one Eye shall see it clearly and the other not at all For let one of these eyes be placed in an old body or in a body deprived quite or in a great measure of those spirits which are allowed the Instruments of sight or of the due egress and regress of them in their natural courses and channels and let the other have a body of a clean contrary quality or let the soul that actuates one of the said eyes be indued with an higher faculty of Animadversion I mean with a greater degree of the Animadversive ability than the soul hath that actuates the other In either of these cases the fore-mention'd difformity of vision will fall out in the same uniform case of Dioptrical advantages For a little angle made in the Eye will make as discernible an impression to a Soul of a greater Animadversive power and assisted by more and meeter instruments of sight as a greater angle can make to a soul of a less power and destitute of those other Instruments which are as necessary to sight as those Dioptrical conveniencies So that grant that the object set at the same distance made angles in the eye of Adam no wider than those it formes in ours yet that which we discern not might have been seen by him having more and better spirits and being endued with a stronger Animadversive according to mine Hypothesis For there is the same proportion between a great power and a little help or a little Angle which is between a small power and a great help or a great Angle If all this satisfie not I begg from the ingenious the favour of this consideration That some grains must be allow'd to a rhetorical display which will not bear the rigour of a critical severity But whether this mine Hypothesis stand or fall my Discourse is not at all concerned And I am not so fond of my conjectures but that I can lay them down at the feet of a convictive opposition To the Learned Author of the Eloquent and Ingenious Vanity of DOGMATIZING POets are but Libe'lers I implore no Muse Parnassian praise is an abuse Call up the Spirit of Philosophy Your worth 's disgrac't by Poetry Summon Des-Cartes Plato Socrates Let this great Triad speak your praise Other Encomiasts that attempt set-forth Their own defects and not your worth As if a Chamber-light should dare essay To gloss the beauty of the day He that thinks fully to describe it dreams You 're only seen by your own beams And only Eagle-eyes can bear that light Your strength and lustre blindes weak sight Let pedants quarrel with th' light that detects Their belov'd vanities and defects And let the Bat assoon as day 's begun Commence a suit against the Sun Let reprehended Dogmatizers stamp And the scorch't Moore curse Heavens lamp While nobler souls that understand what 's writ Are debtors to your strength and wit You have remov'd the old Antipathy 'Tween Rhetorick and Philosophy And in your Book have cloath'd Socratick sense In Demosthenian Eloquence Yo 've smooth'd the Satyr and the wanton have Reform'd and made Rhetorick grave And since your Pen hath thus oblig'd them both 'T is fit they club t' express your worth H. Darsy Esq To his Worthy Friend Mr. IOSEPH GLANVILL Upon the Vanity of DOGMATIZING in Philosophy displayed in his Ingenious Book NO controversies do me please Unless they do contend for Peace Nor scarce a demonstration But such as yours which proves there 's none Doubful I liv'd and doubtful die Thus ΑΥΤΟΣ gave Ε'ΦΗ the lye And with his own more aged Criticks Expung'd his Youthful Analyticks To make my Shrift that certain I Am only of Uncertainty Is no less glorious then due After the Stagirite and You I am absolved if the Hand Of great Apollo's Priest may stand You have made Ignorance a Boast Pride hath its ancient channel lost Like Arethusa only found By those that follow 't under ground Title your Book The Works of MAN The Index of the Vatican Call it Arts Encyclopaedy The Universal Pansophy The State of all the Questions Since Peter Lumbard solv'd at once Ignorance in a learned dress Which Volumes teach but not profess The Learning which all Ages knew Being Epitomiz'd by you You teach us doubting and no more Do Libraries turn'd o're and o're Take up the Folio that comes next 'T will prove a Comment on your Text And the Quotation would be good If BODLEY in your Margin stood A. Borfet M. A. TO HIS Ingenious Friend the Author on his Vanity of DOGMATIZING LEt vaunting Knowledge now strike sail And unto modest Ign'rance vail Our firmest Science when all 's done Is nought but bold Opinion He that hath conquer'd every Art Th' Encyclopaedy all by heart Is but some few conjectures better Than he that cannot read a letter If any certainty there be 'T is this that there 's no certaintie Reason's a draught that do's display And cast its aspects ev'ry way It do's acknowledge no back parts 'T is fac'd like Ianus and regard's Opposite sides what one frowns on T'other face sweetly smiles upon Then may the Sciolist hereby Correct his Metoposcopy Let him e're censure reason found And view her lineaments all round And since that Science he has none Let him with you his nescience owne Weakness acknowledged is best And imperfection when confest Meek and unboasting Ignorance Is but a single impotence But when 't is clad in high profession 'T is then a double imperfection A silly Ape struttingly drest Would but appear the greater jest But your example teacheth us To become less ridiculous He that would learn but what you show The narrow bounds of what men know And would but take a serious view Of the foundations with you He 'd scarce his confidence adventure On bottomes which are so unsure In disquisitions first gust It would be Shipwrackt sunk and lost P. H. READER That the Author may not be accountable for more faults then his own he desires thee to correct or at least to take notice of these Typographical mistakes some of which are less considerable but others if unobserv'd may disturb the sense and render the meaning less obvious thou art therefore requested to exercise thine ingenuity in pardoning the Printer and thy justice in doing right to the Author ERRATA Page line read 20. 5. unite 22. 2. apprehenders 24. 9. spirits 25. 7. spontaneous 27. 7. principles and. 28. 27. motions 29. 21. conceive it 41. 10. considerations 42. 11. composition 60. 6. makes 67. 16. and our 70. 12. of reason 99. 25. mad that 102. 5. be what 103. 26. of 113. 9. cousenage 129. 20. the world 140. 1. the best Books newly published A perfect History of The Civil Warrs of Great Brittain and Ireland by an Impartial pen in folio Britannia Baconica or the Natural Rarities of England Scotland and Wales as they are to be found in every Shire in octavo The Vanity of DOGMATIZING OR Confidence in Opinions CHAP. I.
of Man I shall give the following instances of our intellectual blindness not that I intend to poze them with those common Aenigma's of Magnetism Fluxes Refluxes and the like these are resolv'd into a confest ignorance and I shall not persue them to their old Asylum and yet it may be there is more knowable in these then in lesse acknowledg'd mysteries But I 'le not move beyond our selves and the most ordinary and trivial Phaenomena in nature in which we shall finde enough to shame confidence and unplume Dogmatizing CHAP. III. Instances of our Ignorance propounded 1 of things within our selves The nature of the Soul and its origine glanc'd at and past by 1 It 's union with the body is unconceivable So 2 is its moving the body consider'd either in the way of Sir K. Digby Des-Cartes or Dr. H. More and the Platonists 3 The manner of direction of the Spirits as unexplicable IN the prosecution of our intendment wee 'll first instance in some things in the generall which concern the soul in this state of terrestriall union and then speak more particularly to some faculties within us a scientificall account of which mortality is unacquainted with Secondly we intend to note some mysteries which relate to matter and Body And Thirdly to shew the unintelligible intricacy of some ordinary appearances § 1. It 's a great question with some what the soul is And unlesse their phancies may have a sight and sensible palpation of that more clarified subsistence they will prefer infidelity it self to an unimaginable Idea I 'le onely mind such that the soul is seen as other things in the Mirrour of its effects and attributes But if like children they 'll run behind the glass to see its naked face their expectation will meet with nothing but vacuity emptiness And though a pure Intellectual eye may have a sight of it in reflex discoveries yet if we affect a grosser touch like IxioÌ„ we shal embrace a cloud § 2. And it hath been no less a trouble to the world to determine whence it came then what it is Whether it were made by an immediate creation or seminall traduction hath been a Ball of contention to the most learned ages And yet after all the bandying attempts of resolution it is as much a question as ever and it may be will be so till it be concluded by immortality Some ingenious ones think the difficulties which are urged by each side against the other to be pregnant proofs of the falshood of both and substitute an hypothesis which for probability is supposed to have the advantage of either But I shall not stir in the waters which have been already mudded by so many contentious enquiries The great St. Austin and others of the gray heads of reverend Antiquity have been content to sit down here in a profest neutrality And I 'le not industiously endeavour to urge men to a confession of what they freely acknowledge but shall note difficulties which are not so usually observ'd but as insoluble as these § 3. It is the saying of divine Plato that Man is natures Horizon dividing betwixt the upper Hemisphere of immateriall intellects and this lower of Corporeity And that we are a Compound of beings distant in extreams is as clear as Noon But how the purer Spirit is united to this clod is a knot too hard for fallen Humanity to unty What cement should unite heaven and earth light and darkness natures of so divers a make of such disagreeing attributes which have almost nothing but Being in common This is a riddle which must be left to the coming of Elias How should a thought be united to a marble-statue or a sun-beam to a lump of clay The freezing of the words in the air in the northern climes is as conceivable as this strange union That this active spark this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoicks call it should be confined to a Prison it can so easily pervade is of less facill apprehension then that the light should be pent up in a box of Crystall and kept from accompanying its source to the lower world And to hang weights on the wings of the winde seems far more intelligible In the unions which we understand the extreams are reconciled by interceding participations of natures which have somewhat of either But Body and Spirit stand at such a distance in their essentiall compositions that to suppose an uniter of a middle constitution that should partake of some of the qualities of both is unwarranted by any of our faculties yea most absonous to our reasons since there is not any the least affinity betwixt length breadth and thickness and apprehension judgement and discourse The former of which are the most immediate results if not essentials of Matter the latter of Spirit § 4. Secondly We can as little give an account how the Soul moves the Body That that should give motion to an unwieldy bulk which it self hath neither bulk nor motion is of as difficil an apprehension as any mystery in nature For though conceiving it under some phancied appearance and pinning on it materiall affections the doubt doth not so sensibly touch us since under such conceptions we have the advantage of our senses to befriend us with parallels and gross appreâ—henders may not think it any more strange then that a Bullet should be moved by the rarified fire or the clouds carryed before the invisible winds yet if we defaecate the notion from materiality and abstract quantity locality and all kind of corporeity from it and represent it to our thoughts either under the notion of the ingenious Sir K. Digby as a pure Mind and Knowledge or as the admir'd Des-Cartes expresses it une chose qui pense as a thinking substance it will be as hard to apprehend as that an empty wish should remove Mountains a supposition which if realized would relieve Sisyphus Nor yet doth the ingenious hypothesis of the most excellent Cantabrigian Philosopher of the souls being an extended penetrable substance relieve us since how that which penetrates all bodies without the least jog or obstruction should impress a motion on any is by his own confession alike inconceivable Neither will its moving the Body by a vehicle of Spirits avail us since they are Bodies too though of a purer mould And to credit the unintelligibility both of this union and motion we need no more then to consider that when we would conceiue any thing which is not obvious to our senses we have recourse to our memories the store-house of past observations and turning over the treasure that is there seek for something of like kind which hath formerly come within the notice of our outward or inward senses So that we cannot conceive any thing which comes not within the verge of our senses but either by like experiments which we have made or at least by some remoter hints which we receive from them And where such are wanting I cannot
discern it It cannot be that we should reach it any otherwise then by the most close meditation and engagement of our minds by which we must endeavour to estrange our assent from every thing which is not clearly and distinctly evidenc't to our faculties But now this is so difficult and as hath been intimated so almost infeasable that it may well drive modesty to despair of Science For though possibly Assiduity in the most fixed cogitation be no trouble or pain to immaterializ'd spirits yet is it more then our embodyed souls can bear without lassitude or distemper For in this terrestrial state there are few things transacted even in our Intellectual part but through the help and furtherance of corporal Instruments which by more then ordinary usage lose their edge and fitness for action and so grow inept for their respective destinations Upon this account our senses are dull'd and spent by any extraordinary intention and our very Eyes will ake if long fixt upon any difficultly discerned object Now though Meditation be to be reckoned among the most abstracted operations of our minds yet can it not be performed without a considerable proportion of Spirits to assist in the Action though indeed such as are furnish't out of the bodies purer store This I think to be hence evidenc't in that fixed seriousness herein heats the brain in some to distraction causeth an aking and diziness in founder heads hinders the works of Nature in its lower and animal functions takes away or lessens pain in distemper'd parts and seldom leaves any but under a weary some dullness and inactivity which I think to be arguments of sufficient validity to justifie our assent to this that the spirits are imploy'd in our most intense cogitations yea in such whose objects are most elevated above material Now the managing and carrying on of this work by the Spirits instrumental co-efficiency requires that they be kept together without distraction or dissipation that so they may be ready to receive and execute the orders and commissions of the commanding faculty If either of these happen all miscarries as do the works of Nature when they want that heat which is requisite for their intended perfection And therefore for the prevention of such inconveniences in meditation we choose recess and solitude But now if we consider the volatile nature of those officious Assistants and the several causes which occur continually even from the meer Mechanism of our Bodies to scatter and disorder them besides the excursions of our roving phancies which cannot be kept to a close attendance it will be found very hard to retain them in any long service but do what we can they 'l get loose from the Minds Regimen So that it 's no easie matter to bring the body to be what it was intended for the Souls servant and to confine the imagination of as facil a performance as the Goteham's design of hedging in the Cuckow And though some constitutions are genially disposited to this mental seriousness yet they can scarce say Nos numeri sumus yea in the most advantag'd tempers this disposition is but comparative when as the most of men labour under disadvantages which nothing can rid them of but that which loosens them from this mass of flesh Thus the boyling bloud of youth fiercely agitating the fluid Air hinders that serenity and fixed stayedness which is necessary to so severe an intentness And the frigidity of decrepite age is as much its enemy not only through penury of spirits but by reason of its clogging them with its dulling moisture And even in the temperate zone of our life there are few bodies at such an aequipoiz of humours but that the prevalency of some one indisposeth the spirits for a work so difficult and serious For temperamentum ad pondus may well be reckon'd among the three Philosophical unattainables Besides the bustle of business the avocations of our senses and external pleasures and the noyse and din of a clamorous world are impediments not to be master'd by feeble endeavours And to speak the full of my Sentiments I think never Man could boast it without the Precincts of Paradise but He that came to gain us a better Eden then we lost So then to direct all this to our end the mind of man being thus naturally amorous of and impatient for Truth and yet averse to and almost incapacitated for that diligent and painful search which is necessary to its discovery it must needs take up short of what is really so and please it self in the possession of imaginary appearances which offering themselves to its embraces in the borrowed attire of that which the enamour'd Intellect is in pursuit of our impatient minds entertain these counterfeits without the least suspicion of their cousenage For as the Will having lost its true and substantial Good now courts the shadow and greedily catches at the vain shews of superficial bliss so our no less degenerate understandings having suffered as sad a divorce from their dearest object are as forward to defile themselves with every meretricious semblance that the variety of opinion presents them with Thus we see the inconsiderate vulgar prostrating their assent to every shallow appearance and those who are beholden to Prometheus for a finer mould are not furnisht with so much truth as otherwise they might be owners of did not this precipitancy of concluding prevent them As 't is said of the industrious Chymist that by catching at it too soon he lost the long expected treasure of the Philosophical Elixir I 'le illustrate this Head by a double instance and close it 1. Hence it is that we conclude many things within the list of Impossibilities which yet are easie Feasables For by an unadvised transiliency leaping from the effect to its remotest cause we observe not the connexion through the interposal of more immediate causalities which yet at last bring the extreams together without a Miracle And hereupon we hastily conclude that impossible which we see not in the proximate capacity of its Efficient Hence that a single Hair should root up an Oak which the Mathematicks teach us to be possible will be thought fit to be number'd with the story of the Brazen-head or that other of the wishing Hat The relation of Archimedes's lifting up the ships of Marcellus among many finds but little more credit then that of the Gyants shouldering Mountains And his other exploits sound no better to common Ears then those of Amadis de Gaule and the Knight of the Sun And yet Mathematicians know that by multiplying of Mechanical advantages any power may conquer any resistance and the great Syracusian wit wanted but Tools and a place to stand on to remove the Earth So the brag of the Ottoman that he would throw Malta into the Sea might be performed at an easier rate then by the shovels of his Ianizaries And from this last noted head ariseth that other of joyning causes with irrelative effects which
as sinners and 't is no fault in the spectacles that the blind man sees not Shall we like sullen children because we have not what we would contemn what the benignity of Heaven offers us Do what we can we shall be imperfect in all our attainments and shall we scornfully neglect what we may reach because some things to mortality are denyed 'T is madness to refuse the Largesses of divine bounty on Earth because there is not an Heaven in them Shall we not rejoyce at the gladsome approach of day because it 's over-cast with a cloud and follow'd by the obscurity of night All sublunary vouchsafements have their allay of a contrary and uncertainty in another kind is the annex of all things this side the Sun Even Crowns and Diadems the most splendid parts of terrene attains are akin to that which to day is in the field and to morrow is cut down and wither'd He that enjoy'd them and knew their worth excepted them not out of the charge of Universal Vanity And yet the Politician thinks they deserve his pains and is not discourag'd at the inconstancy of humane affairs and the lubricity of his subject He that looks perfection must seek it above the Empyreum it is reserv'd for Glory It 's that alone which needs not the advantage of a foyl Defects seem as necessary to our now-happiness as their Opposites The most refulgent colours are the result of light and shadows Venus was never the less beautiful for her Mole And 't is for the Majesty of Nature like the Persian Kings sometimes to cover and not alway to prostrate her beauties to the naked view yea they contract a kind of splendour from the seemingly obscuring veil which adds to the enravishments of her transported admirers He alone sees all things with an unshadowed comprehensive Vision who eminently is All Only the God of Nature perfectly knows her and light without darkness is the incommunicable claim of him that dwells in Light inaccessible 'T is no disparagement to Philosophy that it cannot Deifie us or make good the impossible promise of the Primitive Deceiver It is that which she owns above her that must perfectly remake us after the Image of our Maker And yet those raised contemplations of God and Nature wherewith Philosophy doth acquaint us enlarge and ennoble the spirit and infinitely advance it above an ordinary level The soul is alway like the objects of its delight and converse A Prince is as much above a Peasant in spirit as condition And man as far transcends the Beasts in largeness of desire as dignity of Nature and employment While we only converse with Earth we are like it that is unlike our selves But when engag'd in more refin'd and intellectual entertainments we are somewhat more then this narrow circumference of flesh speaks us And me thinks those generous Vertuoso's who dwell in an higher Region then other Mortals should make a middle species between the Platonical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and common Humanity Even our Age in variety of glorious examples can confute the conceit that souls are equal And the sole Instances of those illustrious Heroes Cartes Gassendus Galilaeo Tycho Harvey More Digby will strike dead the opinion of the worlds decay and conclude it in its Prime And upon the review of these great Sages me-thinks I could easily opinion that men may differ from men as much as Angels from unbodyed Souls And it may be more can be pleaded for such a Metaphysical innovation then can for a specifical diversity among our Predicamental Opposites Such as these being in a great part freed from the entanglements of a drossie Vehicle are imploy'd like the Spirits above in taking a survey of Natures Riches and beginning those Anthems to their Maker which Eternity must consummate This is one part of the life of Souls While we indulge to the Sensitive or Plantal Life our delights are common to us with the creatures below us and 't is likely they exceed us as much as in them as in the senses their subjects and that 's a poor happiness for man to aim at in which Beasts are his Superiours But those Mercurial souls which were only lent the Earth to shew the world their folly in admiring it possess delights which as it were antedate Immortality and though at an humble distance resemble the joys above The Sun and Stars are not the worlds Eyes but these The Celestial Argus cannot glory in such an universal view These out-travel theirs and their Monarchs beams skipping into Vortexes beyond their Light and Influence and with an easie twinkle of an Intellectual Eye look into the Centre which is obscur'd from the upper Luminaries This is somewhat like the Image of Omnipresence And what the Hermetical Philosophy saith of God is in a sense verifiable of the thus ennobled soul That its Centre is every where but it 's circumference no where This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and what Plotinus calls so the divine life is somewhat more Those that live but to the lower concupiscible and relish no delights but sensual it 's by the favour of a Metaphor that we call them Men. As Aristotle saith of Brutes they have but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only some shews and Apish imitations of Humane and have little more to justifie their Title to Rationality then those Mimick Animals the supposed Posterity of Cham who had they retain'd the priviledge of Speech which some of the Fathers say they they own'd before the Fall it may be they would plead their cause with them and have laid strong claim to a Parity Such as these are Philosophies Maligners who computing the usefulness of all things by what they bring to their Barns and Treasures stick not to pronounce the most generous contemplations needless unprofitable subtilties and they might with as good reason say that the light of their Eyes was a superfluous provision of Nature because it fills not their Bellies Thus the greatest part of miserable Humanity is lost in Earth and if Man be an inversed Plant these are inversed Men who forgetting that Sursum which Nature writ in their Foreheads take their Roots in this sordid Element But the Philosophical soul is an inverted Pyramid Earth hath but a point of this Aethereal Cone Aquila non captat muscas The Royal Eagle flyes not but at noble Game and a young Alexander will not play but with Monarchs He that hath been cradled in Majesty and used to Crowns and Scepters will not leave the Throne to play with Beggars at Put-pin or be fond of Tops and Cherry-stones neither will a Soul that dwells with Stars dabble in this impurer Mud or stoop to be a Play-fellow and Copartner in delights with the Creatures that have nought but Animal And though it be necessitated by its relation to flesh to a Terrestrial converse yet 't is like the Sun without contaminating its Beams For though the body by a kind of Magnetism be
A display of the Perfections of Innocence with a conjecture at the manner of Adams knowledge viz. that it was by the large extent of his Senses founded upon the supposition of the perfection of his Faculties and induc'd from two Philosophick principles OUr misery is not of yesterday but as antient as the first Criminal and the ignorance we are involved in almost coaeval with the humane nature not that we were made so by our God but our selves we were his creatures sin and misery were ours To make way for what follows we will go to the root of our antient happiness and now ruines that we may discover both what the Man was and what the Sinner is The Eternal Wisdome having made that Creature whose crown it was to be like his Maker enrich't him with those ennoblements which were worthy him that gave them and made no less for the benefit of their receiver then the glory of their Author And as the Primogenial light which at first was difused over the face of the unfashion'd Chaos was afterwards by Divine appointment gathered into the Sun and Stars and other lucid bodies which shine with an underived lustre so those scatter'd perfections which are divided among the several cantons of created beings were as it were constellated and summ'd up in this Epitome of the greater World MAN His then blisful injoyments anticipated the aspires to be like GODS being in a condition not to be added to as much as in desire and the unlikeness of it to our now miserable because Apostate state makes it almost as impossible to be conceiv'd as to be regain'd A condition which was envied by creatures that nature had plac't a sphaere above us and such as differ'd not much from glory and blessed immortality but in perpetuity and duration For since the most despicable and disregarded pieces of decay'd nature are so curiously wrought and adorned with such eminent signatures of Divine wisdome as speak it their Author and that after a curse brought upon a disorder'd Universe what think we was done unto him whom the King delighted to honour and what was the portion of Heâ—â—ens Favorite when Omniscience it self sat in Councel to furnish him with all those accomplishments which his specifick capacity could contain which questionless were as much above the Hyperbolies that fond Poetry bestowes upon its admired objects as their flatter'd beauties are really below them The most refined glories of subcoelestial excellencies are but more faint resemblances of these For all the powers and faculties of this copy of the Divinity this meddal of God were as perfect as beauty and harmony in Idea The soul was not clogg'd by the inactivity of its masse as ours nor hindered in its actings by the distemperature of indisposed organs Passions kept their place as servants of the higher powers and durst not arrogate the Throne as now no countermands came hence to repeal the decretals of the Regal faculties that Batrachomyomachia of one passion against an other and both against reason was yet unborn Man was never at odds with himself till he was at odds with the commands of his Maker There was no jarring or disharmony in the faculties till sin untun'd them He could no sooner say to one power go but it went nor to another do this but it did it Even the senses the Souls windows were without any spot or opacity to liken them to the purest Crystal were to debase them by the comparison for their acumen and strength depending on the delicacy and apt disposure of the organs and spirits by which outward motions are conveyed to the judgement-seat of the Soul those of Innocence must needs infinitely more transcend ours then the senses of sprightful youth doth them of frozen decrepit age Adam needed no Spectacles The acuteness of his natural Opticks if conjecture may have credit shew'd him much of the Coelestial magnificence and bravery without a Galilaeo's tube And 't is most probable that his naked eyes could reach near as much of the upper World as we with all the advantages of art It may be 't was as absurd even in the judgement of his senses that the Sun and Stars should be so very much less then this Globe as the contrary seems in ours and 't is not unlikely that he had as clear a perception of the earths motion as we think we have of its quiescence Thus the accuracy of his knowledge of natural effects might probably arise from his sensible perception of their causes What the experiences of many ages will scarce afford us at this distance from perfection his quicker senses could teach in a moment And whereas we patch up a piece of Philosophy from a few industriously gather'd and yet scarce well observ'd or digested experiments his knowledge was compleatly built upon the certain extemporary notice of his comprehensive unerring faculties His sight could inform him whether the Loadstone doth attract by Atomical Effluviums which may gain the more credit by the consideration of what some affirm that by the help of Microscopes they have beheld the subtile streams issuing from the beloved Minerall It may be he saw the motion of the bloud and spirits through the transparent skin as we do the workings of those little industrious Animals through a hive of glasse The Mysterious influence of the Moon and its causality on the seas motion was no question in his Philosophy no more then a Clocks motion is in ours where our senses may inform us of its cause Sympathies and Antipathies were to him no occult qualities Causes are hid in night and obscurity from us which were all Sun to him Now to shew the reasonableness of this Hypothesis I 'le suppose what I think few will deny That God adorn'd that creature which was a transcript of himself with all the perfections its capacity could bear And that this great extent of the senses Horizon was a perfection easily competible to sinless humanity will appear by the improvement of the two following principles First as far as the operation of nature reacheth it works by corporeal instruments If the Coelestial lights influence our Earth and advance the Production of Minerals in their hidden beds it is done by material communications And if there be any virtue proceeding from the Pole to direct the motion of the enamour'd steel however unobserv'd those secret influences may be they work not but by corporal Application Secondly Sense is made by motion caus'd by bodily impression on the organ and continued to the brain and centre of perception Hence it is manifest that all bodies are in themselves sensible in as much as they can impress this motion which is the immediate cause of sensation And therefore as in the former Principle the most distant efficients working by a corporeal causality if it be not perceiv'd the non-perception must arise from the dulness and imperfection of the faculty and not any defect in the object So then is it probable that
apprehend how the thing can be conceived If any think otherwise let them carefully examine their thoughts and if they finde a determinate intellection of any Modes of Being which were never in the least hinted to them by their externall or internall senses I 'le beleeve that such can realize Chimaera's But now in the cases before us there are not the least footsteps either of such an Union or Motion in the whole circumference of sensible nature And we cannot apprehend any thing beyond the evidence of our faculties § 5. Thirdly How the soul directs the Spirits for the motion of the Body according to the several animal exigents is as perplex in the theory as either of the former For the meatus or passages through which those subtill emissaries are conveyed to the respective members being so almost infinite and each of them drawn through so many meanders cross turnings and divers roades wherein other spirits are continually a journeying it is wonderfull that they should exactly perform their regular destinations without losing their way in such a wilderness neither can the wit of man tell how they are directed For that they are carried by the manuduction of a Rule is evident from the constant steddyness and regularity of their motion into the parts where their supplies are expected But what that regulating efficiency should be and how managed is not easily determin'd That it is performed by meer Mechanisme constant experience confutes which assureth us that our spontaâ—â—eous motions are under the Imperium of our will At least the first determination of the Spirits into such or such passages is from the soul what ever we hold of the after conveyances of which likewise I think that all the philosophy in the world cannot make it out to be purely Mechanicall But yet though we gain this that the soule is the principle of direction the difficulty is as formidable as ever For unless we allow it a kinde of inward sight of the Anatomicall frame of its owne body of every vein muscle and artery of the exact site and position of them with their severall windings and secret chanels it is as unconceivable how it should be the Directrix of such intricate motions as that a blind man should manage a game at Chess But this is a kinde of knowledge that we are not in the least aware of yea many times we are so far from an attention to the inward direction of the spirits that our employ'd mindes observe not any method in the outward performance even when 't is manag'd by variety of interchangeable motions in which a steady direction is difficult and a miscariage easy Thus an Artist will play a Lesson on an instrument without minding a stroke and our tongues will run divisions in a tune not missing a note even when our thoughts are totally engaged elsewhere which effects are to be attributed to some secret Art of the Soul which to us is utterly occult and without the ken of our Intellects CHAP. IV. 4 We can give no account of the manner of Sensation nor 5 of the nature of the Memory It is consider'd according to the philosophy of Des-Cartes Sir K. Digby Aristotle and Mr. Hobbs and all ineffectuall Some other unexplicables mention'd § 6. BUt besides those abstrusities that lie more deep and are of a more mysterious alloy we are at a loss for a scientificall account even of our Senses the most knowable of our facultyes Our eyes that see other things see not themselves And those principâ—â—â—â— foundations of knowledge are themselvs unknown That the soul is the sole Percipient which alone hath animadversion and sense properly so called and that the Body is only the receiver and conveyer of corporeall impressions is as certain as Philosophy can make it Aristotle himself teacheth so much in that Maxime of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Plato credits this position with his suffrage affirming that 't is the soul that hath life and sense but the body neither But this is so largly prosecuted by that wonder of men the Great Des-Cartes and is a Truth that shines so clear in the Eyes of all considering men that to goe about industriously to prove it were to light a candle to seek the Sun we 'll therefore suppose it as that which needs not amuse us but yet what are the instruments of sensible perceptions and particular conveyers of outward motions to the seat of sense is difficult and how the pure mind can receive information from that which is not in the least like it self and but little resembling what it represents I think inexplicable Whether Sensation be made by corporall emissions and materiall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or by motions imprest on the Aethereall matter and carryed by the continuity thereof to the Common sense I 'le not revive into a Dispute The ingenuity of the latter hath already given it almost an absolute victory over its Rivall But suppose which we will there are doubts not to be solv'd by either For how the soule by mutation made in matter a substance of another kind should be excited to action and how bodily alterations and motions should concern it which is subject to neither is a difficulty which confidence may triumph over sooner then conquer For body connot act on any thing but by motion motion cannot be received but by quantative dimension the soul is astranger to such gross substantiality and hath nothing of quantity but what it is cloathed with by our deceived phancies and therefore how can we conceive under a passsive subjection to material impressions and yet the importunity of pain and unavoydableness of sensations strongly perswade that we are so Some say that the soul indeed is not passive under the materiall phantasms but doth only intuitively view them by the necessity of her Nature and so observes other things in these there representatives But how is it and by what Art doth the soul read that such an image or stroke in matter whether that of her vehicle or of the Brain the case is the same signifies such an object Did we learn such an Alphabet in our Embryo-state And how comes it to pass that we are not aware of any such congenite apprehensions We know what we know but do we know any more That by diversity of motions we should spell out figures distances magnitudes colours things not resembled by them we must attribute to some secret deduction But what this deduction should be or by what mediums this Knowledge is advanc'd is as dark as Ignorance it self One that hath not the knowledge of Letters may see the Figures but comprehends not the meaning included in them An infant may hear the sounds and see the motion of the lips but hath no conception conveyed by them not knowing what they are intended to signify So our souls though they might have perceived the motions and images themselves by simple sense yet without some implicit inference it seems
inconceivable how by that means they should apprehend their Archetypes Moreover images and motions are in the Brain in a very inconsiderable latitude of space and yet they represent the greatest magnitudes The image of an Hemisphere of the upper Globe cannot be of a wider circumference then a Wall-nut And how can such petty impressions notifie such vastly expanded objects but through some kind of Scientifical method and Geometry in the Principle without this it is not conceivable how distances should be perceiv'd but all objects would appear in a cluster and lie in as narrow a room as their images take up in our scanter Craniums Nor will the Philosophy of the most ingenious Des-Cartes help us out For that striking upon divers filaments of the brain cannot well be supposed to represent their respective distances except some such kind of Inference be allotted us in our faculties the concession of which will only steed us as a Refuge for Ignorance where we shall meet what we would seem to shun § 7. The Memory is a faculty whose nature is as obscure and hath as much of Riddle in it as any of the former It seems to be an Organical Power because bodily distempers often marr its Idea's and cause a total oblivion But what instruments the Soul useth in her review of past impressions is a question which may drive Enquiry to despair There are four principal Hypotheses by which a Resolution hath been attempted The first that I 'le mention is that of the incomparable Des-Cartes who gives this account The Glandula pinealis by him made the seat of Common Sense doth by its motion impel the Spirits into divers parts of the Brain till it find those wherein are some tracks of the object we would remember which consists in this viz. That the Pores of the Brain through the which the Spirits before took their course are more easily opened to the Spirits which demand re-entrance so that finding those pores they make their way through them sooner then through others whence there ariseth a special motion in the Glandula which signifies this to be the object we would remember A second is that of the ingenious Sir K. Digby a summary of which is That things are reserved in the memory by some corporeal exuviae and material Images which having impinged on the Common sense rebound thence into some vacant cells of the Brain where they keep their ranks and postures in the same order that they entred till they are again stirr'd up and then they slide through the Fancy as when they were first presented These are the endeavours of those two Grand Sages then whom it may be the Sun never saw a more learned pair And yet as a sad evidence of the infirmities of laps'd humanity these great Sophi fail here of their wonted success in unridling Nature And I think Favour it self can say no more of either Hypothesis then that they are ingenious attempts Nor do I speak this to derogate from the Grandeur of their Wits us'd to Victory I should rather confer what I could to the erecting of such Trophies to them as might eternize their Memories And their coming short here I think not to be from defect of their personal abilities but specifick constitution and the doubt they leave us in proceeds from hence that they were no more then men I shall consider what is mentioned from them apart before I come to the other two And what I am here about to produce is not to argue either of these Positions of Falseness but of Unconceiveableness In the general what hath been urg'd under the former head stands in full force against both these and them that follow But to the first If Memory be made by the easie motion of the Spirits through the opened passages according to what hath been noted from Des-Cartes whence have we a distinct Remembrance of such diversity of Objects whose Images without doubt pass through the same apertures And how should we recall the distances of Bodies which lye in a line Or is it not likely that the impell'd Spirits might light upon other Pores accommodated to their purpose through the Motion of other Bodies through them Yea in such a pervious substance as the Brain they might finde an easie either entrance or exit almost every where and therefore to shake every grain of corn through the same holes of a Sieve in repeated winnowings is as easie to be performed as this to be conckived Besides it 's difficult to apprehend but that these avennues should in a very short time be stopped up by the pressure of other parts of the matter through its natural gravity or other alterations made in the Brain And the opening of other vicine passages might quickly obliterate any tracks of these as the making of one hole in the yeelding mud defaces the print of another near it at least the accession of enlargement which was derived from such transitions would be as soon lost as made But for the second How is it imaginable that those active particles which have no cement to unite them nothing to keep them in the order they were set yea which are ever and anon justled by the occursion of other bodies whereof there is an infinite store in this Repository should so orderly keep their Cells without any alteration of their site or posture which at first was allotted them And how is it conceivable but that carelesly turning over the Idea's of our mind to recover something we would remember we should put all the other Images into a disorderly floating and so raise a little Chaos of confusion where Nature requires the exactest order According to this account I cannot see but that our Memories would be more confused then our Mid-night compositions For is it likely that the divided Atomes which presented themselves together should keep the same ranks in such a variety of tumultuary agitations as happen in that liquid Medium An heap of Ants on an Hillock will more easily be kept to an uniformity in motion and the little bodies which are incessantly playing up and down the Air in their careless postures are as capable of Regularity as these Much more mâ—ght be added but I intend only a touch But a Third way that hath been attempted is that of Aristotle which says that Objects are conserved in the Memory by certain intentional Species Beings which have nothing of Matter in their Essential Constitution but yet have a necessary subjective dependence on it whence they are called Material To this briefly Besides that these Species are made a Medium between Body and Spirit and therefore partake of no more of Being then what the charity of our Imaginations affords them and that the supposition infers a creative energie in the object their producent which Philosophy allows not to Creature-Efficients I say beside these it is quite against their nature to subsist but in the presence and under the actual influence of their cause as
Cortex of sensible Appearances He were a poor Physitian that had no more Anatomy then were to be gather'd from the Physnomy Yea the most common Phaenomena can be neither known nor improved without insight into the more hidden frame For Nature works by an Invisible Hand in all things And till Peripateticism can shew us further then those gross solutions of Qualities and Elements 't will never make us Benefactors to the World nor considerable Discoverers But its experienc'd sterility through so many hundred years drives Hope to desperation We expect greater things from Neoterick endeavours The Cartesian Philosophy in this regard hath shewn the World the way to be happy Me thinks this Age seems resolved to bequeath posterity somewhat to remember it And the glorious Undertakers wherewith Heaven hath blest our Days will leave the world better provided then they found it And whereas in former times such generous free-spirited Worthies were as the Rare newly observed Stars a single one the wonder of an Age In ours they are like the lights of the greater size that twinkle in the Starry Firmament And this last Century can glory in numerous constellations Should those Heroes go on as they have happily begun they 'll fill the world with wonders And I doubt not but posterity will find many things that are now but Rumors verified into practical Realities It may be some Ages hence a voyage to the Southern unknown Tracts yea possibly the Moon will not be more strange then one to America To them that come after us it may be as ordinary to buy a pair of wings to fly into remotest Regions as now a pair of Boots to ride a Iourney And to conferr at the distance of the Indies by Sympathetick conveyances may be as usual to future times as to us in a litterary correspondence The restauration of gray hairs to Iuvenility and renewing the exhausted marrow may at length be effected without a miracle And the turning of the now comparatively desert world into a Paradise may not improbably be expected from late Agriculture Now those that judge by the narrowness of former Principles will smile at these Paradoxical expectations But questionless those great Inventions that have in these later Ages altered the face of all things in their naked proposals and meer suppositions were to former times as ridiculous To have talk'd of a new Earth to have been discovered had been a Romance to Antiquity And to sayl without sight of Stars or shoars by the guidance of a Mineral a story more absurd then the flight of Daedalus That men should speak after their tongues were ashes or communicate with each other in differing Hemisphears before the Invention of Letters could not but have been thought a fiction Antiquity would not have believed the almost incredible force of our Canons and would as coldly have entertain'd the wonders of the Telescope In these we all condemn antique incredulity and 't is likely Posterity will have as much cause to pity ours But yet notwithstanding this straightness of shallow observers there are a set of enlarged souls that are more judiciously credulous and those who are acquainted with the fecundity of Cartesian Principles and the diligent and ingenuous endeavours of so many true Philosophers will despair of nothing 5. But again the Aristotelian Philosophy is in some things impious and inconsistent with Divinity and in many more inconsistent with it self That the Resurrection is impossible That God understands not all things That the world was from Eternity That there 's no substantial form but moves some Orb That the first Mover moves by an Eternal Immutable Necessity That if the world and motion were not from Eternity then God was Idle were all the Assertions of Aristotle which Theology pronounceth impieties Which yet we need not strange at from one of whom a Father saith Nec Deum coluit nec curavit Especially if it be as Philoponus affirms that he philosophiz'd by command from the Oracle Of the Aristotelian contradictions Gassendus hath presented us with a Catalogue We 'll instance in a few of them In one place he saith The Planets scintillation is not seen because of their propinquity but that of the rising and setting Sun is because of its distance and yet in another place he makes the Sun nearer us then they are He saith that the Elements are not Eternal and seeks to prove it and yet he makes the world so and the Elements its parts In his Meteors he saith no Dew is produced in the Wind and yet afterwards admits it under the South and none under the North. In one place he defines a vapour humid and cold and in another humid and hot He saith the faculty of speaking is a sense and yet before he allow'd but five In one place that Nature doth all things best and in another that it makes more evil then good And somewhere he contradicts himself within a line saying that an Immoveable Mover hath no principle of Motion 'T would be tedious to mention more and the qualiiy of a digression will not allow it Thus we have as briefly as the subject would bear animadverted on the so much admired Philosophy of Aristotle The nobler Spirits of the Age are disengaged from those detected vanities And the now Adorers of that Philosophy are few but such narrow souls that know no other Or if any of them look beyond the leaves of their Master yet they try other Principles by a Jury of his and scan Cartes with Genus and Species From the former sort I may hope they 'l pardon this attempt and for the latter I value not their censure Thus then we may conclude upon the whole that the stamp of Authority can make Leather as current as Gold and that there 's nothing so contemptible but Antiquity can render it august and excellent But because the Fooleries of some affected Novelists have discredited new discoveries and render'd the very mention suspected of Vanity at least and in points Divine of Heresie It will be necessary to add that I intend not the former discourse in favour of any new-broach'd conceit in Divinity For I own no Opinion there which cannot plead the prescription of above sixteen hundred There 's nothing I have more sadly resented then the phrenetick whimsies with which our Age abounds and therefore am not likely to Patron them In Theology I put as great a difference between our New Lights and Ancient Truths as between the Sun and an unconcocted evanid Meteor Though I confess that in Philosophy I 'm a Seeker yet cannot believe that a Sceptick in Philosophy must be one in Divinity Gospel-Light began in it Zenith and as some say the Sun was created in its Meridian strength and lustre But the beginnings of Philosophy were in a Crepusculous obscurity and it 's yet scarse past the Dawn Divine Truths were most pure in their source and Time could not perfect what Eternity began our Divinity like the Grand-father
anomalies beyond Arithmetick I could wish were of more difficult probation 'T were happy for a distemper'd Church if evidence were not so near us 'T is zeal for opinions that hath fill'd our Hemisphear with smoke and darkness and by a dear experience we know the fury of those flames it hath kindled Had not Heaven prevented they had turn'd our Paradise into a Desert and made us the habitation of Iim and Ohim 'T is lamentable that Homo homini Daemon should be a Proverb among the Professors of the Cross and yet I fear it is as verifiable among them as of those without the pale of visible Christianity I doubt we have lost S. Iohn's sign of regeneration By this we know that we are past from death to life that we love one another is I fear to few a sign of their spiritual resurrection If our Returning Lord shall scarse find faith on earth where will he look for charity It is a stranger this side the Region of love and blessedness bitter zeal for opinions hath consum'd it Mutual agreement and indearments was the badge of Primitive Believers but we may be known by the contrary criterion The union of a Sect within it self is a pitiful charity it 's no concord of Christians but a conspiracy against Christ and they that love one another for their opinionative concurrences love for their own sakes not their Lords not because they have his image but because they bear one anothers What a stir is there for Mint Anise and Cummin controversies while the great practical fundamentals are unstudyed unobserved What eagerness in the prosecution of disciplinarian uncertainties when the love of God and our neighbour those Evangelical unquestionables want that fervent ardor 'T is this hath consum'd the nutriment of the great and more necessary Verities and bred differences that are past any accommodation but that of the last dayes decisions The sight of that day will resolve us and make us asham'd of our pety quarrels Thus Opinions have rent the world asunder and divided it almost into indivisibles Had Heraclitus liv'd now he had wept himself into marble and Democritus would have broke his spleen Who can speak of such fooleries without a Satyr to see aged Infants so quarrel at put-pin and the doating world grown child again How fond are men of a bundle of opinions which are no better then a bagge of Cherry-stones How do they scramble for their Nuts and Apples and how zealous for their pety Victories Methinks those grave contenders about opinionative trifles look like aged Socrates upon his boys Hobby-horse or like something more ludricous since they make things their feria which are scarse tolerable in their sportful intervals 4 To be confident in Opinions is ill manners and immodesty and while we are peremptory in our perswasions we accuse them all of ignorance and Error that subscribe not our assertions The Dogmatist gives the lye to all dissenting apprehenders and proclaims his judgement fittest to be the Intellectual Standard This is that spirit of immorality that saith unto dissenters Stand off I am more Orthodox then thou art a vanity more capital then Error He that affirms that things must needs be as he apprehends them implies that none can be right till they submit to his opinions and take him for their director This is to invert the Rule and to account a mans self better then all men 5 Obstinacy in Opinions holds the Dogmatist in the chains of Error without hope of emancipation While we are confident of all things we are fatally deceiv'd in most He that assures himself he never erres will alwayes erre and his presumptions will render all attempts to inform him ineffectual We use not to seek further for what we think we are possest of and when falshood is without suspicion imbrac't in the stead of truth and with confidence retained Verity will be rejected as a supposed Error and irreconcileably be hated because it opposeth what is indeed so 6 It betrays a poverty and narrowness of spirit in the Dogmatical assertors There are a set of Pedants that are born to slavery But the generous soul preserves the liberty of his judgement and will not pen it up in an Opinionative Dungeon with an equal respect he examins all things and judgeth as impartially as Rhadamanth When as the Pedant can hear nothing but in favour of the conceits he is amorous of and cannot see but out of the grates of his prison The determinations of the nobler spirit are but temporary and he holds them but till better evidence repeal his former apprehensions He won't defile his assent by prostituting it to every conjecture or stuff his belief with the luggage of uncertainties The modesty of his expression renders him infallible and while he only saith he Thinks so he cannot be deceiv'd or ever assert a falshood But the wise Monseur Charron hath fully discourst of this Universal liberty and sav'd me the labour of inlarging Upon the Review of my former considerations I cannot quarrel with his Motto in a sense Ie ne scay is a justifiable Scepticism and not mis-becoming a Candidate of wisdom Socrates in the judgement of the Oracle knew more then All men who in his own knew the least of any CHAP. XXIV AN APOLOGY FOR PHILOSOPHY IT is the glory of Philosophy that Ignorance and Phrensie are her Enemies Now to vindicate this abused excellence from the mis-reports of stupid and Enthusiastick Ignorants I 'le subjoyn this brief Apology Lest those unintelligent maligners take an advantage from our discourse to depretiate and detract from what hath been alway the object of their hate because never of their knowledge and capacities Or which is the greater mischief lest this should discourage those enlarged souls who aspire to the knowledge of God and Nature which is the most venial ambition If Philosophy be uncertain the former will confidently conclude it vain and the later may be in danger of pronouncing the same on their pains who seek it if after all their labour they must reap the wind meer opinion and conjecture But there 's a part of Philosophy that owes no answer to the charge The Scepticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 must have the qualification of an exception and at least the Mathematicks must be priviledg'd from the endictment Neither yet are we at so deplorable a loss in the other parts of what we call Science but that we may meet with what will content ingenuity at this distance from perfection though all things will not compleatly satisfie strict and rigid enquiry Philosophy indeed cannot immortalize us or free us from the inseparable attendants on this state Ignorance and Error But shall we malign it because it entitles us not to an Omniscience Is it just to condemn the Physitian because Hephestion dyed Compleat knowledge is reserv'd to gratifie our glorified faculties We are ignorant of some things from our specifical incapacity as men of more from our contracted
drawn down to this sediment of universal dreggs yet the thus impregnate spirit contracts a Verticity to objects above the Pole And like as in a falling Torch though the grosser Materials hasten to their Element yet the flame aspires and could it master the dulness of its load would carry it beyond the central activity of the Terraqueous Magnet Such souls justifie Aristotles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in allayed sense that title which the Stoicks give it of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we say they are not in their bodies but their bodies in them we have the Authority of the divine Plato to vouch us And by the favour of an easie simile we may affirm them to be to the body as the light of a Candle to the gross and faeculent snuff which as it is not pent up in it so neither doth it partake of its stench and and impurity Thus as the Roman Oratour elegantly descants Erigimur latiores fieri videmur humana despicimus contemplantesque supera coelestia haec nostra ut exigua minima contemnimus And yet there 's an higher degree to which Philosophy sublimes us For as it teacheth a generous contempt of what the grovelling desires of creeping Mortals Idolize and dote on so it raiseth us to love and admire an Object that is as much above terrestrial as Infinity can make it If Plutarch may have credit the observation of Natures Harmony in the celestial motions was one of the first inducements to the belief of a God And a greater then he affirms that the visible things of the Creation declare him that made them What knowledge we have of them we have in a sense of their Authour His face cannot be beheld by Creature-Opticks without the allay of a reflexion and Nature is one of those mirrours that represents him to us And now the more we know of him the more we love him the more we are like him the more we admire him 'T is here that knowledge wonders and there 's an Admiration that 's not the Daughter of Ignorance This indeed stupidly gazeth at the unwonted effect But the Philosophick passion truly admires and adores the supreme Efficient The wonders of the Almighty are not seen but by those that go down into the deep The Heavens declare their Makers Glory and Philosophy theirs which by a grateful rebound returns to its Original source The twinkling spangles the Ornaments of the upper world lose their beauty and magnificence while they are but the objects of our narrow'd senses By them the half is not told us and Vulgar spectators see them but as a confused huddle of pety Illuminants But Philosophy doth right to those immense sphears and advantagiously represents their Glories both in the vastness of their proportions and regularity of their motions If we would see the wonders of the Globe we dwell in Philosophy must reare us above it The works of God speak forth his mighty praise A speech not understood but by those that know them The most Artful melody receives but little tribute of Honour from the gazing beasts it requires skill to relish it The most delicate musical accents of the Indians to us are but inarticulate hummings as questionless are ours to their otherwise tuned Organs Ignorance of the Notes and Proportions renders all Harmony unaffecting A gay Puppet pleaseth children more then the exactest piece of unaffected Art it requires some degrees of Perfection to admire what is truly perfect as it 's said to be an advance in Oratory to relish Cicero Indeed the unobservant Multitude may have some general confus'd apprehensions of a kind of beauty that guilds the outside frame of the Universe But they are Natures courser wares that lye on the stall expos'd to the transient view of every common Eye her choicer Riches are lock't up only for the sight of them that will buy at the expence of sweat and Oyl Yea and the visible Creation is far otherwise apprehended by the Philosophical Inquirer then the unintelligent Vulgar Thus the Physitian looks with another Eye on the Medicinal hearb then the grazing Oxe which swoops it in with the common grass and the Swine may see the Pearl which yet he values but with the ordinary muck it 's otherwise pris'd by the skilful Ieweller And from this last Article I think I may conclude the charge which hot-brain'd folly lays in against Philosophy that it leads to Irreligion frivolous and vain I dare say next after the divine Word it 's one of the best friends to Piety Neither is it any more justly accountable for the impious irregularities of some that have payd an homage to its shrine then Religion it self for the sinful extravagances both opinionative and practical of high pretenders to it It is a vulgar conceit that Philosophy holds a confederacy with Atheism it self but most injurious for nothing can better antidote us against it and they may as well say that Physitians are the only murtherers A Philosophick Atheist is as good sense as a Divine one and I dare say the Proverb Ubi tres Medici duo Athei is a scandal I think the Original of this conceit might be That the Students of Nature conscious to her more cryptick ways of working resolve many strange effects into the nearer efficiency of second causes which common Ignorance and Superstition attribute to the Immediate causality of the first thinking it to derogate from the Divine Power that any thing which is above their apprehensions should not be reckon'd above Natures activity though it be but his Instrument and works nothing but as impower'd from him Hence they violently declaim against all that will not acknowledge a Miracle in every extraordinary effect as setting Nature in the Throne of God and so it 's an easie step to say they deny him When as indeed Nature is but the chain of second causes and to suppose second causes without a first is beneath the Logick of Gotham Neither can they who to make their reproach of Philosophy more authentick alledge the Authority of an Apostle to conclude it vain upon any whit more reasonable terms make good their charge since this allegation stands in force but against its abuse corrupt sophistry or traditionary impositions which lurk'd under the mask of so serious a name At the worst the Text will never warrant an universal conclusion any more then that other where the Apostle speaks of silly women who yet are the most rigid urgers of this can justly blot the sex with an unexceptionable note of infamy Now what I have said here in this short Apology for Philosophy is not so strictly verifiable of any that I know as the Cartesian The entertainment of which among truly ingenuous unpossest Spirits renders an after-commendation superfluous and impertinent It would require a wit like its Authors to do it right in an Encomium The strict Rationality of the Hypothesis in the main and the critical coherence of its parts
I doubt not but will bear it down to Posterity with a Glory that shall know no term but the Universal ruines Neither can the Pedantry or prejudice of the present Age any more obstruct its motion in that supreme sphear wherein its desert hath plac'd it then can the howling Wolves pluck Cynthia from her Orb who regardless of their noise securely glides through the undisturbed Aether Censure here will disparage it self not it He that accuseth the Sun of darkness shames his own blind eyes not its light The barking of Cynicks at that Hero 's Chariot-wheels will not sully the glory of his Triumphs But I shall supersede this endless attempt Sun-beams best commend themselves FINIS The Contents CHAP. I. A Display of the Perfections of Innocence with a conjecture at the manner of Adams Knowledge page 1. CHAP. II. Our decay and ruines by the fall descanted on of the now scantness of our knowledge 10. CHAP. III. Instances of our Ignorance 1 of things within our selves The nature of the Soul and its origine glanc't at and past by 1 It 's union with the body is unconceiveable So 2 is its moving the body consider'd either in the way of Sir K. Digby Des-Cartes or Dr. H. More and the Platonists 3 The manner of direction of the Spirits as unexplicable 17. CHAP. IV. 4 We can give no account of the manner of Sensation Nor 5 of the Nature of the Memory It is consider'd according to the Philosophy of Des-Cartes Sir K. Digby Aristotle and Mr. Hobbs and all in-effectual Some other unexplicables mention'd 27. CHAP. V. 6 How our bodies are form'd unexplicable The plastick signifies nothing The formation of Plants and Animals unknown in their principle Mechanism solves it not A new way propounded which also fails of satisfaction 2 No account is yet given how the parts of matter are united Some considerations on Des-Cartes his Hypothesis it fails of solution 3 The question is unanswerable whether matter be compounded of divisibles or indivisibles 41. CHAP. VI. Difficulties about the motion of a wheel which admit of no Solution 54. CHAP. VII Mens backwardness to acknowledge their own Ignorance and Errour though ready to find them in others The first cause of the shortness of our knowledge viz. the depth of Verity discourst of as of its admixtion in mens opinions with falshood the connexion of truths And their mutual dependence A second reason of the shortness of our knowledge viz. because we can perceive nothing but by proportion to our senses 62. CHAP. VIII A third reason of our Ignorance and Errour viz. the impostures and deceits of our Senses The way to rectifie these mis-informations propounded Des-Cartes his method the only way to Science The difficulty of the exact performance 69. CHAP. IX Two Instances of Sensitive deception 1 Of the Quiescence of the Earth Four cases in which motion is insensible applyed to the Earth's motion 75. CHAP. X. Another instance of the deceptions of our Senses which is of translating the Idea of our passions to things without us In propriety of speech our Senses themselves are never deceived prov'd by reason and the authority of St. Austin 87. CHAP. XI A fourth reason of our Ignorance and Errour viz. the fallacy of our Imaginations An account of the nature of that faculty instances of its deceptions Spirits are not in a place Intellection Volition Decrees c. cannot properly be ascrib'd to God It is not Reason that opposeth Faith but Phancy The Interest which Imagination hath in many of our Opinions in that it impresses a perswasion without Evidence 95. CHAP. XII A fifth reason the precipitancy of our understandings the reason of it The most close ingagements of our minds requisite to the finding of truth the difficulties of the performance of it Two instances of our precipitating 106. CHAP. XIII The sixth reason discourst of viz. the interest which our affections have in our Dijudications The cause why our affections mislead us Several branches of this mention'd and the first viz. constitutional Inclination largely insisted on 113. CHAP. XIV A second thing whereby our affections ingage us in Errour is the prejudice of Custom and Education A third interest 4 Love to our own productions 125. CHAP. XV. 5. Our affections are ingag'd by our reverence to Antiquity and Authority our mistake of Antiquity the unreasonableness of that kind of Pedantick Adoration Hence the vanity of affecting impertinent quotations the Pedantry on 't is derided The little improvement of Science through its successive derivations and whence it hath hapned 136. CHAP. XVI Reflexions on the Peripatetick Philosophy The Generality of its reception no argument of its deserts the first charge against that Philosophy 148. CHAP. XVII 2. Peripatetick Philosophy is litigious it hath no setled constant signification of words the inconveniences hereof Aristotle intended the cherishing controversies prov'd by his own double testimony Some of his impertinent arguings derided Disputes retard and are injurious to knowledge Peripateticks are most exercised in the controversal parts of Philosophy and know little of the practical and experimental A touch at School-Divinity 159. CHAP. XVIII 3. It gives no account of the Phaenomena Those that are remoter it attempts not it speaks nothing pertinent in the most ordinary its circular and general way of solution it resolves all things into occult qualities The absurdity of Aristotelian Hypothesis of the Heavens The Galaxy is no meteor The Heavens are corruptible Comets are above the Moon The sphear of fire derided Aristotle convicted of several other false assertions 169. Aristotle's Philosophy inept for new discoveries It hath been the Author of no one invention It 's founded on vulgarities and therefore makes nothing known beyond them The knowledge of Natures out-side conferrs not to practical improvements better hopes from the New Philosophy A fifth charge against Aristotle's Philosophy it is in many things impious and self-contradicting instances of both propounded The directing all this to the design of the discourse A caution viz. that nothing is here intended in favour of novelty in Divinity The reason why we may imbrace what is new in Philosophy while we reject Novelties in Theologie 177 178. CHAP. XX. It 's quaeried whether there be any Science in the sense of the Dogmatist 1 We cannot know any thing to be the cause of another but from its attending it and this way is not infallible declared by instances especially from the Philosophy of Des-Cartes 2 There 's no demonstration but where the contrary is impossible We can scarce conclude so of any thing Instances of supposed impossibles which are none A story of a Scholar that turn'd Gipsy and of the power of Imagination Of one mans binding anothers thought and a conjecture at the manner of its performance 188 189. CHAP. XXI Another instance of a supposed impossibility which may not be so Of conference at distance by impregnated Needles Away of secret conveyance by sympathized hands a relation to this purpose Of the magnetick cure of wounds 3 We cannot know any thing in Nature without the knowledge of the first springs of natural motion and these we are ignorant of Des-Cartes his Philosophy commendâ—d 202 CHAP. XXII 4 Because of the mutual dependence and concatenation of Causes we cannot know any one without knowing all Particularly declared by instances 5 All our Science câ—mes in at our senses their infallibility inquired into 213 CHAP. XXIII Considerations against Dogmatizing 1 'T is the effect of Ignorance 2 It argues untamed passions 3 It disturbs the world 4 It is ill manners and immodesty 5 It holds men captive in Errour 6 It betrayes a narrowness of Spirit 224. CHAP. XXIV An Apology for Philosophy 235. FINIS
inlarg'd from the prison of the womb we live we grow and give being to our like we see we hear and outward objects affect our other senses we understand we will we imagine and remember and yet know no more of the immediate reasons of most of these common functions then those little Embryo Anchorites We breath we talk we move while we are ignorant of the manner of these vital performances The Dogmatist knows not how he moves his finger nor by what art or method he turns his tongue in his vocal expressions New parts are added to our substance to supply our continual decayings and as we dye we are born daily nor can we give a certain account how the aliment is so prepared for nutrition or by what mechanism it is so regularly distributed the turning of it into chyle by the stomachs heat is a general and unsatisfying solution We love we hate we joy we grieve passions annoy us and our minds are disturb'd by those corporal aestuations Nor yet can we tell how these should reach our unbodyed selves or how the Soul should be affected by these heterogeneous agitations We lay us down to sleep away our diurnal cares night shuts up the Senses windows the mind contracts into the Brains centre We live in death and lye as in the grave Now we know nothing nor can our waking thoughts inform us who is Morpheus and what that leaden Key that locks us up within our senseless Cels There 's a difficulty that pincheth nor will it easily be resolved The Soul is awake and solicited by external motions for some of them reach the perceptive region in the most silent repose and obscurity of night What is 't then that prevents our Sensations or if we do perceive how is 't that we know it not But we Dream see Visions converse with Chimaera's the one half of our lives is a Romance a fiction We retain a catch of those pretty stories and our awakened imagination smiles in the recollection Nor yet can our most severe inquiries finde what did so abuse us or shew the nature and manner of these nocturnal illusions When we puzzle our selves in the disquisition we do but dream and every Hypothesis is a phancy Our most industrious conceits are but like their object and as uncertain as those of midnight Thus when some dayes and nights have gone over us the stroak of Fate concludes the number of our pulses we take our leave of the Sun and Moon and bid mortality adieu The vital flame is extinct the Soul retires into another world and the body to dwell with dust Nor doth the last Scene yield us any more satisfaction in our autography for we are as ignorant how the soul leaves the light as how it first came into it we know as little how the union is dissolved that is the chain of the so differing subsistencies that compound us as how it first commenced This then is the creature that so pretends to knowledge and that makes such a noise and bustle for Opinions The instruction of Delphos may shame such confidents into modesty and till we have learn't that honest adviso though from hell ΓÎΩΘΙ ΣΕΑΥΤΟΠConfidence is arrogance and Dogmatizing unreasonable presuming I doubt not but the opinionative resolver thinks all these easie Knowables and the Theories here accounted Mysteries are to him Revelations But let him suspend that conclusion till he hath weigh'd the considerations hereof which the Discourse it self will present him with and if he can untie those knots he is able to teach all humanity and will do well to oblige mankinde by his informations I had thought here to have shut up my Preface being sensible of the taedium of long praeliminaries But lest the Ingenious stumble at my threshold and take offence at the seemingly disproportionate excess which I ascribe to Adam's senses I 'le subjoyn a word to prevent the scruple First then for those that go the way of the Allegorie and assert pre-existence I 'm secure enough from their dissatisfaction For that the aetherial Adam could easily sense the most tender touches upon his passive vehicle and so had a clear and full perception of objects which we since plung'd into the grosser Hyle are not at all or but a little aware of can be no doubt in their Hypothesis Nor can there as great a difference be supposed between the senses of eighty and those of twenty between the Opticks of the blind Bat and perspicacious Eagle as there was between those pure un-eclipsed Sensations and these of our now-embodyed muddied Sensitive Now that the prae-existent Adam could so advantageously form his vehicle as to receive better information from the most distant objects than we by the most helpful Telescopes will be no difficult admission to the friends of the Allegory So that what may seem a meer hyperbolical and fanciful display to the Sons of the letter to the Allegorists will be but a defective representation of literal realities And I cannot be obnoxious to their censure but for my coming short in the description But I am like more dangerously to be beset by them that go the way of the plain and 't will be thought somewhat hard to verifie my Hypothesis of the literal Adam Indeed there is difficulty in the Mechanical Defence and Dioptrical impugnations are somewhat formidable For unless the constitution of Adam's Organs was diverse from ours and from those of his fallen self it will to some seem impossible that he should command distant objects by natural as we do by artificial advantages Since those removed bodies of Sun and Stars in which I instance could form but minute angles in Adam's Retina and such as were vastly different from those they form in ours assisted by a Telescope So that granting Adam's eye had no greater Diametrical wideness of the pupil no greater distance from the Cornea to the Retiformis and no more filaments of the Optick nerves of which the tunica Retina is woven than we the unmeasurable odds of Sensitive perfections which I assign him will be conceiv'd mechanically impossible These difficulties may seem irresistibly pressing and incapable of a satisfactory solution But I propound it to the consideration of the Ingenious Objectors whether these supposed Organical defects might not have been supplyed in our unfallen Protoplast by the vast perfections of his Animadversive and some other advantageous circumstances So that though it be granted that an object at the distance of the Stars could not form in the eye of Adam any angles as wide as those it forms by the help of a Tube yet I think my Hypothesis may stand unshaken For suppose two Eyes of an equal and like figure in the same distance from an object so that it forms equal angles in both It may come to pass by other reasons that one of these Eyes shall see this object bigger then the other yea if the difference of the reasons on both sides be so much greater