Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
spirit_n	animal_n	brain_n	part_n	5,269	5	4.8629	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A32689	A brief discourse concerning the different wits of men written at the request of a gentleman, eminent in virtue, learning, fortune, in the year 1664, and now published with consent of the author.; Brief discourse concerning the different wits of men	Charleton, Walter, 1619-1707.; Gentleman eminent in virtue, learning, fortune.	1669 (1669)	Wing C3663; ESTC R15719	30,537	148

ART 5. When a man therefore haveing proposed to himself some certain End and in his thoughts running over a multitude of things as means conducible thereunto doth quickly perceive which of them is most probable and how it may be brought to effect his design this man is said to have a good Wit and the Habit hereof is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Prudence Which depends upon Experience and Remembrance of many the like Antecedents with the like Consequents But herein men differ not one from another so much as in Judgement and Phansy because men of equal age may not be very unequal in Experience as to the quantity though one hath more of experience in some things and another in others since every one hath his particular affairs concernments and wayes of managing them and a Husband-man though rude and illiterate is yet wiser in his own business than a Philosopher in another mans Whence that rule Cuique in sua arte credendum ART 6. To this Prudence if there be conjoyned the use of Means unjust or dishonest such as Fear or Poverty doth too often suggest then it degenerates into that sinistre Prudence which is called Astutia Craft or Cunning which is for the most part a sign of Pusillanimity or poorness of Spirit For a great Mind scorns unjust and dishonest helps to bring him to his aimes There is also another sort of Cunning called Versutia Evasion which is deferring or putting off for a little time some danger or incommodity impendent by running into worse and the word seems a derivative from Versura which signifies borrowing of one to pay another Having given You Noble Sir this short and imperfect account of what I have collected concerning the Nature and divers Notions of those Intellectual Faculties which are vulgarly comprehended under the name of Wit and deduced according to probability the principal Differences thereof from the various degrees of Eminency of Judgement and Phansy the remaining part of the Task You have been pleased to assign me is to enquire briefly into the Causes of those Differences as well Final as Efficient and then describe each of them singly with as much truth and evidence as my small observation and less Learning shall enable me to do ART 7. But to prevent mistake I am obliged first to advertise You what I had almost forgotten that by the Wit I have hitherto spoken of I mean that which is Natural or which grows up together with us accrewing only from Use and Experience without the help of Method culture or Doctrine For as to that which they call Ingenium Acquisitum acquired by study of Learning and polite Education I conceive it to be no other but Reason which arising from the right use of speech produces Arts and Sciences and seems to be only an Effect or Product of the former cultivated by industry SECT IV. THus freed from all Ambiguity of Words and Notions commonly applyed to Wit which otherwise might perhaps have led us out of our right way or at least darkned the prospect of our Reason let us proceed in our Disquisition softly and fairly to prevent stumbling following the conduct of the Method newly proposed Which brings us in the next place to consider the Final Cause of the great Diversity of Wits observed in Men. ART 1. What was the End which the Omniscient Creator designed to Himself when He was pleased to constitute this so great and admirable variety You Sir I know are too wise too conscious of the immense disparity betwixt a Finite Nature and an Infinite to expect I should be able to determine all His Counsels being to us poor ignorant things impervestigable as His Perfections are incomprehensible However since we are not forbidden with due reverence to conjecture You I hope willnot refuse to hear my foolish sentiments concerning this problem especially while I offer them rather to Your Examination than to Your belief When therefore I observe that Men are no less discriminable each from other by the various Inclinations Affections and Capacities of their Minds than by the dissenting features lines and aires of their Faces I am apt to perswade my self that God Almighty in making so vast dissimilitude and in that distribution of His several Donatives among Individuals of the same Species intended thereby to accommodate Mankind to a Civil life it being no more possible for a Society of Men or Common-wealth to be composed of Members all of the like endowments of Mind than it is for an Animal to exercise various Functions with many Organs all of the same parts shape and fabrick or for Musical Harmony to result from a multitude of Unisons I am not ignorant that even the best Philosophers when they contemplate the diversity of Natures Endowments and the most probable Reason thereof modestly bound their Curiosity with this clause that Nature delights her self in variety as well in this as in all other kinds Nor do I deny what they here say to be thus far true that Nature as being the Art of God can have no other perfection but what is derived from her Author and Governour whose Goodness cannot be terminated but in it self and consequently all Emanations and Effects of that Goodness must redound to the delight of their first Fountain Yet this methinks doth not oblige us to acquiesce in that consideration alone without all reflection upon our selves there being perhaps some other Reason or End of such Variety wherein Mankind may be highly concerned I conceive then that the Creator having one Eye directed to the pleasure redounding to Him from the manifestation of His Power and Goodness aimed with the other at some general benefit and favour to Man to whom He purposed to be singularly indulgent and gracious in all things and that fore-seeing how much more securely commodiously and happily Men might live in Societies than single and dispersed as wild Beasts He ordained this great diversity of Ingenies among them as a means to accommodate them to mutual assistance and association But this I deliver as only probable not definitive and leaving it to Your better judgement to be approved or rejected I pass on to the Natural Causes of the diversity under enquiry ART 2. Wherein I meet with no less obscurity than in the former For though it be sufficiently evident especially to Physicians conversant about diseases of the Head that the Seat and principal Organ of the Intellectual Faculties is the Brain and that they are more or less perfect in their Operations according to the divers temperament magnitude figure and schematism of that noblest Organ and to the greater or less Mobility of the Animal spirits if any such there be contained and exercised therein though thus much I say be sufficiently manifest yet what temperament what magnitude figure and Schematisme of the Brain produceth Acuteness of Wit and what causeth Dulness is hitherto unknown Nor have Anatomists even in this dissecting and most curious Age been yet able certainly to inform themselves in what part of

the Brain that Coelestial Guest the reasonable Soul keeps her Court of Judicature what part she makes use of in Sensation what in Imagination what for Memory or what for Ratiocination Vesalius I remember the Prince of Anatomists in the last Age expresly nor without derision of those who believed and taught the contrary affirms that the Fabrick of Mans Brain is not in the least different from that of the Brains of Brutes The Text is remarkable the great Authority of the Man considered and therefore I will here transcribe it de Corpor. Human. fabric lib. 7. cap. 1. Qui in Imaginatione Ratiocinatione Cogitatione Memoria Cerebrum suo fungatur munere haudquaquam ex sententia apprehendo neque quicquam insuper ab Anatomico vel Theologorum omnem rationis vim ac totam ferè Principis nobis vocatae Animae facultatem Brutis Animalibus adimentium occasione indagandum puto Quum Cerebri nimirum constructione Simia Canis Equus Felis Quadrupeda quae hactenus vidi omnia Aves etiam universae plurimaque Piscium genera omni propemodum ex parte Homini correspondeant neque ullum secanti occurrat discrimen quod secus de Hominis quàm de illorum Animalium functionibus statuendum esse praescribat To this You 'l answer perhaps that such indeed was the judgement of Vesalius but You are not obliged to acquiesce therein because You have lately not only read a certain Book de Proprietatibus Cerebri Humani wherein the Author observes many considerable Differences betwixt the Humane Brain and those of all other Animals but also with Your own eyes behold those Differences demonstrated by the same Author in some Dissections for that end made by him at the command of the Royal Society and that therefore You hope if Anatomists proceed in their discoveries with the same accurate scrutiny and the like happy success as of late Years they have done some one of them may at length be so fortunate as to find out the true uses of all the several parts of the Brain of Man and so solve all the difficulties that now amuse those who profoundly consider the wonderful Oeconomy thereof I reply therefore that granting Vesalius to have been much mistaken in that his Opinion concerning the Brain and that there really are those Differences betwixt Man and all other Animals which the Book you mention declares Yet Sir what I have here said concerning the abstrusity of the Nature immediate Instruments and wayes of operation of the Intellectual Faculties is nevertheless too true For You cannot but remember that even the Author of that Treatise himself doth in the end of it ingenuously confess that notwithstanding his frequent observation of those Differences he was still as ignorant of the principal seat of the soul and what parts she made use of in her several Functions as before he first entred into the Anatomick Theatre And were it not a Parergon I could collect and here recount many observations recorded by Eminent Physicians of such who retained the use of their Senses Imagination Memory and Reason without any the least defect even to the last minute of life and yet in their Heads opened after death there was found as in most Fishes but very little of Brain and that little altogether confounded and dissolved in Water For a memorable Example of this astonishing Phaenomenon I take liberty to refer You to lib. 1. cap. 24. of the Medical observations of Nich. Tulpius a late learned and judicious Physician and Senator of Amsterdam who relating the various Conjectures of some of his Colleagues thereupon gravely concludes with this free confession of his ignorance Quantum est quod nescimus Velut namque in aliis sic certè credibile est potissimùm nos coecutire in genuino Cerebri regimine cujus opera multo fortassis sunt diviniora quàm quispiam hactenus suo comprehendit captu As for Your expectation of further discoveries from Anatomy that may afford more light to direct the Virtuosi in their researches into this dark Argument I cannot indeed divine what time may bring forth but am of Opinion that there is less reason for Your Hope than for Your Wish for any such discovery the nature of Mans Mind being such that it cannot understand it self Adeò Animo non potest liquere de caeteris rebus ut adhuc ipse se quaerat Senec. Natur. Quaest lib. 7. cap. 24. ART 3. You are not then to wonder if I acknowledge my self unable to define from what various Constitutions of the Brain the Differences of Wit arise as from their proxime Causes All I dare observe to You concerning that Aenigma is only this that for the most part Men of hot and sanguine Constitutions caeteris paribus are more ingenious and acute and those of cold gross and Phlegmatick are more dull and slow of Imagination If for this You require Authority I can alledge that of Hippocrates himself who hath two texts expresly favourable and pertinent to the same one concerning the Sanguine the other the Phlegmatick Temperament The first is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod humidissimum est in igne siccissimum in aqua si in corpore temperamentum acceperint sapientissima sunt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 1. sect 29. The other this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 porro si in aliqua Anima defectuosiorem vim ignis accipiat quàm aqua eam tardiorem esse necesse est appellantur tales Stolidi Ibidem Sect. 32. If Reason it is obvious that the Blood being the fountain of Natural Heat and in truth the only Calidum innatum by which all parts of the body are perpetually warmed enlivened and invigorated and out of whose purest and agilest parts the Animal Spirits are supposed to be extracted by how much more copious and pure the Blood is by so much more of heat is thence communicated to the Brain and its Appendix of Nerves thereby made more firm and apt both to receive and retain the Images or impressions of external Objects and more pervious to the Animal spirits and a greater supply of Spirits generated out of it for the uses of the Animal Faculties therein residing and thereon depending and è contra Hence doubtless it was that Empedocles held the Blood to be both the seat and cause of Sapience and that Dr. Harvey somewhere in his Book of the Generation of Animals affirms it to be of no small advantage to the Brain that Students and contemplative Men preserve their mass of Blood pure and uncorrupt But I remember that my present task belongs rather to Morals than to Physick and therefore superseding all further enquiry concerning the diversity of constitutions from whence the diversity of Wits may arise and remitting You to the serious consideration of what that Excellent Man Mr. Hobbes hath delivered lib. de Homine cap. 13. concerning the Mutation of

their Copiousness in publick Assemblies or Councils nor ungrateful in private Conversation at least when once they have learned as well to be silent at some times as to speak profusely at others Which they cannot easily do For as all Brute Animals know by natural instinct in what part their chief power lies and delight in the frequent use of that part above all the rest of their members so these Men highly delighted with their faculty of Eloquence wherein alone they excell are hardly brought to observe Decorum and opportunities when to contract or expatiate when to speak or hold their peace but carryed violently on by an itch of declaiming on every subject how trivial or impertinent soever often entangle themselves in Arguments above their understanding and so satiate but not satisfie their Hearers So that even a Wise man may justly wonder their imprudence considered how they are able to speak so much and so little at once so well and to so little purpose Having at length ended not finished their fine Harangues they scarcely refrain from openly applauding themselves and if their Auditors shew any signs of Complacency and good Humour they are apt to refer it only to a satisfaction of judgement resulting from the Elegancy of their discourses though the same ariseth rather from Joy that they are at length delivered from the importunity of them Notwithstanding this Vanity it must be confessed these Wits have long wings and incited by a secret impetus of Nature delight to flye abroad and range over the whole field of Sciences but then again such is their speed and praecipitancy they stay no where long enough to examine select and gather like Bees in a windy day they take only a superficial taste of various flowers and return to their hives unloaded Whence it comes that while they are discoursing of one part of Learning if a new hint chance to arise and intrude it self into their Imagination instantly quitting their former Theme they as ardently pursue the new one and so often divert to fresh Arguments till they have wholly forgotten the question first started as unstanch Hounds meeting with a new scent follow it with full cry and lose the Beast first chased And this is that Defect of Mind which is commonly called Levity arising perhaps chiefly from an excessive Mobility of the Animal spirits in the seat of Imagination No wonder then if these Rambling Heads be so far from attaining to sublime and extraordinary Wisdom that for the most part they come short of even Vulgar ones in ordering their affairs according to the rules of Domestick Prudence Some of them becloud themselves with the Vapours of Philauty self-love and over-valuation of their own Opinions and hu●●ing after Praise Others lose their credit by too-visible Affectation Others attempt things above their reach and sink themselves by aspiring and Most prove wanting to themselves and Friends in such offices where constant sedulity and steady adherence to one purpose is required For they are naturally light unconstant even to their own Hopes variable in their Designs fixt to nothing but their own Opinions in which they so absolutely confide that they look not into the advantages of others proposals and counsels And yet for all this some of them so dazel weaker Eyes with the polish and lustre of their superficial Parts that they pass for Accomplished Persons and are at length admitted to reap that harvest of Fame and Wealth which ought to be the reward of solid and profound Abilities especially when they have acquired the Art of understanding as well how to conceal their Defects as how to set forth their good Qualities ART 2. This Art consisteth principally in moderating their fervency of speaking in frequent change of Arguments and alwayes choosing such in which they may most easily impose upon their Hearers For instance among Military men let them discourse of matters of Religion of the rites and customs of the Ancients of the Origines and Migrations of Nations and such like Themes wherein Souldiers generally have but little knowledge among men bred up in the shades of the Schools and unconversant in Polities let them discourse of the foundations and periods of Empires of the Fates of Kingdoms of the revolutions in Commonwealths of the Virtues and great actions of particular Princes of State Maxims c. In a word Let them provoke none in his own Way or Art For in familiar conferences and sociable Colloquies it is not ungrateful so it be dextrously done to divert to things of which the Company is ignorant both because Errours then escape discovery and because Novelty begets pleasure and by how much more we esteem things of which we never heard before by so much more do we admire him who delivered them But above all let them take heed of Writing which to Roving and Superficial Wits is as difficult as their Gift of speaking fluently is easie and for the most part proves no less destructive to their Fame than their ex tempore Oratory hath been favourable For that which gives due sharpness and grace to the Stile of a Writter and recommends it to the present and succeeding Ages is exquisite and elaborate Judgement which is very rarely conjoyn'd with natural fluency of speech The Reason may be this that a prompt but turbulent Mind when in retirement which all know to be necessary to a Writer it comes once to reflect upon it self and examine its own strength burdened with multiplicity of things together offering themselves and confounded with variety of thoughts soon faints under the weight and having neither judgement to select nor patience to digest falls at length into Distraction or Despondency In fine the Faculty of writing well is so different from that of talking volubly and requires so much more of both Attention and Deliberation that most of your Fine Speakers when once they find the wings of their Phansie clipt and their understanding intangled in strong and knotty Reasonings are miserably at a loss how to extricate themselves and despairing of success return to their former liberty Yet some of this Classis either blinded with self-conceit or deluded by adulation of their Admirers have adventured to publish Books and out of vain Ambition to enlarge and eternize their Reputation by their Pen have utterly ruined what they had acquired by the nimbleness of their Tongue My advice therefore to such shall be this that they raise in the World an Expectation of some considerable Volume from them and keep that expectation alive as long as they can but be so wise as never to satisfie it with so much as a single Sheet But Wits of this temper are commonly too Hot to moderate their Efforts too opinionated to take caution from the Counsel of even their truest Friends and therefore I leave them to please themselves SECT VII ART 1. YOu have beheld the Ready and the Roving Wits together with their Advantages and Defects be pleased now to remove

to Kingdoms and States seldom produced by her being of that most happy temper that they can stoop their lofty Parts to the anxiety of tedious Meditations and drudgery of vast Readings and Collections To this they bring themselves chiefly by Resolution and Custom whose Effects are no less admirable in the Faculties of the Mind than in those of the Body Hence our incomparable Mr. Hobbes who was pleased not long since to tell me that he was in the fortieth Year of his age when he first began to study with due intention of Mind speaking of the power of Custome upon the various Ingenies of Men hath this remarkable sentence Quae nova offendunt eadem saepius iterata naturam subigunt primo quidem ferre se mox autem amare cogit Id quod in regimine corporis maximè deinde etiam in operationibus Animi perspicuum est de natur Homin cap. 13. sect 3. When they have thus conquered themselves then it is they make the truly Brave Men. When Time Perseverance in Study and Experience have brought them to Maturity You may worthily call them Living Libraries walking Epitomes of all Sciences and Magazins of Knowledge For in them may be found the Piety of Divines the Wisdom of Histories the Wit of Poëts the Solidity of the Mathematicks the depth of Natural Philosophy the Gravity and Uprightness of Moral the wariness of Logick the strength and sweetness of Rhetorick the distinguishing subtlety of the School-men the Exactness of Criticks and the right Use of all And when they are fixt in Publick imployments abeunt Studia in mores they become fit to bare a continual load of cares not prone to be confounded with Multiplicity of affairs nor discomposed with the divers aspects of Occurrents nor startled at unexpected and cross Events but constantly calm and equally sedulous and what more can be expected from Humane frailty In this rude Draught of the charming Beauties of the Ample and Studious Wit more of art might have been shewn and better Colours used But considering that it contains tanquam in compendio all the several Virtues that lye dispersed and single in the precedent sorts and that You Noble Sir are so happy as to need no more lively Image thereof than what You may daily contemplate the curtain of Your great Modesty withdrawn by reflecting upon Your Own I thought my self at liberty to run the same over only with light touches and a hasty Pencil Which I now remove to a work much less gratefull both to Your Genius and my own namely the Character of the Malignant Wit which I therefore reserved for the last place that the Deformity thereof might set off the Beauties of those already described as Satyrs and Negro's painted by fair Ladies make them appear more amiable SECT IX ART 1. BY the MALIGNANT Wit then I understand that which is indeed quick of Apprehension but void of Humanity being prone to exercise it self chiefly in re-searching into the Defects Errors and even the Infortunes of Others such especially who by their Virtues have rendred themselves Conspicuous and to delight in both aggravating and publishing them to their dishonour Wits of this evil temper may not unfitly be resembled to Chymical Spirits which are subtle and penetrating but they also corrode and the Spirits by which they are actuated seem to be extracted not out of the purest parts of their Blood as other Mens are but from their Gall as if they desired to verifie the new opinion of Sylvius de la Boe that that bitter and acrimonious Excrement is the Natural Ferment of the Blood and necessary to not only the Vital but also the Animal actions in all living Creatures in which it is found Out of Self-conceit they affect to be thought highly Ingenious because nothing is more neerly allied to Reason the proper good of man than Ingenie whence that of the Poët Qui velit ingenio cedere rarus erit Whereupon Claud. Donatus relating how one Filistus a Favourite to Augustus used to cast reproaches upon Virgil and carp at all he said even in the Emperours presence adds that he did it non ut verum dignosceret quod Socrates facere consuevit sed ut eruditior videretur But conscious of their own Vices and studious to conceal them they endeavour by detraction to make it appear that others also of greater Estimation in the World are tainted with the same or greater as infamous Women generally excuse their personal debaucheries by incriminating upon their whole Sex calumniating the most chast and virtuous to palliate their own dishonour To this base end they rejoyce to expose the secret faults of men any way renown'd which being no otherwise so easily effected as by the Pen they addict themselves mostly to Writing among all Sects choosing that of Criticks that so under the innocent liberty of judging they may usurp the most pernicious licence of Censuring In which inhumane practice they are sure to make use of one or more of these cunning artifices Having found an opportunity to mention some evil whether true or only suspected in the Person whose Merits they intend to disparage either they industriously pretermit what they know and ought to conjoyn towards the excuse thereof or they pretend forsooth not to believe it when yet they revive the memory of it for no other end but that it may be more firmly believed by others Where they meet with notorious failings there they seem to extenuate and as it were to compensate them with slight Commendations only to disguise their detraction as I have heard of a certain Courtier who desirous to obstruct the preferment of a poor Countrey Vicar and yet not daring to oppose his Master King James his charitable inclination thereunto said to the King Your Majesty may do well to give him a better Living for though he hath not much of Learning he is a very good Fellow too hard for all his Parishioners at Cudgels and hath a singular knack in catching Dotrells Another of their tricks is this where they cannot blame the Fact it self they suggest sinistre Motives or inducements to the doing of it and deprave the Counsel and intention To these may be added one more no less detestable where rumour hath dispersed various conjectures concerning one and the same action of some Eminent Man omitting or suppressing the more benign and favourable they select the worse and more derogatory and largely comment thereupon with design to pervert the belief of their Hearers or Readers in deteriorem partem Thus drawing suspicions from the crooked rule of their own insincere Mind and depraved inclinations they labour to perswade themselves and others that there is among Men no such thing as true Virtue but only a Shadow or artificial representation of it thereby vainly promising to themselves the reputation of singular acuteness of judgement and more than vulgar Wisdom If they can Eclipse the glory of Worthy Men by fomenting obscure and uncertain