerful consideration of Honour this too being nothing else but a Fancy magnifi'd by the opinion rais'd of it in the world Even Virtue draws all her power from Imagination alone for many a one thinks he embraces her quite naked whilst like Ixion he embraces nothing but a cloud and a phantasm and yet is as well satisfi'd with this as if he had a perfect fruition of her The Second said That the solution of this Problem depends upon the understanding of the term Strength If it be taken for a certain quality and power which renders things active that must be the strongest thing in the world which acts with most efficacy and power upon the most excellent things But forasmuch as there are as many sorts of agents as there are degrees of Being in Nature in Morals and in Transcendants and we may compare things together which are of a different genus yet there being no congruity and proportion but between those which are of the same species 't is hard to know absolutely which is the strongest thing since every one hath a vertue wholly peculiar because it hath a proper nature which is the principle and cause of the diversity of motions and actions According to which distinction I am of opinion That of agents purely natural Fire is the strongest since it alters and destroys all natural Bodies and its quality Heat is the most active of all Amongst living things Man is the strongest inasmuch as he renders himself master of all the fiercest Animals which he knows how either to subdue or tame Amongst men Kings are the strongest since they dispose of our Goods Lives and Wills Moral agents are different in force and activity according to the divers constitution of subjects upon which they act and make a different impression Honesty alone acts upon very few spirits Pleasures upon most Interest upon all Nevertheless since they act only by the opinion which they
Romances as they instruct with pleasure artificially marrying Benefit and Delectation Under supposed Names they freely tax without incurring the envy or hatred of those whom they reprehend Thus the Prophet Nathan by a Parable drew from David the condemnation of his Crime which otherwise possibly he would never have own'd or at least would have excus'd in his own Person As for the abuse and danger of reading these Books for the most part fill'd with dishonest Loves 't is common to them with the best things of the World that they may be turn'd to a bad use But if the Love be honest and lawful as it proves always in conclusion the Romances deserve no blame for it if unlawful the Lovers have always an unhappy end and Vices are never unpunish'd 'T is here that Distributive Justice is exactly kept not by the blind Judgment of Fortune but by the judicious choice of the Author that the Good are always rewarded and the Wicked punish'd For the object of Romances as well as of Histories is the description of humane actions which being most often bad by reason of the depravation of Nature they appear more scandalously in History than in Romances Why therefore do not their Censors likewise proscribe Histories so much more dangerous as they afford us many true examples of Sacriledges Parricides Adulteries and Incests the Authors whereof have escaped punishment And not to speak of the dangerous Maxims of Tacitus and Polybius Who would take the Fables of Herodotus and the Prodigies of Livie for more probable things then those of Romances To omit the contrariety of Historians of the same time so that we may say That the truest amongst them is the most likely The Second said If the Platonists saying be true That there is nothing real in this World but we perceive only shadows and phantasms in this life which the Scripture compares to a Dream there will be little difference as to realty between a History and a Romance And though the one be a meer fiction yet this will no more infer the despising of it than it doth of a Comedy because the Actors are not the very Personages or of a Landskip or Perspective well drawn only because 't is the Invention of the Painter and not of Nature whose Works as excellent as they are yet yield to those of Art which we esteem above the true and natural from which the same are counterfeited our minds extreamly delighting in Imitations whence it is that we so much esteem in their Copies and Representations such things whose Originals are disagreeable to us But that which augments the glory of Romances is that their declared enemies have not been able to encounter them but by Romances too as Plato and Isocrates could not reprehend the Sophisters but by making use of their Eloquence The Third said That Romances are commonly either of the valorous Exploits of Knights or of Amorous pass-times The first are for the most part ridiculous and full of Knights Errant who force Enchanted Castles kill Monsters Giants and Men like Flies The latter are infamous contrary to Good Manners and dangerous to young Persons entertaining them in a loose Idleness the Mother of all Vices besides the dangerous impressions those Lies leave in tender Minds and which remain therein all their life after But this belongs to all fabulous Discourses that they denote weakness of Judgment in those addicted to them and a disorderly Wit in their Authors And since according to Physitians the first degree of Folly is to imagine phantastical Opinions and the second to tell them to others the third in my conceit will be to write them CONFERENCE CVIII I. Of Talismans II. Whether a Country-life or a City-life is to be preferr'd TAlisman which the Chaldaeans call Tsilmenaia the Hebrews Magen the Greeks Character is an Arabick word form'd by transposition and addition to the beginning and end of the two Hemantical Letters Tau and Nun of the Hebrew word Tselem which signifies Image Figure or Character For those Talismans of which Zoroaster is made the first Author are nothing else but Images in relief or engrav'd upon Medals or Rings ordinarily of Mettal or precious Stones in shape of Men or Animals fabricated under certain Constellations and Aspects of Stars whose influence they thereby receive and keep being afterwards instead of the same Stars yea with the greater virtue in that the re-union of influences being made in one point their activity is redoubl'd As Burning-glasses take more heat from the Sun than perhaps he hath himself These Figures act as they say either upon mens minds as to cause one to be lov'd honour'd enrich'd or fear'd or upon their Bodies as to cure them Of which some shadow is seen in the magnetical cure of Wounds by applying the Medicine to the Weapon that did the hurt or to the bloody shirt Or else these Figures act upon natural things as to keep away from a place rain hail and wild or venomous Beasts only by natural means For we speak not here of magical or diabolical Characters whose virtues for the most part depend upon either a tacite or express compact with the evil Spirit who sometimes really produces those effects often deludes our Senses and not the Character Word Sound Number or such other means commonly inept and uncapable of such action But we speak only of natural Agents which acting almost all by a propriety of their whole substance and by occult and sympathetical virtues cause many strange effects which the ignorant Vulgar incongruously ascribe to Magick or Sortilege There might be doubt of the effect of these Talismans if divers Histories did not give assurance thereof For those Teraphins such as Laban's Puppets were might be call'd Talismans as the Brazen-Serpent and the Golden-Calf are by Marselius Ficinus the one to preserve from the morsures of Serpents by its sight the other to turn away the heats and droughts of the Scorpion and of Mars The Idols of the Pagans may also be put in this rank as Memnon's Statue in Aegypt which mov'd and spoke when shone upon by the Sun that of Paphian Venus in Cyprus upon which it never rain'd the Palladium of Troy the Ancilia or Bucklers of Rome whick kept the Fortune of the Empire the Dii Penates figur'd by two Serpents those call'd Averrunci who kept away domestick misfortunes Sejanus's Statue of Fortune which the Emperours left to their Successors Virgil's brazen Fly and golden Horseleech with which he hinder'd Flies from entring Naples and kill'd all the Horseleeches in a Ditch the Figure of a Stork plac'd by Apollonius at Constantinople to drive them away thence in the year 1160 and that wherewith he drove away Gnats from Antioch those of Tripoli in Syria and Hampts in Arabia which were preserv'd from venomous Beasts by the Talisman of a Scorpion engraven upon one of their Towers that at Florence made against the Gowt by a Carmelite nam'd Julianus Ristonius à Prato
those of Paracelsus against the Pestilence and infinite others render their effects as common as their existence certain Which is prov'd also by the example of Gamahés or Camaien's which are Stones naturally figur'd by the impressions of the Stars which consequently may have influence upon Artificial Figures For as the Sun may lighten or heat a mans Picture as well as a Man so may the Stars give their influences to the Figure of a Thing as well as to the Thing it self especially when the subject is fitted thereunto as the Talisman is not only by its metallick matter symbolizing with that of the Star both in colour and solidity but especially by the Figure imprinted on it which is like the Sign whose influences it receives For though the Constellation be not very like that Figure yet in regard the Qualities of the Animal which the Figure represents are like those of the Sign whence the Constellations of the Zodiack are call'd The Ram the Bull c. not for the resemblance of such Animals parts with those of those Signs the Figure of the Animals attracts them of the same Sign much more powerfully by sympathy And indeed we see many things have qualities consentaneous to the Figure they bear as the Stone call'd Ophites for the small veins which cut it in form of little Serpents cures their poyson as also the Stones of Maltha do which bear the Figure of a Serpents-tongue and the Herb call'd by that name The Squill and the Poppy which resemble the head asswage the pains thereof Wild Tansey and Eyebright cure the Eye whereto they are like But if it be said That 't is not the Figure that acts in them but a particular virtue depending on the temper of their Qualities since losing their Figure either by distillation or infusion they cease not to act yea more effectually than before I answer That in the spirits of those same active qualities remains always the Form and Figure as some Chymists have resuscitated Roses and other Flowers by holding their ashes in a glass Phial over a Candle The Second said That Talismans cannot produce the effects attributed to them whether you consider them in their Matter and Substance or in their Figure Not in the former for any sort of Matter as Wood Wax Stone Metal c. are made use of for cutting of these Talismans which besides lose their Name when they produce an effect by the virtue of their Matter as a Scorpion engraven on a Bezoar-stone would not cure the bitings of that venomous Animal by its Talismanical Figure no more than any other but 't is an effect depending on the Stone it self Nor do Simples cure by the resemblance between the Parts of our Body and their external Figure of which we speak here but by the virtue and property of their Substance which remains when they are powder'd and despoil'd of their Figure which moreover is a Quality indeed but no active one being only a certain situation and disposition of Parts and a mode of quantity which depending on Matter a purely passive thing is as uncapable of any action by it self as the Figure which terminates it But though the artificial Figure of a Talisman could act it could produce no natural effect because beyond its power much less upon the Will to incite Love or Hatred as is pretended For 't is a ridiculous and groundless vanity to imagine a sympathetical Commerce between a Constellation and a Figure of an Animal graven upon Copper or such other Matter which is much less fit to receive the influences of the Stars to which such Animal is subject than the Animal it self whose skin stuff'd with straw were more proper to drive away other Beasts of the same kind there being nothing Living-creatures dread so much as the dead Bodies of their own kind The Third said It needs not to seek Reasons and Authorities to prove Talismans either in Art or Nature since Man himself may be said to be the Talisman and Perfection of God's Works plac'd by him at the Centre of the Universe as of old Talismans were plac'd at the Foundations of Cities His countenance being a Medal imprinted with all the Characters of the Stars the two brightest of which are at the Eyes Saturn at the Eye-brows the Seat of Severity Jupiter at the Fore-head the place of Honour Mars at the Nose where Anger resides Mercury in the Mouth where Eloquence lies Venus at the Chin and rounding of the Cheeks the pourfit of the grace of this Medal which serves him for an Universal Talisman in its Beauty to procure Love in its Majesty to cause Respect not only to drive away Flies or Frogs but to reign over all Animals by the prerogative of this Face before which they tremble Are not his Hands the Artificers of his Felicity Talismans noted with the Characters of the Signs and Planets which the Rules of Chiromancy uncypher In the Right Hand are his Days and Years saith the Wiseman the Talisman of his long life in the Left are Riches and Honours the Talisman of his good Fortune In short Is not his Soul the Talisman of his Immortality which at the instant of its Creation receiving all the influences of the Deity and retaining the Image thereof hath been inserted into this Work not to preserve it from Thunder and Tempests which can touch only the least part of it but from Corruption and Extinction to which all other Creatures are subject The Fourth said He 's too sensual that impugns the truth of things under pretext that they fall not under our Reason which though very weak and uncertain abusing the principality which it usurps over all the Faculties hath turn'd its denomination into Tyrannie Whence if Experiences be alledg'd she denies them because not able to accord them with the weakness of her Judgment Witness what is seen in all the admirable works of Nature and Art in the Magnetical cure of Wounds and that of Diseases by Amulets or Periapts and what Cicero and all Antiquity affirms of Gyges's Ring upon turning of the Stone whereof inwards he became invisible and returning it outwards was perceiv'd Such also was Minerva's Shield wherewith Perseus combated the Gorgons which was of Glass through which one might see without being seen as also the Rings of those Mistresses of Alexander the Great and Charlemain For if it be said of the first That Olympias shewing her self stark naked to him made him confess That the great Beauty of all the parts of her Body was the only Talisman wherewith she enchanted Alexander The same cannot be said of the latter since after his death the Talismanical Ring found under her Tongue caus'd Charlemain to love not only her but also the Lake of Aix-la-Chapelle whereinto it was cast and that which was found in the Foundations of the Walls of this City of Paris under Chilperic where there was a Fire engraven upon a Brass-plate a Serpent and a Rat which having been
which consists in Mediocrity either extreme whereof is the Territory of Vice CONFERENCE CIII I. Of Glass II. Of Fucusses or Cosmeticks AS there is in all sublunary Bodies a vital and celestial Spirit without which neither Food nor Physick hath any virtue and which is the principle of all actions and motions of mix'd Bodies so all those Bodies have in them an incorruptible Matter partaking of a celestial Nature which the Chymists call Virgin-Earth and is the Matter whereof Glass is form'd being found in all sorts of Bodies capable of calcination and vitrification but chiefly in Nitre Saltpetre Sand Shels certain Stones Wood and Plants from which they draw Glass different in beauty according to the Matter whence it is extracted by means of a most violent fire which resolving the compound consumes all its parts except that vitreous matter which is proof against its violence We owe its Invention by Pliny's testimony to certain Merchants of Nitre who having landed in Phoenicia of Syria bordering upon Judaea near a Lake call'd Cendevia which is at the foot of Mount Carmel whence flows the River Belus or Pagida of small extent and making their Kitchin upon the Sand of this River us'd some clods of their Nitre as a Trevet for their Kettle and the heat of the fire melting the Sand and Nitre into Glass they took notice of it and publish'd the Invention Afterward Moulds were found out wherein to cast it into all sorts of figures Pipes or Tubes to run it in others to blow it and give it all sorts of Colours which almost miraculously arise from the very substance of the Glass without other mixture only by the wind and blast manag'd according to the rules of Art as also Mills to calcine and pulverise Gravel Stones or Sand amongst which that of Vilturne in Italy and of Estampes in France is most excellent for this use for which likewise they imploy the Ashes of a Plant call'd Salicot Salt-wort or Glass-wort which grows in Provence and Languedoc nam'd likewise Soude because heretofore it serv'd only to glase earthen Pots The Second said As there are but two things that can open Bodies in order to their separation namely Water and Fire which is verifi'd by the proofs made by Refiners of Gold and Silver so there are but two things to separate to wit the Volatil and the Fix'd Fire commonly separates the Volatil such as sulphureous and aqueous things are and Water separates the Fix'd as the Salt from the earthy parts Of Fix'd things some are so in part as the same Salt others intirely or altogether as Earth which is either slimy clayie or sandie which last species is made of the two former as is seen in Rivers where the Water having wash'd away the fat part nothing remains but the Sand By which means Nature renders Valleys and low Places more fruitful and men by her example have oftentimes rais'd meliorated and render'd low and marshy places formerly unprofitable fit for culture by stirring the Earth during the Rain and Floods which by this means carries away all the fat and unctuous parts from the higher places into the lower rendring the Mountains and Hills sandy and consequently unfruitful and barren For as Sand is incorruptible being neither putrifi'd by Water nor consum'd by Fire so neither can it generate any thing nor be turn'd into any other nature like other species of the Earth which serve for nutriment of Plants and some Insects and for the production of Animals On the contrary it preserves things buried in it as appears by Mummies kept in it for two or three thousand years and Fruits which are kept no way better than in Sand. Now as Sand is the Matter of Glass for any Sand melted in the Fire vitrifies so Glass suits with the nature of its Principle being like it incorruptible and eternal yea being it self one of the Principles of Nature according to modern Chymists who reckon four namely Mercury resembling Water Sulphur or Oyl corresponding to Air Salt to Fire and Glass to Earth which Glass is found clean and pure in the centre of all mix'd Bodies there being nothing but may be reduc'd into ashes and no ashes but of which Glass may be made which they call a shining and not burning Fire having affinity with that of Heaven as the Fire kindled in Sulphur and any oylie Matter is both burning and shining and that which is in Lime and Salts is burning and not shining such as is seen in Potential Cauteries but not as others have said in Coals which have some although a weak light Glass wants but one thing and that is the removing its brittleness or fragility were it not for which it would be the most precious thing in the World Of the possibility hereof a certain Artist having shewn a tryal to Tiberius hath rais'd a desire in others to make like attempts which have hitherto been unsuccessful Moreover the Transparence of Glass caus'd by the simplicity and tenuity of its parts is incompetible with the consistence which renders things ductile and malleable which is a tenacious viscosity and oleaginous humidity from whence opacity proceeds as appears by Horns and colour'd Glass which is less transparent then other by reason of the unctuosity of the Sulphur employ'd to give it that extraneous colour The Third said That Archimedes in his Fabrick of a Glass-Sphere was as judicious in reference to the matter he chose as the form since the Matter of the Heavens being incorruptible and diaphanous they cannot be represented better than by Glass which hath both those qualities Moreover all the perfectest Bodies of Nature are of a vitreous substance as amongst others the first of all the Heavens call'd the Crystalline 'T is held That the glorified Bodies are luminous and transparent and according to some of a vitreous Nature which is the utmost perfection of every Body and shall be also communicated to the Earth at the last Judgment to be executed by Fire which brings Mettals to their highest degree of excellence for by the help of Lead Gold it self is turn'd into Glass so pure and perfect that in the Apocalyps Paradise is pav'd with such Glass of Gold and in Ezechiel God's Throne is made of it the word Hamal being a fit Etymologie for our Esmah or Enamel which is nothing but Glass And the affinity or correspondence of Mettals with Glass is so great that like them it is extracted out of Sand elaborated in a Furnace receiving the alliances of Nitre Copper and the Load-stone which they mingle in its Mine to get an attractive quality of Glass as well as of Iron With purifi'd Glass call'd Sal Alcali they counterfeit the Diamond Emerald Turcoise Ruby and other precious Stones The Eye it self the noblest part of Man symbolises with Glass by that crystalline humour wherein the point of the visual ray terminates But as all things in the World like Fortune which governs them whom the Poet describes of
if comes to pass that there is no Dew made but during the Spring and Autumn which are temperate Seasons but never in Winter or Summer the former congealing those Vapours and the latter dissolving and consuming them The Proximate Efficient Cause is the coldness of the Night which must also be moderate otherwise it congeals them not into Dew but white-Frost as it turns the Waters into Ice by the extream cold of the Air which moreover must be calm and serene because if beaten and agitated by Winds the Vapour cannot be condens'd for the same reason which hinders running Waters from freezing as standing do whence also Dew is more frequent in low places than high Now as Dew is form'd of Vapour alone so if together with that tenuious Vapour some terrene but very fine parts be carried up especially towards the morning there is produc'd a very sweet juice of which Honey is made and when those terrene parts prevail above the humid parts of the Dew there is made a less liquid juice call'd Manna whereof the best is found in Calabria that of Brianson and some other places being through want of heat less digested than is requisite or mingled with too many impurities by the excess of that which attracted them too violently from the Earth But the sweetness of this Honey and Manna proceeds from a most perfect mixture of siccity with humidity in a degree which is unknown to us Upon the Second Point it was said That God having subjected the Woman to the Dominion of the Man endu'd with strength to keep himself in possession of that Empire as Absolute Power is sometimes accompani'd with Tyranny so he hath not only reserv'd to himself alone the Authority of making Laws whereunto Women not being call'd have always had the worst but hath also appropriated the best things to himself without admitting them to partake therein For Men not content to have reduc'd them by those Laws into perpetual Wardship which is a real Servitude to have so ill provided for them in Successions and to have made themselves Masters of their Estates under the Title of Husbands further unjustly deprive them of the greatest of all Goods to wit that of the Mind whose fairest Ornament is Knowledge the chief Good both of this World and the next and the noblest Action of the Souls most excellent Faculty the Understanding which is common to Women as well as to Men over whom too they seem to have the advantage of Wit not only for the softness of their Flesh which is an evidence of goodness of Wit but because of the Curiosity which is the Parent of Philosophy defin'd for this reason The Love and Desire of Wisedom And this vivacity is conspicuous in their loquacity and their artifices intrigues and dissimulations their Wits being like those good Soils which for want of better culture run out into weeds and briars Their Memory caus'd by the moist constitution of their Brain and their sedentary and solitary life is further favourable to Study Moreover not to speak of those of the present Times we have the examples of S. Bridgid who excell'd in Mystical Theologie Cleopatra Sister of Arsinous in Physick Pulcheria in Politicks Hupetia and Athenais wife to Theodosius in Philosophy Sappho and two Corynnae in Poetry Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi and Tullia doubly Cicero's Daughter in Eloquence Now if it be true that Politicks and Oeconomicks are founded upon the same Principles and there needs as much Knowledg to preserve as to acquire then since Women are in a Family what Men are in a State and are destinated to keep what Men get why should not they have the knowledg of the same Maxims as Men have by Study and Theory inasmuch as the reservedness and modesty of their Sex allows them not to have the experience thereof by frequentation of the World Hence our ancient Gauls left to them the Administration of the Laws and other exercises of Peace reserving to themselves only those of War And as for other Sciences since their Encyclopaedy is a World which hath yet many unknown or less frequented Parts if Women joyn'd together with Men in the discovery of them who doubts but a feminine Curiosity would serve to exacuate the point of Mens Wits distracted by extraneous Affairs and make marveilous progresses and find out sundry rare Secrets hitherto unknown The Second said That Women are of themselves prone enough to take the ascendant over Men without need of giving them that of Learning which puffing up the mind would render them more proud and insupportable than before the good opinion they would have of themselves being inconsistent with the Obedience to which they are bound We read That our first Father Adam was indu'd with Knowledg but not Eve on the contrary her sole desire to become knowing by eating the forbidden Fruit ruin'd the whole World The active life of Huswifry to which they are born the tenderness of their Bodies impatient of the labours and sweat wherewith Science is acquir'd the humidity of their Brain which is an enemy to Science and the weakness of their capricious Spirit are sufficiently strong Reasons to prohibit that Sex the Sciences which require solidity of Judgment always found wanting in the Writings of Women accounted the most Learned Because Judgment is an act of the Intellect reflecting upon its Notions which reflection depends upon a dry Temper contrary to that of a Womans Brain whose Animal Spirits being obscur'd by the clouds of humidity she hits well sometimes at the first assay but not in second thoughts which are always weaker than the first a most sure mark of their weakness On the contrary the second thoughts of Men prevail over the first Whence it is that they are heady in their desires and violent in their first Passions wherein ordinarily they have neither measure nor mediocrity Therefore a Woman always either hates or loves she never knows a mean The Third said Since the more imperfect a thing is the more need it hath of being perfectionated were the Minds of Women weak and imperfect as is pretended it would follow that they have more need of the Sciences to cover their defects Had our first Mother been indu'd with Knowledg she would not so easily have suffer'd her self to be deluded by the fair promises of the Devil who rightly judging that Adam with all his Knowledg would have discover'd his subtilties was aware of medling with him but set upon the poor ideot and ignorant Woman 'T is therefore an injustice to require Women to be more perfect and wise than Men and withal to interdict them the means of becoming so For how shall they be virtuous if they know not what Virtue is which being a Habit of the Will a Faculty of it self blind till illuminated by the advisoes of the Intellect which are acquir'd by the Sciences 't is impossible for them to attain it Those who doubt lest the knowledg of
remov'd from the place the very next day a great Fire happened in the same City For if every thing below is as that which is above and the effects of inferiour things proceed from the various configuration of the Celestial Bodies as of the different combinations of the Letters of the Alphabet are compos'd infinite Books there may be some proportion and correspondence between those Celestial Figures and such as are made upon fit and suitable materials the knowledg of which sympathetical Correspondences is the true Magick which is by the testimony of J. Picus Mirandula the highest point of humane Knowledg marrying Heaven with Earth as black Magick is detestable shameful and ridiculous The Fifth said That every thing acts in the World by the first or second Qualities or by its Substance whence proceed occult Properties and Sympathies But Talismanical Figures cannot act by any of these ways for 't is certain that they act neither by heat cold hardness softness or such other first or second Quality no more than by their Substance which is different in Talismans of Copper Iron Stone c. Although the Authors of this Art ascribe the same virtue to all provided they be graven with the same Figures and under the same Constellations and Aspects of the Starrs from whom alone they make them derive their strange virtues alledging as a Principle That there is nothing in the World but hath both its Contrary and its Like as well in Heaven as on Earth where we see not only the Marigold and the Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun the Selenotrope that of the Moon the Cock proclaims the approach of the Sun As also on the contrary Dogs commonly run mad in the Dog-days and Lions under the Sign Leo But also some Persons beheld with an evil eye by some Planets others being propitious So to cure hot and dry Diseases they engrave their Talismans under a Constellation contrary to the Evil as cold and moist having regard to the Signs whereunto every Malady and diseas'd Part is referr'd which is an Invention of Paracelsus who fancies Poles a Zenith a Nadir an Equator a Zodiack and other phantastical Figures in our Bodies answering to those of Heaven without the least proof of his sayings Upon the Second Point it was said Since Man is compos'd of Body and Soul the best Life he can lead is that which is most proper for the perfection and good of both Such is the Country-life being accompanied with the Goods of the Body Fortune and the Mind Those of the Body as Health and Strength are possess'd with advantage by Rusticks who know not so much as the Names of Diseases the cause whereof is their Exercise and Labour which dissipates and resolves the humours that produce most Diseases as also the purity of the Air they breathe which is the more healthful in that it hath free motion and is less confin'd for which reason Physitians send their recovering Patients to confirm their Health in the Air of the Country Which also supplies the Goods of Fortune the true and natural Riches to wit the Fruits of the Earth and the Spoils of Animals Gold Silver and other artificial Goods being but imaginary and useless without those first whereunto they are subservient But above all the Goods of the Mind which consist in Knowledg and Virtue the two Ornaments of its two chief Faculties the Understanding and the Will may be acquir'd much more easily in a Country-life in regard of the purer Air which begets like Spirits as these frame purer Species and Phantasms on which depend the actions of the Understanding which besides cannot meditate nor improve without rest and silence scarce found in a civil and tumultuary Life as that in Cities is which hold our Minds as well as Bodies in captivity depriving us of the free aspect of Heaven the rising and setting of the Sun and Stars and of the means of considering the Wonders of God in the production of Flowers Fruits and Plants Hence the Poets feign'd the Muses the Goddesses of the Sciences living in the Mountains of Helicon and in Woods not in the inclosure of Cities where Virtues are also more difficultly practis'd than the Sciences nothing of them being left there but shadows and phantasms which under veils of Dissimulation Hypocrisie Complements and other testimonies of Virtue cover Injustices Sacriledges Impieties and other Crimes unknown in the Country where Simplicity and Innocence are sure tokens of true Virtue which is also better retain'd amongst the Thorns and Sweats of the Country than in the Luxury and Idleness of Cities And if things may be judg'd of by their beginnings the Sacred History tells That Cain the first Murtherer was the first that built a City named Henoch after the Name of his Son as a little after did the first Tyrant of the World Nimrod who built Niniveh On the contrary all holy Personages have lead a Country-life Adam was a Husband-man and so was Cain as long as he continu'd in the state of Innocence which as soon as he lost he desir'd to become a Burgess Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs his Sons were Shepherds as also the Kings Saul and David and the Prophets Amos Elisha and many others in imitating whose example we cannot erre The Second said That Man being a sociable and political Animal the habitation of Cities is as consentaneous to his Nature as the Country-life is repugnant to the same And therefore Men had no sooner discover'd the inconveniences of the Rustick-life but they unanimously conspir'd to build Cities to the end to supply one anothers Necessities and defend themselves from wild Beasts and their Enemies to whose fury they were expos'd before they liv'd in some Town which is a Sacred Society or Unity of Citizens all aspiring to the conservation of the State to the maintaining of the Laws and Justice and to the publick Ornament and Glory making Arts and Disciplines flourish and procuring Safety to all People by the distribution of Rewards to Virtue and Punishment to Vices which have not their effect but in publick For our Lives would not differ from those of Brutes if we were oblig'd to dwell in Dens or wander up and down Woods as the Barbarians of the new World do whose Brutality Irreligion Cruelty Ignorance and Misery compar'd with the Politeness Devotion Humanity Knowledg and Happiness of others sufficiently manifest what difference there is between a City and a Country-life CONFERENCE CIX I. Of Volcano's or Subterranean Fires II. Which Age is most desirable THe effects of Volcano's and Subterranean Fires are no less manifest than their cause is unknown although the desire of teaching us the same occasion'd the death of Pliny by haying too neer approach'd the Fires of Mont Gibel or Aetna and made Empedocles cast himself head-long into them But the former did not attain it and the latter left us nothing but his Pantofles The Artifice of Man hath indeed excavated the
another Understand this Equalness only of Qualities not of Elements for were there as much Fire as Water as much Air as Earth the more active fire would consume the rest and reduce into ashes all living things whose dissolution shews us that they consist more of Earth and Water then of the other Elements The other call'd Temperament according to Justice is found in every sort of compound-substances amongst which there is one that serves for the rule or standard to all individuals compris'd under it and possesses in perfection the temper require requisite to the functions of its nature Thus amongst Animals the Lyon is hot the Swine moist the Salamander cold the Bee dry but Man is temperate and amongst his parts the Bones Cartilages and Ligaments are cold and dry the Blood Spirits Muscles Heart and Liver are hot and moist the Brain Phlegm and Fat are cold and moist each of them being temper'd according to Justice The Skin alone especially that in the Palm of a well-temper'd mans hand being moderate in all the Qualities and seeming a texture of the Flesh and Nerves is equally cold and hot soft and hard and consequently the prime Organ of Touch and the judge of all other Temperaments The unequal Temperament which nevertheless lyes within the latitude of Health is either simple or compound The former wherein one of the four Qualities prevails over its contrary while the other two remain in a mediocrity is of four sorts Hot Cold Dry and Moist The second wherein two excell is likewise of four sorts according to the four combinations which the qualities admit viz. Hot and Moist Hot and Dry Cold and Moist Cold and Dry for Hot and Cold Dry and Moist cannot subsist in one and the same subject And though the heat incessantly consuming the moisture and the cold collecting plenty of humid excrements hinder the hot and moist and cold and dry tempers from subsisting long in the same state yet they may continue therein for some time though they become chang'd by succession of ages Now of the nine sorts of Tempers to wit the four simple four compound and one perfectly temperate this last seems to me the most laudable and perfect a body thus temper'd being neither fat nor lean hot nor cold dry nor moist but of a square and indifferently fleshy constitution not inclining to one extream more then another being in an exquisite mediocrity and consequently more laudable then any of those which approach nearer the always vicious extreams The Second said If there be such an exquisite Temperament as reason seems to demonstrate then since there is no passing from one extream to another but by the middle when a Child changes the heat and moisture of his infancy into the cold and dryness of old-age that middle equal Temper must pass away as swift as lightning and it's duration will be almost insensible Wherefore though it be the most perfect and desirable yet since 't is only the standard and rule of all others I am for Hot and Moist as most sutable to life which consists in those two qualities as Death and its forerunner Old-age are cold and dry This is the Temperament of Child-hood allotted to us by Nature at the beginning of our life and therefore the most perfect answering to the Spring the most temperate of Seasons and to Blood the most temperate humour whence 't is call'd Sanguine as the cold and dry is Melancholick the hot and dry Bilious the cold and moist Phlegmatick Which is not to be understood of the excrementitious but of the natural humours contain'd in the mass of Blood which follow the principles of our Generation Moreover 't is proper not only for the functions of life whereof health is the foundation and joy the most sweet support which the Blood produces as Melancholy doth sadness Phlegm slothfulness Bile fury and anger but also for those of the Mind which depending upon the pureness of the Animal Spirits as these do upon that of the Vital and Natural which are more benigne in the Sanguine their conceptions must be likewise more clear and refin'd The Third said If Heat and Moisture are sutable to the actions of the Vegetative Soul Generation Accretion and Nutrition they are no less prejudicial to those of the Rational the seat whereof is therefore remote from the two Organs of Concoction the Ventricle and the Liver lest the fumes of the Food coming to be mix'd with the Animal Spirits might offuscate and cloud the phantasms and ideas wherewith those Spirits are charged and consequently hinder the operations of the Understanding which depend upon those phantasms so long as it is linked to the Body For all Souls being alike their operations differ only according to the diverse temper of the Brain which causes that of the Animal Spirits which must be subtle and luminous but not so far as to be igneous like those of the cholerick and frantick whose motions are precipitate and impetuous but in the just proportion observ'd in the Melancholick temper which being cold and dry that is to say less hot and moist is most proper for Prudence and Wisdom which require a setled compos'd Spirit like that of old men who owe not their Wisdom so much to the experience of many years as to the coldness and dryness of their Brains which makes men grave and sedate All brave men have been of this temper which gives patience and constancy without which nothing grand and considerable can ever be perform'd And as the hot and moist temper is most subject to corruption so by the reason of contraries the cold and moist must be least obnoxious to diseases as amongst Trees and Animals the dryest and hardest are least offended by external injuries upon which account the Melancholy is not only most desirable but also because it most contents the mind of him that possesses it who being at his ease makes more reflection upon the benefit he injoys unless otherwise diverted by contemplation The Fourth said That that is the most laudable temper which is most adapted to the functions both of body and mind between which there is so great a disproportion that what agrees well with the one seems prejudicial to the other The Sanguine is the most excellent for the operations of life and good habit of Body but incommodious for those of the Mind partly through the softness and mildness of that humour which cannot suffer strong attention and partly through its excessive humidity which filling the Imagination with vapours cannot supply fit matter to the Animal Spirits whose temper must be dry for producing Wisdom whereunto Melancholy is by some judg'd conducible but were it so 't is too contrary to the health and good constitution of the body to be desirable The phlegmatick temper is proper neither for the health of the Body nor the goodness of Wit But the Bilious is for both being less repleat then the Sanguine and less attenuated and dry'd then
Crystal which besides should swim upon the water as well as Ice doth and not be more heavy and transparent which cannot be attributed to their greater density caus'd by a more vehement cold since water inspissated into Ice becomes less transparent and Crystals are not so cold to the touch as Ice But above all their Calcination evidently shews that there is something else in them besides Water for finding out of which we must examine the principles of Bodies nearest akin to them as Alom and Glass which by their splendor and consistence much resemble precious Stones being like them Mineral Juices hardned and mixt by a proportionate quantity of Salts and violent Spirits which joyned together lose their Acrimony to embrace one another more closely These Principles are very viscous capable of great solidity and being of themselves transparent are proper to preserve all the brightness and light which their specifick forms can add to them This resemblance being supposed we are obliged to discover the same Principles of Composition in Jewels since things agreeing generically and having resemblance of qualities agree also as to matters and have nothing to distinguish them but that unknown Form which determines the Species But the truth is little brightness and hardness proceed not from their Form alone which is uncapable of so close connexion but from much dark Earth and a very impure Phlegm which is not found in precious Stones or in the Glass where-with in the Indies they make Emeralds Moreover 't is this body that most resembles those Stones which hath no other Principles but a Spirit mingled amongst much Salt and some little of Earth which are united by the activity of heat and condensed by their natural inclination to inspissation cold contributing but very little thereunto since they acquire their solidity and consistence whilst yet very hot The Artifice of counterfeiting Rubies and Diamonds with the same Principles of Glass greatly confirms this Opinion onely for avoiding brittleness they mix less terrestreity and consume not the moisture which causes Concretion with so much violence The Calcination of Crystals whereby much Salt is extracted from them and the easiness of making Glass there-with in like manner shews what are the Material Principles of these Stones Which Principles being contained or generated in the bosome of the Earth certain Juices are formed of their several mixtures which unite to the first body which happens to impress its Virtues upon them then the purest part of these Salts and Earths is volatilized by the Spirit mixt there-with and circulated by Heat which alwayes perfects it by further Concoction till it have rendered it Homogeneous These Juices commonly stick in superficial parts of the Earth where a moderate heat finishes their Concoction evaporating the too great humidity which hinder'd the induration natural to such substances Divers species are made according to the different impressions of Heaven or the place of their Generation or other dispositions to which I also refer the diversity of their Colours and not as most Chymists do to Sulphur which is never found in these Stones which Colours they ought to attribute rather to Salt their principal matter since by several degrees of Coction or Calcination it acquires almost all the Colours of these Stones being first white then blew and lastly reddish The Fifth said 'T is most probable that in the beginning there were Species of Stones of all sorts dispos'd in places most proper for their Conservation which have continually generated the like determining fit matter by the Emission of a certain Vapor or Spirit impregnated with the Character of their Species during its union with their substance before a perfect induration press'd it forth which Spirit lighting upon and uniting to fit Matter fixes and determines the same to be of the same Species with the Mass from which it issu'd For the common Opinion That these Stones are produc'd of a certain slime compounded of Earth and Water concocted and hardned by the action of Heat is groundless since how temperate soever that Heat were it would at length dissipate all the moisture and leave nothing but the Earth the darkest and most friable of all the Elements besides that Water and Earth having no viscosity are incapable of any continuity and hardness which arises from Salt which indu'd with a Principle of Coagulation perfectly unites the Water with the Earth so as not to be afterwards dissolvable by any Water but such as is mix'd with much Salt Lastly the Cement they make with Lime Water and Sand petrifying in time shews the necessity of the fix'd Salt of Lime which gives the coherence of all in the generation of Stones Wherefore I conclude that as in common and opake Stones there is a little Salt amongst much Earth so in those which are precious there is much Salt amongst a very small quantity of Earth CONFERENCE CXXXVII Of the Generation of Metals MEtal which is a Mineral solid opake heavy malleable ductile and sounding body is compounded either by Nature Art or Chance as Latin Electrum and Corinthian Brass or else it is simple and divided into seven Species according to the number of Planets whereunto each of them is referr'd as precious Stones are to the Fixed Starrs namely Gold Silver Lead Copper Iron Tinn and Quick-silver which others reject from the number of Metals because not malleable as also Tinn because compounded of Lead and Silver Their remote Matter is much Water with little Earth their next according to Aristotle a vaporous exhalation Their general Efficient Cause is Heaven by its Motion and Influencess producing Heat which attenuates and concocts the said Exhalation which is afterwards condens'd by Cold Hence all Metals are melted by violent Fire which evaporates Quick-silver and softens that sort of Iron which is not fusible The place where they are generated is the bosome of the Earth the Metals found in Waters as Gold in Tagus and Pactolus having been carry'd from the Earth by the Waters which washing and purifying them render them more perfect than those of the Mines The Second said Although Metals were generated at the beginning of the world in their Mines whence they were first extracted and wrought by Tubalcain who is the fabulous Vulcan of Paganism yet they cease not to be generated anew by the afflux of sutable Matter which is a metallick Juice form'd of humidity not simply aqueous for then Heat should evaporate instead of concocting it but viscous unctuous and somewhat terrestrial which for a long time holds out against whatever violent Heat as appears by the Fires of Volcanoes which are maintain'd by Bitumen alone and other sulphureous Earths This also is the Opinion of the Chymists when they compound them of Sulphur and Mercury Sulphur holding the place of the Male Seed and Mercury which is more crude and aqueous that of the maternal blood And as the Salt or Earth predominating in Stones is the cause of their friability so Sulphur and
by the Sensitive Actions which may also have another cause For the infusion of the Reasonable Soul after forty days cannot be proved by actions proper to it for it reasons not till long after nor by the actions of a Soul simply for then you must grant that it is there before Organization which is an action proper to animated things Moreover the Soul must be admitted in the Body as soon as it may be there which is at the beginning of conception because even then there wants no fit disposition to this Soul which needs not any different Organs for the barely Vegetative Actions which she then performs no more then Plants do nor are different Organs necessary to her absolute exsisting since God hath created her immaterial and without any dependance and we see the similary parts of the Body are animated so that the dispositions wherewith the Soul can subsist and which suffice to retain her in the Body are also sufficient to introduce her thereinto Now these dispositions are no other then the same which are requisite for the actions of the Vegetative Soul For whatever indisposition happen to the Organs of Sense and Motion the Soul abides in the Body till the heat be dissipated or extinguished the Organs of Sense and Motion being not necessary to retain the Soul in the Body saving in as much as they contribute to respiration Even the Apoplexie which abolishes all the noble dispositions which the Philosophers hold necessary to the Soul never drives her away unless it be by accident since a Child in his Mothers belly may have that disease without incommodity saving when it comes to need respiration Now though Organization be not a disposition requisite to the introduction of the Soul yet she requires certain others some whereof we know not as that unexplicable character imprinted in the Seed besides the temperament which suffices perfectly to determine the matter for introdudion of this form and exclusion of all other The conformation of Organs being not a disposition which determines necessarily seeing amongst humane bodies some differ more from the generality of men in respect of the principal parts then they do from certain other Animals but 't is the temperament alone which arising in the first days after the mixture of the two seeds and according to Hippocrates the foetus having in the first seven days all that he ought to have this opinion is more pious and expedient for repressing the criminal license of those who without scruple procure abortion within the first forty days The Third said Though the Reasonable Soul be of a much sublimer nature then the souls of other Creatures yet being created with reference to the Body 't is not introduced thereinto till the same be fitted for its reception as no other natural form is ever received into a subject not previously fitted with all due dispositions And since the Soul is the principle of all actions hence she needs Organs and Instruments for performing them and the more sublime she is the greater preparation doth she require then the Sensitive Soul as this also doth then the Vegetative which demands only a certain mixture of the first qualities besides which the sensitive requires a more exquisite temperament of the two Principles of Generation Seed and Blood endued with a vital Spirit capable of producing Sense and Motion So that the Reasonable Soul ought not to be infused till after the conformation is in all points completed The Fourth said Since there is no proportion but between things of the same nature the Immortal Reasonable Soul cannot have any with the corruptible Body and so not depend more on the matter in its infusion then in its creation which is probably the third day after conception at which time the actions of life appear in nutrition growth alteration and configuration of the parts Which actions must proceed from some internal and animated principle which cannot be the Soul either of Father or Mother since they act not where they are not inherently nor yet the spirit of the Seed which is not a principal agent but only the instrument of a Soul nor the formative vertue which is only an accident or temper of qualities and in like manner the instrument of some more noble agent 'T is therefore the Soul contained in the bosom of the matter which produces all these actions therein They who hold the Reasonable Soul not introduced till after the two others consider not that Forms receiving no degrees of more or less cannot be perfected or changed one into another much less annihilated seeing corruption is caused only by contraries and Forms have none It follows therefore that the Reasonable Soul is the principle of all these functions which she performs according to the dispositions she meets with and that she is the architect of her own habitation CONFERENCE CXLIII Of Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls THough Metemphychosis or the Transmigration of Souls be rather imaginary then true yet because there is nothing which more inriches the Field of Philosophy then liberty of reasoning we shall here inquire whether the Heathen guided only by the light of Nature had any reason to maintain this extravagance which was first taught in Greece by Pythagoras who had learn'd it of the Egyptians by whom and most other Nations of antiquity it was believ'd not only that souls departed out of some bodies re-entered and animated others but also that all things after a certain revolution of Ages should resume the same state wherein they had formerly been This was also the opinion of Plato saving that he was more rational then Pythagoras who making three Souls of the same quality said that those of men after death went to animate the bodies of Men Beasts or Plants for which reason he abstained from the flesh of Animals and could hardly resolve to eat Beans for fear of biting his Fathers head But Plato held the Transmigration of Rational Souls only into humane Bodies Which opinion though less absurd then the former which destroys it self by the confusion it introduces amongst all natural beings yet it hath its inconveniences too since the Soul being an incompleat form making one whole with its other half the Body it can never meet with one in all points like the first besides that were it in another it would have an inclination towards the first and so would not be in such body in quality of a form but in a state of constraint and violence The Second said That the Pythagorical Metemphychosis is not more absurd in regard that being the form gives a determinate and specifical being to every thing if humane souls past into the bodies of Beasts or Plants these Creatures would be Men then that of Plato seems probable nothing hindring but that a humane soul may enter into another humane body after the dissolution and ruine of the former For if there be any thing to hinder it it must be because there is no return
in words gestures and actions pass for Wisdom call the French light because they are more nimble and active then themselves and being really what others are onely in appearance affect not that false mask of Wisdom whereof they possess the solidity and Body whilst these content themselves with enjoying its shadow and ghost For 't is not the change of habits or modes that argues that of the Mind but in great Matters as Religion and State in maintaining whereof the French may be affirm'd more constant than any Nation 'T is not an Age yet since France bad reason to glory as well as in Saint Jerom's time of never having produc'd Monsters but of planting the Faith well amongst all its Neighbors whose rigorous Inquisition is less a testimony of the Constancy than of the lightness or baseness of their Spirits since they are kept in their Religion by fear of the Wheel and the Gallows Then as for the State the French Monarchy is the ancientest in the world and hath been always maintain'd amidst the ruines and downfalls of other States by the exact observation of its fundamental Laws which is an eminent Argument of the Constancy of the French the Nations who have most charg'd them with this Vice shewing themselves the most inconstant whilst this puissant body of France remains always like it self which it could not do if the members which compose it were light and inconstant the greatest Vice where-with they can asperse us For since according to Seneca Wisdom is always to will and not-will the same things Inconstance and Irresolution in willing sometimes one thing sometimes another is a certain testimony of Folly Imprudence and weakness of Mind which coming to change intimates either that it took not its measures aright nor apprehended the fit means of attaining to the proposed end or that it had not Courage and Resolution enough to go through with its designes And not onely he who hath an inconstant and flitting Spirit is incapable of Wisdom which requires a settled Mind not mutable like that of the Fool who as the Scripture saith changes like the Moon but also of all sort of Virtue which consisting in a mediocrity is not attainable but by Prudence which prescribes its Bounds and Rules and by Stability and Constance which arms the Mind against all difficulties occurring in the way of Virtue in which as well as in the Sciences and Arts the French having more share than any other Nation 't is injurious to accuse them of Inconstancy The Third said 'T is not more vanity to believe one's self perfect in all things than temerity in going about upon blind passion for his Country to exempt it from a Vice whereof all strangers who know us better than we do our selves are universally agreed Let us confess therefore that we are inconstant since in comparison of the Vices of other Neighbouring Nations this will not onely appear light but make it doubtful whether it be a Vice since 't is grounded upon Nature which is in perpetual change whereby she appears more beautiful and agreeable than in identity and rest which is not found even in the prime Bodies and universal Causes which as well as others are in a continual mobility and change which is no-wise contrary to Wisdom which requires that we accommodate our selves to the circumstances of places persons and times which alter incessantly and that we consequently alter our Conclusions according thereunto besides that change of Opinion is a testimony of a free and ingenuous Spirit as that of the French is and it may be attributed to the power of example in a people environ'd with sundry Nations extreamly different and consisting of Spirits which are imbu'd with the qualities of them all For this Country lying under the forty third degree and the forty eighth the mixture of these people which partake a little of the Southern and a little of the Northern Neighbours sometimes conforms to the modes of one sometimes to those of the other And as in the change of Colours the difference is not seen but in the two extreamities those of the middle appearing changeable and diversifi'd so France situated between the Germans Italians and Spaniards mixing and tempering in it self the qualities of those Nations which are in its extreamities appears to them changeable and uncertain The Fourth said Though the French are not more inconstant than others yet their boyling and impetuous humor and the quickness of all their Actions having made them be esteemed such by all their Neighbors I shall rather refer the Cause thereof to their abundance of Spirits which are the sole Motors and Principles of all Actions produc'd by the purity of their Air and the variety of their Aliments than to the Aspects of Heaven or such other Causes since Nations under the same parallel with France as Podolia Hungary Tartary and many others should be subject to the same Vice which was sometimes imputed to the Grecians the most fickle and inconstant of all people without referring the Cause to the Winds as Cardan held that such as are most expos'd thereunto to have volatile Spirits otherwise the French and other Nations subject to Winds should quit their levity when they came into Climates less windy CONFERENCE CXLVII Of the sundry Motions of the Sea and Rivers NOthing ravishes us more than the Motion of Inanimate Bodies Automata or Bodies moving by Artifice having in the beginning made Idolaters who were undeceived when they came to know the Springs of them But above all the Motions of the Sea seem the more marvellous in that they are very different and contrary And they are of two sorts One Internal and common to all heavy Bodies whereby the Water descends downwards the agitated Sea becomes calm by returning to its level and Rivers follow the declivity of the Lands through which they pass The other violent which is either irregular render'd so by the irregularity of the Winds or regular which again is of two sorts namely that of reciprocation in the flux and reflux of the Sea and that which depends upon the several parts of the World being either from East to West or from North to South 'T is true Water being naturally fluid and moveable and not to be contain'd within its own bounds it were more strange if this great Body were immoveable than to see it move as it was necessary it should for Navigation and to avoid corruption The wonder onely is to see in one sole Body so great a diversity of Motions whereof onely the first is natural to it the others arise from some extrinsick Causes amongst which none acting more sensibly upon the Elements than the Celestial Bodies 't is to the diversity of their Motions that those of the Sea must be imputed but particularly that of its flux and reflux which being regular and always alike in one and the same Sea cannot proceed but from as regular a Cause such as the Heaven is and chiefly the
But 't is not so with a Lye which presupposes either ignorance or malice Whence the terms of Sot and Ignorant are also most cutting even to those that are not so Besides a Lyar unless he repel the injury a vowing himself the Disciple of the Father of Lyes this Reproach is very odious to good men especially to the French who so affect that Title from all Antiquity that our Ancestors have transferr'd it to Valour which they esteem'd the chief of the Vertues saying that such as have defended themselves well have done en gens de bien like good men The Sixth said That the Lye is offensive only upon account of the intention since most of our Discourses Answers and Replies wherein consists one of the greatest pleasures of life without which our Converse would have no agreeableness as appears by those that speak not to one another or agree in every thing are no other but fair givings of the Lye yet are so far from being offensive that they cause us to desire the company of such as know how to make handsom Reparties Thus many of our Generals whose venturousness upon the greatest hazards sufficiently testifies their desire of Praise yet shew displeasure at the hearing of their own Commendations a Dissimulation which carries them sometimes so far that when any History of these times publishes some brave Action perform'd by them they scruple not to blame the Historian who by concealing the like another time may secure himself from such Complements if he take them not in the right sense CONFERENCE CLXII Why every one thinks himself well enough provided with Wit and some better than others AS the Eye seeth it not it self so the Intellect understandeth not it self but judging only of the parts of all others finds something in them to discommend and having a better conceit of its self arrogates the preeminence in the comparison For the reflexion of the Intellect upon it self is never sincere but disguis'd and falsifi'd by the false reports and prejudices of Self-love which makes us think our selves better then our Neighbours Hence those that take not pains to consider their own Wit care not to make a just comparison of it with that of others since a right Comparison is between two things known and those that can do it do it through the clouds of Interest which like Optical Glasses magnifie Objects and make an Elephant of a Fly The second said 'T is not universally true that every one is contented with his own wit for there are many no less diffident then others are confident of themselves Hence some eloquent Tongues fit either for the Chair or the Bar are kept from both by timidity and distrust of their own abilities and as some great animals suffer themselves to be lead and govern'd by a Childe so their good wits not understanding their own strength permit themselves to be rul'd by those that have worse Thus we see there are Apprentices in all Trades and Professions more knowing then their Masters and many times in that of War a brave experienc'd Souldier obeyes a cowardly and ignorant Captain And in Religious Houses some excellent Spirits glorying not to repute themselves such suffer themselves to be guided and ruled by those of an inferiour Degree Yea the most presumptuous are seldom satisfi'd with their own first conceptions as appears by the frequent connexions and expunctions in the originals of their Writings to which even after publishing they never cease to adde or diminish Of which number are many who making a review of their precedent actions alwayes finde something therein to dislike But as for others who have a better opinion of their own wit then that of others this defect seems to proceed from the want of knowledge of themselves so much recommended by the Delphian Oracle such people resembling the old Hag who put her eyes up in a Box when she came home and took them out onely when she went abroad or those that have a Wallet upon their necks whereof they never see but the forepart into which they put the affairs of their Neighbours the other being behinde into which they put all that concerns themselves Which our Saviour also reprov'd in Hypocrites who see not the beam in their own eyes yet spy a mote in that of their Neighbour The Third said That there being three sorts of Goods namely of the Minde the Body and Fortune the two latter are so expos'd to the eyes of every one 't is impossible to deceive the Spectators in the judgement thereof But 't is not so with those of the minde which not appearing to all are like secret Records of a Law Suit the extract or coppy whereof depends upon the honesty or dishonesty of the reporter who being both Judge and Party 't is no wonder if he award the Cause to himself as those that give their Voices to themselves excuse it by saying That having sworn to choose the most capable they judg'd themselves such Whereunto the evil custom of commending one's self much contributes by turning into Nature and so perswading us of what we would make others believe So also do flatterers whom all the world delights to hear whatever is pretended to the contrary and who may speak more boldly of the gifts of the minde because they are not perceptible of themselves and so less subject to contradiction The Fourth said That 't is so far from being true that every one esteems his own genius because he sees it not that on the contrary he esteems it more then others because commonly he sees none but it not in its substance but in its effects For if we value a Friend whose presents we frequently behold before our eyes how great reason must every one finde to prize his own spirit whereof all the actions are in a manner present to him He beholds himself in himself morning and evening sleeping and waking and finding not external objects enough to compare with the multitude of internal species which his pass'd actions furnish to him he makes the conclusion to his own advantage If he be a Poet all his Senses are fill'd with his Rhimes or with his square Periods if an Orator The memory of his exploits incessantly returns to him if he be a Souldier and perhaps being reviv'd by some Sore or old Hurt makes him easily presume that he is as good as a Captain or if he be a Captain that he could better perform the office of Field-Marshal then he that hath it In brief there is no profession wherein the minde findes not wherewith to content yea to admire it self and withal to abate the value of others comparison being like a balance one scale whereof cannot be rais'd without depressing the other The Fifth said That the reason why every one is contented with his own Wit is because we are never brought to acknowledge our own errours unless by constraint or conviction And the minde never fails of a subterfuge and
raising and sending forth vapors and spirits when these spirits meet others like themselves they serve them instead of a recruit and increase the good disposition of the body wherein they are And 't is this way that old women prejudice the health of Children whilst their vapid spirits are imbib'd by the tender skin of the Infants and so corrupting the humors disorder their natural functions Hence also consumptive persons give their disease to such as breathe near them and so likewise all contagious and occult maladies are communicated by one morbid subject to another dispos'd to receive the same affection But the latter sort of Fascination whereby common people think that not onely men and Animals may be kill'd but also plants dry'd up streams stopt stones broken in pieces and the like is no-wise in the power of nature whatever the Arabians say who ascribe all these effects to imagination whose power they equal to that of Intelligences who are able to move the whole Universe For if it doth nothing of it self in its proper body where it simply receives the species of things it must do less without its precinct Moreover 't is impossible for a sound man to make another sick because he cannot give what himself hath not they in whom by an extraordinary corruption the blood seed or other humors have acquir'd a venomous quality being necessarily sick So that 't is a pure work of Devils who knowing the properties of things apply the same really to the parts of the body without our privity whilst they amuze our senses with other objects as the aspect of another person or some such insignificant thing Besides that children being apt to lose their flesh upon unapparent causes such a change may be purely natural whilst it is by mistake charg'd upon a strangers praises of the Infant who must necessarily grow worse because it cannot become better CONFERENCE CLXXIII Of Amulets and whether Diseases are curable by Words Tickets or other things hang'd at the Neck or applyed to the body of the Diseased THis Question depends upon the Precedent for if 't is possible to make a person sick by the Aspect alone it may seem also possible to cure him by Contact alone In the examining of the matter we must distinguish as elsewhere also supernatural cures from those which come to pass according to the course of nature Of the former sort are all the Miracles of the Holy Scripture and Ecclesiastical History those which Gods power manifests in all times by his Saints and the cure which he hath reserv'd to our Kings by their sole Touch. Some cure may likewise happen naturally by the pronouncing of words when the Patients Fancy is so strong that it hath power enough over his body to introduce some notable change therein whence that Physician cures most in whom most confide Thus I have seen some persons eas'd of the Tooth-ache upon sticking a knife in a Tree and pronouncing some barbarous words But it falls out oftentimes that the effect of one cause is attributed to another Such was the cure of a Gentleman of the Ligue whom the late King Henry the IV. surprized in the Town of Loges as he was shivering with a Quartain Ague and the King in Railery sent him a Receipt against his Ague the sight whereof presently cur'd him through the fear he had of that unexpected approach So also many remedies act by some occult property as Paeony hung about Childrens necks against the Epilepsy and Quick-silver apply'd upon the Breast or hung in a Quill is believ'd a preservative against the Pestilence all precious stones are thought to have some vertue against some indisposition of the body or minde The Eagle-stone apply'd to the Arm retains the child in the Womb and to the knee facilitates Delivery Coral and the Jasper stop Blood the Nephitick Stone is conceiv'd to void the Gravel of the Kidneyes the hinder foot of a Hare carry'd in the Pocket cures the Sciatica of the same side from which it was taken For Remedies whose sole application cures by their penetrating and sensible vertue are not of this rank Thus if Quick-silver apply'd cures the Pox by causing a Flux at the mouth it must not be term'd an Amulet nor Cantharides when apply'd as a vesicatory they cause Urine nor Epithemes apply'd to the Heart or Liver but herbs and other things laid to the Patients wrist may be so styl'd when they have no manifest qualities proper against an Ague The Question therefore is Whether such Applications Suspensions and Wearings have any Natural Effect I conceive they have not For a Natural Action requires not only some Mathematical or Physical Contact but also a proportion between the Cause and its Effect Now what proportion can there be between a Prayer or other Speech most commonly insignificative and the Cure of a Disease much less between a little Ticket or other suspended Body and an Ague what is said of the weapon-salve being either fabulous or diabolical and alwayes superstitious as the Phylacteries of the Jews were Although this Error is so ancient that the Greek Athletae were wont to arm themselves with such things against sluggishness of which trifles their Adversaries also made use to overcome them in Wrastling and at this day some wear certain Chracters about them that they may win at play In like manner the Romans hung Amulets about their Children's necks which they call'd Praefifcini and Fascini and made of Jet as the Spaniards make them at present To which to attribute any power upon the account of their Form Number or other regard beside their Matter is an Error as great in Philosophy as it would be impiety and contempt of the Church to extend his conclusion to Dei's Reliques and other sacred things whose so continual Effect cannot be question'd but by the prophane and heretical The Second said That by the Doctrine lately publish'd in the Treatise of Talismans it appears that not only Matter but also Figure Number and other correspondences with the Celestial Bodies have some efficacy which to question because we know not the manifest Cause would be too great presumption Yea I would not call all such Effects Supernatural since there are so many things feasible whereof we know not the Cause And as to the Supernatural Effects of Amulets they are of two sorts For either they are perform'd by the favour and blessing of God who redoubles yea heightens to a seemingly unpossible degree the Effects of Natural Causes or else changes them Or they are effected by help of the Evil Spirit who is the Ape of Divine Actions As then in consequence of the Sacraments God's Graces are conferr'd upon Christians so the Devil agrees with the Sorcerer or Magician that as often as he shall make such a sign or speak such a word such an Effect shall follow whence 't is no wonder if the Devil though inclin'd solely to Evil sometimes does good as healing a Disease by applying
of good juice conduceth much to render Women fruitful On the contrary the frequent use of food hot and dry gross and of bad juice may render them barren as Leeks and Garlick do and amongst other Plants Mint which was therefore forbidden to be eaten or planted in time of war wherein 't is needful to repair by Fecundity the loss of Men it causeth In like manner want of Exercise by the heaping up of superfluous Humors and too violent and continual Exercises by desiccating the parts oftentimes occasion sterility Amongst the Passions Sadness is the greatest Enemy to Generation whence Hesiod forbids marry'd people to see one another after a Funeral but only at their coming from a Bath or from places of Mirth In fine what ever is capable to impair the goodness of the Temper is contrary to Fruitfulness and Generation which above all other Natural Actions requires an exact harmony of the qualities and a perfect disposition of the noble parts which supply Matter and Spirits fit for this Action And although Men and Women are alike expos'd to External Causes yet Women being less vigorous are sooner wrought upon by them For to Internal Causes which are the most considerable Women are undoubtedly more subject since beside Seed which they supply as well as Man who to deserve the name of fruitful ought only to supply the same in requisite quantity quality and consistence and place it in convenient Recepticles the Woman must also afford Blood and also a place for receiving and preserving both the Seeds and Blood namely her Womb the least disorder whereof is sufficient to marr the whole work of Generation Wherefore since she contributes most to Generation and there are more Causes in her concurring thereunto if it take not Effect she is more in fault than the Man who hath not so many several concurrences in the business The Fourth said That the Causes of sterility being either Natural or Adventitious and equal in the Man and the Woman nothing can be determin'd upon this Question For in either Sex there are both universal and particular deficiences of right Temper and as many Effeminate Men as Viragoes the one not less unfit for Generation than the other as Aristotle saith Castration is practis'd in both and disorderly living is equal as well in Male as Female in these dayes For if Men exceed in drinking Maids and Women are as bad in Gluttony and Lickerishness If there be any difference 't is from the diversity of Climate Women being found more fruitful in hot Countries and less in cold but Men contrarily the intemperies of either Sex being corrected by an opposite constitution of Air. Hence such Women as have been long barren sometimes become fruitful by change of Air Places manner of Life and especially of Age by which the temperament of the Body being sensibly alter'd it acquires the Fruitfulness it wanted by acquiring the Qualities and Conditions necessary to Generation Many likewise upon the same reason become fuitful after the use of Mineral Waters or Baths and being thereby deliver'd from several Diseases to which barren Women are more subject than such as have Children whom Parturition rids of abundance of Excrements peculiar to that Sex and occasioning many disorders in the barren The Fifth said That the observation made by Bodin in his Republick and several other famous Authors that the number of Women much exceeds that of Men seems to void the Question Nature having thereby sufficiently given us to understand That fewer men are as fruitful as more women Which observation is verifi'd not only in the East and other Countries where plurality of Wives hath places but also in France where there is no Province wherein Virgins remain not unmarry'd for want of Husbands Moreover one man may beget abundance of Children in the space of nine moneths during which a woman breeds but one or two and therefore Man seems more fruitful then Woman who beginning to be capable of Generation but two years before Man doth viz. at 12 years old at the soonest ends 23 years sooner then he for men generate at 70 years of age and more but women end at 50. During which time also they are subject to far more infirmities and maladies than men who have not above four or five whereof women are not capable but women have fifty or threescore peculiar to themselves CONFERENCE CLXXVIII Whether Complaisance proceeds from Magnanimity or Poorness of Spirit COmplaisance is a habit opposite to Roughness the first being a Species of Civility the latter of Rusticity Now since we are complaisant either in good or bad things to be so must be commendable or blameable according to the nature of the object But because no body doubts that we ought to be complaisant in vertuous actions and that they are as culpable who connive at vice as they that commit it It remains to consider of Complaisance in indifferent things as 't is in common practise amongst men and as Juvenal represents it in a person that falls a weeping as soon as he sees his friends tears and when he smiles laughs aloud and if you say you are very hot he sweats if cold he runs to his Fur-gown Now the Question is whether such a man hath more of courage or baseness I conceive he shews himself a very pitiful fellow For this deportment differs not from that servile Vice Flattery which is near akin to Lying and easily turns from an indifferent to a vicious action Thus Courtiers varnish vices with the name of such vertues as have most conformity therewith calling Avarice Frugality Lasciviousness Love Obstinacy Constancy and so in other cases till they render themselves ridiculous even to those they praise who how vain soever they may be yet cannot hear their own praises without blushing at them being conscious that they displease all the hearers Indeed when I am complaisant to any one 't is for fear to offend him and fear was never an effect of Magnanimity To which all that can be excepted is that it belongs also to Prudence to fear formidable things But Fortitude and Courage are never employ'd in the practise of this vertue which therefore is very much suspected and oft-times serves for an excuse of cowardice Hence old men whom their cold blood makes less courageous are esteem'd the most prudent and if they be not the most complaisant 't is to be imputed to the sullenness attending that age as jollity doth youth Moreover as Courage leads us to act without fear of danger what we conceive good and just so it teaches us to call things by their proper names as Philip's Souldiers did On the contrary Complaisance teaches people to admire beauty in a deformed woman to commend a bad Poets Verses and desire a copy of them from him to give fair words to such as we will not or cannot do any kindness to in brief to dissemble all things and to disguise our words contrary to the frequent express
which displease the more judicious So that as there is one beauty absolutely such and another respective and in comparison of those who judge differently thereof according as they find it in themselves whence the Africans paint the Devil white because themselves are black and the Northern people paint him black because themselves are white so there are Gestures and Motions purely and simply becoming honest and agreeable others such only by opinion of the beholders as are the Modes of Salutation and lastly others absolutely bad as Frowning Winking biting the Lip putting out the Tongue holding the Head too upright or crooked beating of measures with the Fingers in short making any other disorderly Gesture All which defects as they are opposite to perfections which consist in a right situation of all the parts without affectation proceed from the Phansie either sound or depraved Which happens either naturally or through imitation The first case hath place in Children who from their birth are inclined to some motions and distortions of their Muscles which being double if one become weaker and its Antagonist too short it draws the part whereto it gives motion out of its natural seat as is seen in those that squint The second is observed in Children somewhat bigger who beholding some Gesture repeated render the same so familiar to themselves that at length it becomes natural to them Hence the prohibition of Mothers give their Children not to counterfeit the vices their companions bodies is not void even of natural reason because the Phansie is stronger in a weak Mind and when the Memory is unfurnished or other species whence the Phansies of Women are more powerful then those of Men. The Minds of Children being weak and residing in soft pliant Bodies more easily admit any idea's once conceiv'd And as a Language is more easily learn'd by Use then by Precepts so example is Extreamly prevalent and sweetly insinuating into the Phansie by the Senses diffuses its influence over the whole Body The Third said That if the Soul be an harmony as the pleasure it takes therein seems to intimate we need seek no other cause of the several motions and cadences of the Body which it animates 'T is the Soul which moves all the Nerves of the Body and carries to all the parts such portion as she pleases of Spirits proper to move them whereby like a player upon a Lute or some other Instrument she makes what string sound she pleases stretching one and loosening another And as Musick is such as the Quirrester pleases to make it delighting the Ear if it be proportionate thereunto and procuring the Musitian the repute of skilfulness if not the contrary happens so the Soul imprints upon the Body one figure or another which make a good or bad grace insomuch that oftentimes gracefulness is more esteemed than Beauty unless it may be better said to be part thereof for want of which beautiful persons resemble inanimate Statues or Pictures But as true Beauty is wholly natural and an Enemy to Artifice so the Soul ows to its original and first temper the good or posture which it gives its Body and there is as much difference between natural gracefulness and affected postures as between the Life and the Picture truth and appearance yea the sole suspicion of affectation offends us Moreover a Clown seldom becomes Courtly and whatever pains be bestowed in teaching him good Carriage yet still his defects appear through his constraint as on the contrary amongst Shepherds most remote from the civilities of the Court we see gentileness and dexterities which manifest that good carriage or Gestures are purely natural The Fourth said That in the Gestures and Motions of the Body two principles must be acknowledged one natural and the other accidental The former is founded in the structure and composition of every one's Body the diversity whereof produceth with that of the spirits humors and manners all the Actions and Passions which depend thereon the true motive causes of our Gestures and Carriages Hence he that suffers pain frowns he that repents bites his Lip or Fingers he that admires something and dares not express it shrugs his shoulders he that muses deeply turns his Eyes inward and bites the end of his Pen or Nails The accidental principle is imitation which next to Nature is the most efficacious cause and acts most in us Man being born for imitation more than any other Creatures as appears in that scarce five or six Species of Birds imitate our Language the Ape alone our Gestures we on the contrary imitate not only the voices of all Animals but also all their Actions And therefore as it cannot be denied that Nature contributes to our Gestures so neither can it be doubted that Imitation hath a power therein CONFERENCE CXCI. Which is most proper for Study the Evening or the Morning IF Antiquity had not had Errors the cause of those who prefer the study of the Evening before that of the Morning would be very desperate But Reasons having more force here than the Authorities of Pedagogues who hold Aurora the friend of the Muses only to the end that their Scholars rising betimes in the Morning themselves may have the more time left after their exercises I conceive the Evening much more fit for any Employment of the Mind than any other part of the day the Morning leaving not only the first and more common wayes full of Excrements but also all the Ventricles of the Brain wherein the Spirits are elaborated and also the Arteries and Interstices of the Muscles full of vapors whence proceed the frequent oscitations contortions and extension of the members upon our awaking to force out the vapors which incommode them On the contrary the Evening even after repast finds those first wayes full of good Aliments which send up benigne and laudable vapors which allay and temper the acrimony of other more sharp and biting found by experience in Men fasting who for that reason are more prone to Choler Moreover Study consisting in Meditation and this in reflection upon the Species received into the Phansie 't is certain that the report of these introduced all the day long serves for an efficacious Lesson to the Mind when it comes to make review of the things offered to the Intellect for it to draw consequences from the same and make a convenient choice but in the Morning all the species of the preceding day are either totally effaced or greatly decayed Moreover the melancholy humor which is most proper for Study requires constancy and assiduity which ordinarily accompanies this humor and it is predominant in the Evening as Bloud is in the Morning according as Physicians allot the four humors to the four parts of the natural day as therefore the Sanguine are less proper for Study than the Melancholy so is the Morning than the Evening Hence the good Father Ennius never versified so well as after he had drunk which seldom happens in
no great road between the highest wisdom and the greatest extravagance it may be further inferr'd that those who are of a more dry Temperament whereof it is as likely that fools as well as wise men may be frequently have such visions and fall into those Ecstacies and upon this account that they mind not their own thoughts are easily susceptible of external impressions and the first objects which present themselves to them So that we may make a distinction of Ecstacies into two kinds The former is to be attributed only to great and contemplative persons and may be said to be only a disengagement of the mind which is so taken up with the apprehension of an object that it quite forgets all its other functions For the case is the same with the Vnderstanding in reference to its object which is Truth as it is with the Will in respect of its proper object to wit Good which it so passionately affects that it is not so much where it lives as where it loves In like manner the Understanding being forcibly engag'd to a taking object whereof it makes a particular observation of all the differences is so transform'd into it that it ceases to act any where else Now the reason of this is that knowledge or apprehension as well as all the other functions is wrought by a concourse of spirits which being by that means in a manner all employ'd in that transcendent action there are not enough remaining for the performance of other actions the small portion that is being wholly employ'd about respiration nourishment and the other actions necessary for the Conservation of Life Accordingly this kind of Ecstacy or cessation of the functions is not only observ'd to happen in that conflict and contention of the mind when it is wholly bent upon the examination of some object but also in all the other actions which are perform'd with excess such as for example the Passions are the extraordinary violences whereof occasion Ecstacies an extream grief casting a man down so much that he becomes as it were stupid and insensible The same thing happens also through joy by a contrary effect as well as in Anger Fear Audacity and the other perturbations of the irascible and concupiscible Appetites by reason of the great diffusion or concentration of the spirits Whence it follows that it is not more strange to see a man ravish'd and fallen into an Ecstacy as it were out of himself in the contemplation of some object than to see some persons so over-joy'd as to die out of pure joy For Knowledge being an action of the Understanding whereby it raises and elevates to a spiritual and incorporeal Being things that are most material which are advanc'd in the Understanding to a new and more perfect Being than that which they had of their own Nature the Understanding renders them like it self and is so united to them that there cannot be a greater conformity than what is between the object and the power whereby it is known When therefore that object is of its own Nature spiritual and immaterial the Understanding having disengag'd it self from every other Subject is so over-joy'd at its own knowledge that it forgets all other actions of less consequence The other Ecstacy is properly attributed to Lunaticks and distracted persons and is by Physicians plac'd among the highest irregularities caused by black Choler in the minds of such as are much inclin'd to Melancholy in whom it causes an alienation of Spirit which inclines them to imagine speak or do things that are ridiculous and extravagant sometimes with fury and rage when that humor is enflam'd and converted into black Choler and sometimes with a stupid sadness when it continues cold and dry The Second said That the Greek word signifying an Ecstacy is ordinarily taken for every change of condition whatever it may be sometimes for a transportation and elevation of mind whereby a man comes to know things absent as it was explicated in the precedent part of this discourse Such peradventure was the taking up of Saint Paul even while he liv'd into that blisful Seat of the Blessed which he calls the Third Heaven allowing the Air to be one and the starry-sky to be another And that of Saint John the Evangelist which he speaks of in the Revelation Nay before them such were those of the Prophets and after them those of many other persons if we may give any credit to Historians Such was that of the Abbot Romuald who finding a great difficulty to read the Psalms of David became in an Ecstacy he had as he was saying Mass so learned that he was able to interpret the most intricate passages of them Such was that of Saint Francis the Founder of the Order of Franciscans who in a ravishment receiv'd upon his body the marks of our Saviour's Passion Such was Saint Thomas Aquinas who frequently fell into such an Ecstacy that he seem'd dead to all that were about him Such was John Scot commonly known by the name of the subtle Doctor to whom the same thing happen'd so often that his most familiar friends seeing him as he sate reading or writing found him many times immoveable and without sentiment insomuch that he was carry'd away from the place for dead and yet these two last were rais'd up so illuminated from that Philosophical Death that they have left but few imitators of their great Learning The same thing is affirmed of a certain Virgin nam'd Elizabeth whose Senses were sometimes so stupifi'd that she continu'd a long time in a manner dead from which kind of Trance being come to her self she fore-told some things which afterwards came to pass according to her predictions To be short there are few Monasteries of either Men or Women but affirm as much of their Founders And that it may not be imagin'd that such a separation of Body and Soul happened during this Life only to Enthusiasm or a highly-contemplative meditation of divine things which nevertheless must be acknowledg'd the common cause of it we read of Epimenides of Creet and Aristeas the Proconnesian eminent Poets and Philosophers that sometimes they left their Bodies without Souls which having taken their progress about the world return'd after a certain time and re-animated their Bodies Nay Pliny hath a pretty remarkable Story how that the Soul of this Aristeas was many times perceiv'd to take her flight out of his Body under the form of a Crow and that his Enemies having observ'd it and on a time met with his Body in that posture burnt it and by that means disappointed the Bird of her nest Apollonius relates a Story yet much more prodigious of Hermotimus the Clazomenian to wit that his Soul made Voyages of several years having left his Body during that time without any sentiment while she went up and down into divers parts of the world fore-telling Earth-quakes great Droughts Deluges and such other remarkable Accidents And further that this
and after a long continu'd looking upon it the Visual Spirits being by degrees dissipated brought his Soul into a Vertigo or Dizziness which occasion'd the Ecstacy The Fourth said That the opinion of Bodin which allows a separation between the Souls and Bodies of Witches and Sorcerers having been invented only to render a reason of what they affirm they had seen during the time their Bodies had been immoveable is not to be believ'd without some further proof since it is impossible even by that to explicate the Relations which they make of those places where they say they had been and the things they had there done inasmuch as they positively affirm that they had made those progresses with their Bodies and all their members and that they had made use of them in eating drinking and performing such other actions as are purely corporeal and cannot be imagin'd done in a state of separation as being not compatible to separated Spirits which being immaterial stand in need of Bodies to assume corporeal affections and perform those beastly Actions whereof Sorcerers talk so much To this may be added that this separation cannot be wrought without death and that suppos'd it were impossible the Souls should re-enter into their Bodies otherwise than by a real resurrection which is an act that God hath so reserv'd to himself that the Devil is not capable of doing it Nay though it were in his power it is rather to be imagin'd that he would be far enough from taking souls out of their bodies and disrobing them of their sensual inclinations inasmuch as he does all lies in his power to involve the Souls of Men more and more into their Bodies and make them wallow in sensuality and render all their affections corporeal Accordingly great and generous Souls such as are most disengag'd from the Body are not fit for that purpose since Agrippa and all the other Masters of that detestable profession require Simplicity in those who would be Sorcerers as a necessary and previous disposition So that if the Souls of Sorcerers which are at first engag'd and afterwards continu'd in the Devil's service only in prosecution of the concerns of the Body came to be devested of that heavy mass whereby they are encompassed and stripp'd of the inclinations of the Body no doubt they would break off so disadvantagious a bargain at least they would not find any delight in the divertisements where-with the Devil does amuse them It is therefore more probable that the Devil should sometimes cast Sorcerers into a certain sleep and bind up their common sense so as that they are rendred incapable of receiving external impressions and that in the mean time he should joyn together the different species of Memory and raise in the Imagination such representations thereof as are conformable to the truths which are made else-where So that the Understanding not receiving any thing from without which might undeceive it is wholly taken up with the species it hath within the apprehension of Sorcerers being much like those of some persons who having their brains either weakned by Diseases or naturally receive such an impression from their dreams that when they awake they are hardly able to distinguish them from the things they have seen That therefore which is commonly called a Diabolical Ecstacy deserves not the name since it is only the casting of one into a dead sleep Those Diseases which Physicians call Ecstacies as Catalepsies and Madness are only such improperly and the same thing is to be said of those kind of swoundings which have frequently been taken for Ecstacies in some persons who having continu'd their Contemplations beyond the strength of their Bodies and thereupon swounded out of pure weakness have upon the recovery of themselves imagin'd that their Minds had been transported into real Ecstacies and yet can give no account of what had pass'd during the time of their Trance The precedent stories and those which may be thereto added of Socrates Archimedes and some others do not prove that naturally there can be any Ecstacy for either those stories seem to be palpably fabulous or only shew that the Souls of those Ecstatical Persons had not broke off all correspondence with the Body nor quitted the assistance of the senses and their Organs that they might be wholly involv'd in themselves and so resign themselves to Meditations purely Intellectual For he who shall examine the example of Socrates as it is related in Plato will look upon that action rather as a tryal which Socrates made of his own Patience than as a real Ecstacy especially since Socrates is imagin'd standing a posture requiring the motion of the Muscles which presupposes sentiment in the exterior parts Accordingly dead bodies as also those wherein the action of the Soul is check'd and hindred are not found standing though the Athenians have shuffled in among their stories a tale of one of their men who stood upright after he had been kill'd The other Instances are of persons who meditated with such earnestness and attention on their own thoughts and directed their minds with so much violence towards that sense whereof they had most occasion that the other senses were destitute of Spirits and without action not discerning their own proper objects if they were not extreamly violent which is no real Ecstacy inasmuch as otherwise we must call Sleep an Ecstacy And indeed the most refin'd and subtilest Meditations which we derive from those Ecstacies smell so strong of the Body and Matter that it is probable they were not the pure productions of the Soul no way diverted by the disturbances of the Body and the internal senses on which she objectively depends even in the inorganical actions she does it being a thing impossible for her to meditate alone since that in her direct actions she stands in need of the Imagination and must be excited by Phantasms but above all she cannot be without Memory which always furnishes her with the matter of her speculations and reserves the species of them Besides those who are of opinion that all the faculties of the Soul while she is in the Body are organical cannot imagine any Ecstacy wherein the Soul meditates by her self without any commerce with the Body and its sentiments and those who conceive that the faculties of the Understanding and Will borrow nothing of the Organs but the objects of their actions do nevertheless inferr that the Soul stands in need of the senses in order to the doing of her actions and is not over-earnest in the doing of them but when she is excited by the Phantasms for the stirring whereof the Animal Spirits are absolutely necessary which takes away all conceit of Ecstacies And those who imagine that in Ecstacies the Soul hath no correspondence with them and makes no use of them in her actions do by that means instead of establishing destroy the Ecstacy since it must be inferr'd that the Soul during the time of those retir'd
meditations leaves the Spirits in the Organs whose function it is in the mean time to receive the impressions of the external objects and convey them into the common Sense and thence into the Imagination and Memory whereas 't is expected that the Ecstacy should leave the Body without action Whence therefore I conclude that there is not any at all in regard that an Ecstacy signifying a state of the Soul besides that which is natural to her and besides the natural consequence there is between the actions of the senses and those that are proper to the Rational Soul it may be affirm'd that such a state never happens and that the Soul shall not be absolutely freed from the incumbrances and distractions of the Body till after Death And this hath been sufficiently acknowledg'd by Socrates in Phoedon notwithstanding all the Ecstacies attributed to him and Aristotle whose thoughts were more abstracted and transcended those of all others would not by any means admit of Ecstacies from a natural cause but attributes them all to God Which procedure of his hath been approved by Scaliger and many others CONFERENCE CCXIII. Of the Cock and whether the Lyon be frightned at his Crowing THe Germans being engag'd upon an expedition of War had some reason to carry a Cock along with them to serve them for an incitement and example of Vigilance Thence haply proceeded the custom which some Mule-drivers and Waggoners still observe of having one fasten'd to the leading Mule or Horse and sometimes for want of that adorning them with a plume of his or some other feathers 'T was upon this account that Phidias's Minerva had a Cock upon her head-piece unless it be attributed to this that the said Goddess had also the presidency and direction of War where there is no less need of Vigilance than Industry though that Bird belongs to her sufficiently upon the score of his other qualities as being so gallant and courageous as many times rather to lose his Life upon the spot than quit the desire of victory and when he is engag'd fighting with such fury that Caelius Aurelian relates that one who had been peck'd by a Cock in the heat of fighting grew mad upon it For the Passion of Anger being a short fury 't is possible it may extreamly heighten the degree of heat in a temperament already so highly cholerick that in time the body of the Cock becomes nitrous and upon that consideration is prescrib'd to sick persons for the loosening the belly and that after he hath been well beaten with a wand and the feathers pluck'd while he is alive before he is boyl'd It may be further urg'd that this Courage of the Cock was the motive which inclin'd Artaxerxes King of Persia to grant him who kill'd Prince Cyrus the priviledge of carrying on his Javelin a little Cock of Gold as a singular acknowledgement of his Valour Whereupon the Souldiers of the Province of Caria whereof he who had the aforesaid priviledge of the Cock was a Native in imitation of him instead of Corslets wore Cocks upon their head-pieces whence they had the name of Alectryons or Cocks in Latin Galli which possibly is the reason that gave the French that name And whereas the Cock commonly crows after he hath beaten another it came also to be the Hieroglyphick of Victory and that haply gave the Lacedaemonians occasion to sacrifice a Cock when they had overcome their Enemies This Creature was also dedicated to Mars and the Poets feign that he had sometime been a young Souldier whom that God of War order'd to stand sentinel when he went in to Venus to give him notice of Vulcan's return but he having slept till after the Sun was risen and by that neglect of duty Mars being surpriz'd with her he was so incens'd that he metamorphos'd him into a Cock whence it comes say they that being ever since mindful of the occasion of his transformation he ever crowes when the Sun approaches our Horizon This fable how ridiculous soever it may be thought is as supportable as that of the Alcaron which attributes the crowing of our Cocks to one which it saies there is in Heaven a Cock of such a vast bulk that having his feet on the first of the Heavens the head reaches to the second and this Cock crowing above awakens and incites all those upon Earth to do the like as these last set one another a crowing as if they all crow'd at the same instant all over the world The Cock was also dedicated to the Sun and Moon to the Goddess Latona Ceres and Proserpina whence it came that the Novices and such as were initiated in their mysteries abstain'd from the eating of it It was also the same to Mercury in regard that vigilance and early rising are requisite in Merchants And thence it came that he was painted under the form of a Man sitting having a Crest or Comb on his Head Eagle's claws instead of Feet and holding a Cock upon his fist But there was a particular consecration made of him to Aesculapius which oblig'd Socrates at his death to entreat his Friends to sacrifice a Cock to him since the Hemlock where-with he was poyson'd had wrought well The Inhabitants of Calecuth sacrifice him to their divinity under the form of a he-goat And Acosta after Lucian affirms that anciently the Cock was ador'd as a God which Christianity not enduring hath order'd them to be plac'd upon Churches on the tops of steeples and other very high structures that by their turning about they might tell the beholders which way the Wind blew unless haply some would refer it to the repentance of Saint Peter at the second crowing of one of them As concerning the crowing of this Creature it is commonly attributed to his heat and may be a certain discovery of his joy at the approach of the Star of the same temperament with him And whereas he is more susceptible than any other of the impressions of the Air whence it comes that being moisten'd by the vapors he crows with a hoarser voice which Labourers look on as a prediction of Rain it may be thence consequent that he is the first sensible of the coming of the Sun Moreover whereas there is a Solar Animal such as is also the Lyon but in a lower degree than he the species of Birds being hotter and dryer as being lighter than that of four-footed Beasts it thence follows that the Cock hath an ascendent over the Lyon which no sooner hears his crowing but it awakens in his Imagination those species which cause terror to him Unless we would rather affirm that the spirits of the Cock are communicated to the Lyon by that more than material voice and as such more capable of acting than the spirits issuing out of the Eyes of sick persons which nevertheless infect those who are well and look on them nay if we may believe the Poet bewitch even innocent Lambs The Second said That
the Night correcting that hot and dry distemper it is the more convenient that Sleep should do as much in the Day time by taking off then somewhat of their Choler The Second said That the retrival and restauration of the Spirits obliges the Animal to sleep which ought to continue at least for such a space of time as amounts to the third part of that a man hath been waking and should never exceed the one half of it Far is it therefore from being imaginable that Nature should be able to endure what is affirmed of the seven Sleepers or the long nap of Epimenides which lasted fifty years Nor are we to give any more credit to what is related to us concerning a Plant in the Low-Countries which will keep people waking many nights and dayes together without any inconvenience but the time when we should begin or end our sleep being left to our own discretion 't is requisite we should accommodate our selves to the order prescrib'd by Nature which hath appointed the day to labour and the night to rest in Nay it is also the advice of Hippocrates Galen and all Physicians who think it not enough to direct rest in the night and waking in the day but also conceive very great hopes of those who in the time of their sickness are so irregular therein Add to this that darkness silence and the coldness of the night being fit to recruit the Spirits and promote their retirement within whereas light noise and the heat of the day are more proper to occasion their egress for the exercise of actions which granted he who observes not this rule charges Nature with an erronious proceeding And that this is her way is apparent hence that those Animals which are guided only by her motion which is as certain as our reason is ordinarily irregular go that way to work Cocks and other Birds go to their rest and awake with the Sun if any of our Domestick Creatures do otherwise our irregularity is the cause thereof and that perversion is of no less dangerous consequence than that of the Seasons which is ever attended by diseases And who makes any doubt but that the greatest perfection of the Heavens consists in their regular motion the principal cause of their duration Which order since we are not able to imitate it is but requisite we should come as near it as we can in our actions among which sleeping and waking being the hindges on which all the others of our life do hang if there be any irregularity in these confusion and disorder must needs be expected in all the rest as may be seen in the lives of Courtiers of both Sexes who turn night to day and day to night a course of life much different from that which is observ'd by the Superiours and Members of regulated companies Besides it is the Morning that not only holds a stricter correspondence with the Muses but is also the fittest time for the performance of all the functions of Body and Mind Then is it that Physicians prescribe exercises in regard that the Body being clear'd of the Excrements of the first and second concoction is wholly dispos'd for the distribution of Aliment and evacuation of the Excrements of the third So that he who spends that part of the day about his affairs besides the expedition he meets with does by that means maintain the vigour of his Body and Mind which is commonly dull'd by sleeping in the day time which fills the Head with vapours and when exercise comes to succeed it in the warmest part of the day the heat which is then commonly greatest makes it less supportable Therefore Nature who is a sure guide inclines us to sleepiness in the Evening there being not any thing but the multiplicity and distraction of Civil Affairs which depriving us of that Function as it does of divers others makes the Life of Man so much the less certain the more he is involv'd in Affairs whereas the duration of that of Animals and next to them of Country-people and such as comply with the conduct of Nature is commonly of a greater length and more certain CONFERENCE CCXXI Whether the Child derives more from the Father or the Mother IF our Fore-fathers may be conceiv'd wise enough to have known the nature of things it is to be acknowledg'd that the Child derives most from the Father since that they thought fit to bestow on him his name rather than that of the Mother and that the name is the mark and character of the thing Besides the Male being more perfect larger and stronger than the Female which indeed is an imperfection and default of Nature whose constant design it is to make a Male and is not disappointed but through want of heat vigour and temperament it is but rational that what proceeded from these two should have the denomination from the more perfect of them Thus a Regiment is known by the name of the Colonel a City by that of its Founder a Law and Ordinance by that of the Law-giver and a Receipt the Composition whereof consists of two simple medicaments hath most of the nature of the stronger and that which is of greatest virtue This is further confirm'd by the common Comparison which is us'd to express the difference there is between the Father and the Mother in the business of generation For the Mother and particularly the Matrix is compar'd to a field and the paternal seed to the grain which is sown in that field which serves well enough in order to its sprouting and shooting forth but supplies it only with matter which is determinated by the form of the grain from which the Plant produc'd of it receives its being So that the present Question amounts to no more than if a Man should ask Whether an ear of Wheat deriv'd more from the ground or from the seed that had been sowne in it A further proof hereof may be deduc'd from the instruments of generation which being more apparent in the man than in the woman are a silent insinuation that the former contribute more thereto than the latter And the greatest and most remarkable difference that there is between the Children being that of the Sex the experiment alledg'd by Physicians that if the right Testicle be bound Males will be produc'd as Females will if the contrary clearly shews that by the Father's part the Sex is determinated and consequently it is from him that there do also proceed the least individual differences and circumstances wherein the likeness or unlikeness of Children to their Fathers and Mothers either in Mind or Body doth consist For if the Males especially should retain more from the Mothers than they do from the Fathers that proverbial saying would prove false which affirms that Fortes creantur fortibus in regard that most women are chargeable with a want of Courage And daily experience makes it apparent that one of the greatest and most common causes of
a Fore-teller of the Sun's approach That the Fish called a Remora stops Ships under sail That the eye of a Dog prepar'd after a certain way keeps others from coming near the person that hath it That the powder of Crab-shells prepar'd draws out Arrows and Bullets shot into the Body That there is a certain Stone got out of the Snake which cures such as are subject to the Dropsie That Serpents are not found within the shade of Ash-trees That the Marygold follows the motion of the Sun That the precious Stone called a Topaze put into seething water immediately stayes the seething of it That the Emerald the Saphire the Turqueis Stone and Coral change their colours upon the happening of certain accidents to those who have them about them That there are certain Herbs which chase away spirits as well as Musick does and that the dispositions of a black and adust choler invite and entertain them Now from all these instances it may be deduc'd that as it is a great presumption to think to give reasons of all things so does it argue a certain weakness of mind to doubt of all that hath been alledged so great are the abysses and inexhaustible treasures of Nature whose operations transcend humane belief in thousands of other things as well as in the Question now under dispute CONFERENCE CCXXIV. Of Stage-Plays and whether they be advantageous to a State or not HUmane Life is travers'd by such a vicissitude of distractions and disturbances that not only the Civil but also the Ecclesiastical Magistrates have unanimously concluded it necessary that men should have some divertisements whereby their minds and bodies not able to undergo continual labour might receive some relaxation for want whereof they would be crush'd under the burthen of their affairs Now among those relaxations there is not any brings greater delight with it then what is perform'd on the Theatre that is Plays which represent unto us things past heighten'd with all the circumstances they are capable of which cannot be done by History as being a thing dead and not animated by Voice Gestures and Habits But if we add thereto that this innocent divertisement is attended by those advantages which may be deduc'd from excellent Sentences and Instructions we must conclude him who finds fault with it to be of a more than Timonian humour and a profess'd enemy to civil Society The proof hereof is deriv'd from the Use of it the true Touch-stone whereby good and profitable things are to be distinguish'd from such as are hurtful and unprofitable For there have been an infinite number of things taught by Men which have been smother'd as soon as brought forth and there are others also which the Inventors of them have out-liv'd but when an Invention finds a kind entertainment through many Ages it is the best argument that may be of its goodness And such is that of Comedy which how weak or ridiculous soever it might be at the beginning at which time Thespis got himself drawn through the Streets in a Chariot as he recited his Poems presently met with those who made it their business to cultivate and heighten it to that pitch of perfection whereto it is now come which is such that it is no wonder the greatest minds should yield to the charms of it For as those things that are sensible are more apt to move and make impressions on the spirits of men then such as are purely intelligible so Plays exposing to our eyes all things with a greater circumspection decorum and order then is observable in the actions of men commonly disturbed by unexpected emergencies and the unconstancy of their passions accordingly raise in us a greater aversion for crimes and greater inclinations to vertue Nay these cause more apprehensive emotions in our souls than they are apt to receive from any other representations whatsoever not excepting even the precepts of Philosophy it self which are weak enough when they are destitute of their examples imprinting in us such Characters as can hardly be blotted out in regard they force their passage into our Minds through several of our senses and as History prevails more by its Examples than the reason of its Precepts so Playes have the advantage of History in this regard that in the former things act upon us with greater efficacy This Influences it hath on us in captivating our Senses and Understanding is the more remarkable in that the greatest Witts are incapable of other reflections while they behold what is represented on the Stage Besides if the great business of the world be truly consider'd it is but a Stage-Play wherein every one acts a part he who would avoid Plays and not see the vanity of humane actions must find out some way to get out of the world Nor are all persons in a capacity to learn how they should demean themselves by Books and Precepts but all are susceptible of some instruction by Playes since that in these there are such sensible Lessons that the most ignorant may find in them certain encouragements to Vertue which on the Stage appears to them in her lustre and attended by those honourable rewards which the Poets bestow on Heroick Actions And as Geographical Maps cannot so well acquaint those who study them with the dispositions of people together with all the circumstances of places as Travels and Relations may In like manner Philosophy smites not the Senses as those passages do which are represented on the Theatre where such as are in Love the ordinary subject thereof may observe their own Adventures personated and take notice of their vain pursuits and the unhappy events of those which are carried on by unjust wayes In fine if immortality flatters ours labours with promises to transmit our Memory to Ages yet at a great distance from us what greater satisfaction can there be than to hope that our noble actions shall be represented on Theaters before Princes and Magistrates The Second said That Humane Nature being more enclin'd to evil than to good those confus'd representations which are made on the Stage of all sorts of good and bad things are more likely to make impressions of evil in the minds of men than to render them more inclinable to that which is good Whence it is to be inferr'd that the danger and inconveniences of Plays will outweigh their advantages This consideration occasion'd the banishing of them out of several States And whereas the Subjects of them are commonly taken from the Loves of some extravagant persons and the crimes attending them the end thereof must be answerable to the means which are lewd Artifices whereby it is compassed and where-with mens minds are imbu'd and so inclin'd to wicked actions and such as are most likely to promote the execution of their pernicious designs which would not happen were they ignorant of them Nay to go to the original of this kind of entertainments the most ancient of them acted in the time of Romulus was
to another they make several mixtures as when they come to separate after their union they are the causes of the corruption of mixt bodies And these bodies have so much the more Resistance which is the last property of these Atoms the more dense and solid these last are as on the contrary when they are less dense and solid by reason of the vacuity there is between their parts the bodies consisting of them have so much the less vigour and force to oppose external injuries The Fourth said That there is not any better instance whereby the nature of Atoms can be explicated then those little Motes which move up and down the air of a Chamber when the Sun-beams come into it at some little hole or cranny For from this very instance which is so sensible it may easily be concluded not only that they are bodies which have a certain bulk and quantity how little and indivisible soever it may be but also that they are in continual motion by means whereof as those little corpuscula or Motes incessantly move and strike one against another and are confusedly intermixt one among another so the Atoms by their perpetual agitation and concourse cause the mixtures and generations of all natural things So that all consider'd it is as ridiculous on the other side to affirm that they are only imaginary principles because they are not seen as to maintain that those little Motes are not in the air because they are not perceiv'd to be there in the absence of the Sun-beams which we must confess renders them visible but with this assurance that they are nevertheless there even when they are not discern'd to be there The Fifth said That it is certain there are abundance of bodies in Nature which are in a manner imperceptible to our senses and yet must be granted to be real bodies and consequently endow'd with length breadth profundity solidity and the other corporeal qualities Such as these are among others the sensible Species which continually issue out of the Objects and are not perceiv'd by the senses but only so far as they are corporeal and material especially the Odours exhaling from certain bodies which after their departure thence in process of time decay and wither Of this we have instance in Apples and other Fruits which grow wrinkled proportionably to their being drain'd of those vaporous Atoms whereof they were at first full which evaporate in a lesser or greater space of time the more closely those little bodies stick one to another or the more weakly they are joyned together Nay the intentional Species how sublimated soever they be by the defaecation made by the agent Intellect are nevertheless bodies as are also the Animal Spirits which are charged therewith and the vital and natural whereby the former are cherish'd In like manner Light the beams of the Sun and of other Stars their Influences their Magnetick Vertues and other such Qualities observable in an infinite number of things between which there is a mutual inclination and correspondence or antipathy cannot be imagin'd to act otherwise then by the emission of certain little bodies which being so small and subtile that they are incapable of further division may with good reason be called the Elements and material Principles of all Bodies since there is not any one but consists of them The Sixth said That the concourse of these Atoms being accidental if we may credit Epicurus we cannot attribute thereto the causes of the generations happening in this World inasmuch as an accidental cause not being able to produce a regular effect such as is that of Nature in Generation it is ridiculous to attribute it rather to these Atoms than to some other cause which is such per se and always regular in its operations such as is Nature her self But what further discovers the absurdity of that opinion is this that it thinks it not enough to refer the diversity of the other effects which are observ'd in all natural bodies to that of the Atoms whereof they consist but pretends also by their means to give an account of that of our Spirits which those Philosophers would represent unto us made of those orbicular atoms and accordingly easily mov'd by reason of that round figure and that those in whom it is most exact are the most ingenious and inventive persons as others are dull and blockish because their Spirits have a lesser portion of those circular Atoms But this speculation may be ranked among pure chimaera's since that the functions of our Understanding being absolutely spiritual and immaterial have no dependence on the different constitutions of those little imaginary bodies nay though there were any correspondence between them and the actions of our minds their round figure would not be so much the cause of our vivacity as might be the pointed or forked as being more likely to penetrate into and comprehend the most difficult things than the circular which would only pass over them without any fixt fastning on them CONFERENCE CCXXXI Whether the King 's Evil may be cur'd by the touching of a Seventh Son and why THough this noisom Disease sometime fastens on several parts of the body yet is there not any more sensible of its malice than the neck which by reason of its being full of glandules is extreamly troubled therewith which happens as well by reason of their thin and spongy constitution as their nearness to the brain from which they receive the phlegmatick and excrementitious humours more conveniently than any of the other parts can be imagin'd to do which are at a greater distance from it And yet these last notwithstanding that distance are extremely troubled therewith nay sometimes to such excess that if we may credit Johannes Langius in the first Book of his Medicinal Epistles a Woman at Florence had the Evil in one of her Thighs which being got out weigh'd sixty pound and a Goldsmith of Amberg had another of the same bigness in a manner neer his Knee And what is much to be observ'd is that though the Evil seems to be only external yet is it commonly preceded by the like swellings which ly hid within and whereof those without are only the marks which observation is confirm'd by the dissections made of those who are troubled with it in whose bodies after their death there are abundance of these Evils whereof the Glandules of the Mesenterium and the Pancreas which is the most considerable of any about Man's Body are full and which are commonly produc'd by Phlegm the coldness and viscosity whereof do indeed contribute to their rebellion but it is very much augmented by the external and common Causes such as are Air Aliment and Waters infected with some malignant qualities which render it Endemious and peculiar to certain Nations as for instance the Inhabitants of the Alps and the Pyrenean Mountains especially the Spaniards who are more infected with this foul disease than any others which is also
produce either of an honest profitable or delightful Good this Opinion and Imagination must be the strongest of all moral agents Amongst the actions of the Imagination which are the Passions that of Love is the strongest because it serves for a foundation to all the rest it being true that we fear desire and hate nothing but so far as we love some other thing so that he who can be free from this Passion would be exempt from all others Amongst Transcendents Truth is strongest not that which is ill defin'd The conformity of our Vnderstanding with the thing known since there are things above us which surpass the reach of our capacity and yet cease not to be true But this Truth is a property and affection of Entity wherewith it is convertible and consequently cannot be truly defin'd no more then the other Transcendents since a Definition requires a Genus which being superiour and more common cannot be assign'd to Entity or Truth which is the same with Entity otherwise there should be something more general then Entity which is absurd And although the nature of this Truth is not distinctly known nevertheless the virtue of its effects is very sensible for it acts every where and in all yea above the strongest things in the world whose actions depend upon the verity of their Essence which they suppose And as this Verity is the Principle of the actions of all Agents so it is the End and First Mover which gives rise to all their inclinations whereby they all tend towards one Good which is nothing else but Truth which gives weight and value to Goodness But the force of Verity appears principally in that it acts upon the most excellent thing in the World to wit the Understanding which it convinces by its light wherewith it extorts consent and this so much the more as the Understanding is perfect as we see in the Understandings of the Wise and Learned who more easily suffer themselves to be overcome by Truth than the Vulgar and in those of Angels and Intelligences who likewise yield to Truth And because Verity and Entity are the same thing therefore God who possesses Entity Originally is also the Prime Verity which our Lord attributes to himself in the Gospel when he saith That he is the Truth and the Life For whereas Truth is oft-times altered and clouded in the world and frequently produces Hatred the most infamous of all Passions 't is a defect not found but in dissolute Spirits who cannot support the brightness of it and hate its light because it discovers their faults Yea even when men contradict the Truth and follow the deprav'd motions of their most disorderly Passions 't is allways under an appearance of Goodness and Truth But if the shadow and appearance alone of Truth hath so great an Empire over our minds as is seen in the most erroneous Opinions which never want followers with more just reason must it self when known be invincible and the strongest thing in the World In conclusion were propos'd amongst the strongest things Time which consumes all Death which overthrows all the Powers of the Earth Place which embraces all in it self and Necessity so potent that it is not subject to any Law but gives the same to all other things which cannot avoid its Empire insomuch that the Ancients esteem'd the Gods themselves not exempted from it but subject to the necessity of a Destiny CONFERENCE CII I. Of the Gowt II. Which Condition is most expedient for the acquisition of Wisedom Riches or Poverty THe Gowt called Arthritis or Morbus Articularis is the general name of all aches of the Joynts caus'd by fluxion which gave it the name of Gowt and is different according to the divers connexions of the Bones and the Parts which it afflicts being term'd Podagra in the Feet Chiragra in the Hand and the Ischiatick ach by the vulgar Schiatica in the Hip. Nevertheless every Articular Pain is not the Gowt as appears by Contusions Luxations Wounds and the Pains of Women after Child-birth in Virgins after their Evacuation and in Bodies infected with the French Disease But 't is a Grief of the Parts indu'd with sense which are about the Joynts accompanied sometimes with swelling and caus'd by the fluxion of a sharp and serous humour transmitted out of the Veins and Arteries into those Parts whose motion it hinders and because the Feet are most remote from the source of heat therefore Nature commonly drives thither the matter of this Malady whereunto they are more dispos'd then other Parts as well by reason of their composition of Nerves Tendons Veins Arteries Membranes and Ligaments spermatick and cold parts as of their continual motion which gives occasion to the fluxion Hence the Gowt begins usually at the Feet especially at the great Toe whose motion is greatest which hinders not but that it begins too in the Hand Knee and Hip and sometimes in the Sides and if the matter abound sometimes it seizes upon the Joynts with such violence as would make Nature succumbe were the fits continual and not periodical as they are giving to some an interval of a year to others of six months or less according as there needs time for collecting the humour in those parts The cause of this vehement pain is the acrimony of the corrosive and mordicant humour which makes a solution of the parts whose coldness renders this evil almost incurable and makes it last fourty days the pain not being appeasable saving when the cause which produces it is resolv'd whereunto the coldness of its subject is not proper The Second said That in the Gowt as in all sorts of Fluxions four things are to be consider'd the Matter which flows the Place whence it comes the Way by which it passes and the Parts upon which it falls As for the first the Gowt hath some Matter not being as some hold a simple Intemperies which could not subsist so long nor cause such pungent pains much less a tumour as it happens sometimes in the part afflicted which cannot proceed but from the affluence of Matter This Matter some affirm to be Wind or Flatuosity with as little reason for then it might easily be resolv'd and would cause only a pain of distension Most hold that 't is the four Humours arguing from the diversity of Symptomes of this Disease and the various manner of curing some being eas'd by hot Aliments and Medicaments others by cold And lastly from the different colour of the tumours appearing sometimes red white or of some other colour by reason of the blood phlegm or other humours which produc'd them But though a very acute pain may in this malady as it doth in all others attract the humours which abound in the body and so cause a tumour yet this humour which makes the inflation cannot be the cause of the Gowt since at the beginning and before the parts are inflated the pains are very great but cease