enlightened Philosophy 'T is true that Pleasure is good and Pain an evil and that Pleasure and Pain by the Author of Nature have been affixed to the use of certain things to make us capable of judging whether they are good or bad That we must choose the good fly the evil and generally follow the motions of our Passions All this is true but it only relates to the Body to preserve which and long to continue a Life like to that of Beasts we must suffer our selves to be governed by our Passions and Desires The Senses and Passions were only given us for the good of the Body sensible Pleasure is the character which Nature has joined to the use of certain things that without taking the pains to examine them by Reason we might employ 'em for the preservation of the Body but not that we should love them for we ought to love nothing but what Reason most certainly discovers to us to be our good We are Rational Beings and God who is our chief Good requires not of us a blind Love a Love of Instinct or one that is forced but a Love of Choice of Knowledge and such a one as subjects our Mind and Hearts to him He induces us to love him by discovering to us by the light that accompanies the delection of his Grace that he is our Soveraign Good but inclines us to the good of the Body only by instinct and a confused sensation of Pleasure because the good of the Body deserves neither the application of the Mind nor exercise of our Reason But farther our Body is not our selves 't is something that belongs to us without which absolutely speaking we may exist The Good of the Body therefore is not properly our good for Bodies can be only the good of Bodies which we may make use of for the good of our Body but we must not unite our selves to them Our Soul has likewise a Good peculiar to her self viz. that good only that is superiour to her who alone preserves and produces in her the sensations of Pain and Pleasure For in fine all the objects of our Senses are of themselves uncapable of making us perceive them and 't is God alone that can teach us they are present by the sensation he gives us of them which is a Truth the Heathen Philosophers could never comprehend We may and I confess ought to love what is capable of making us feel Pleasure And 't is for that reason we must love none but God because 't is only he who can act in our Souls since sensible objects can only move the Organs of our Senses But perhaps it may be answered by some what matters it from whence these agreeable Sensations come we will enjoy them Ingrateful as they are not to acknowledge the hand that so kindly bestows these Goods They would have a just God give unjust Rewards and recompense them for the Crimes they commit against him at the very time they commit them They would make use of his immutable Will which is the Order and Law of Nature to force undeserved favours from him For by a criminal Artifice they produce such motions in their Bodies which obliges him to make them taste all sorts of Pleasures But Death will corrupt this Body and God whom they have made subservient to their unjust Desires will make them submit to his just Anger and will mock them in his turn 'T is true 't is a very hard thing that the possession of the Goods of the Body should be attended with Pleasure and that that of the Goods of the Soul should often be tied to Pain and Sorrow We may look upon it as a great irregularity because Pleasure being the character of Good as Pain is that of Evil we ought infinitely to take more delight in the love of God than in the use of sensible things since God is the true or rather the only Good of the Mind This will certainly happen one day and 't is very probable 't was so before the Fall at least 't is certain before Sin entered into the World we felt no pain in the exercise of our Duty But God has withdrawn himself from us ever since the Fall of Adam he is no longer our Good by Nature but only by Grace for now we naturally find no satisfaction in loving him and he rather diverts us from then enclines us to love him If we follow him he repulses us if we run after him he smites us if we are constant in our persuit he still treats us ill and makes us suffer very lively and sensible Griefs But when being weary with walking in the hard and painful Paths of Virtue without being incouraged by the relish of Good or assisted by any Nourishment we begin to feed upon sensible things to which he unites us by the taste of Pleasure as if he would reward us for turning aside from him to follow those perishing Goods In short since the first Sin it seems as if God were not pleased that we should love or think upon him or that we should look upon him as our only and chief Good It is only through the Grace of JESVS CHRIST that we are now sensible that God is our Good since 't is by his Grace that we take any pleasure and satisfaction in the love of God Thus the Soul neither discovering her own Good by a clear view or by sensation without the Grace of JESVS CHRIST she takes the Good of the Body for her own She loves it and is more strictly united to it by her Will than she was by the first Institution of Nature For the Good of the Body being the only one left that we are now sensible of it necessarily acts the more powerfully upon Man affects his Brain more livelily and consequently the Soul must feel and imagine it after a more sensible manner And the Animal Spirits being more violently agitated the Will must needs love it with more Ardour and Pleasure Before Sin the Soul was able to efface out of the Brain an over lively image of sensible good and cause the pleasure that attended this image to vanish The Body being thus submitted to the Mind the Soul could in an instant put a stop to the shaking of the Fibres of the Brain and emotion of the Spirits only by the consideration of its Duty But now it remains no longer in its power nor do these traces of the Imagination and motions of the Spirits any longer depend upon it and therefore by a necessary consequence Pleasure which by the order of Nature is affixed to these traces and motions is become the only Master of the Heart Man cannot long resist this Pleasure by his own strength 't is Grace only that can entirely overcome it because none but God as the Author of Grace can overcome himself as the Author of Nature or rather can appease himself as the Revenger of Adam's Disobedience See the Fifth Dialogue of the Christian
speaks thus about it in the Epistle to the Romans I delight in the Law of God after the inward Man But I see another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of Sin which is in the Members of my Body And afterwards So then with the Mind I my self serve the Law of God but with the Flesh the Law of Sin He speaks after the same manner in several other places of his Epistles so that Concupiscence or the Rebellion of the Body does not only incline us to those Vices which are carnal or unseemly but even to those that are thought to be Spiritual I will endeavour to prove it after a sensible manner When any Person is in company to my seeming it is certain that Traces are machinally form'd in his Brains and Motions are excited in his Animal Spirits which beget Wicked thoughts and inclinations in his Soul Our thoughts at those times are not naturally conformable to Truth nor our inclinations to Order They arise in us for the good of the Body and of the present Life because they are excited by the Body therefore they make us lose the presence of God and the thoughts of our Duty and only tend to make other Men respect us as being worthy of their Affection and Esteem So that this secret Pride which is stirr'd up on those occasions is a Spiritual Vice of which the Rebellion of the Body is the Principle For Instance If the Persons before whom we are are Honourable the Pomp of their Grandeur dazles and humbles us As the Traces which their presence excites in our Brains are sometimes very great and their Motions very lively they shine as it were throughout our Body they diffuse through our Face and sensibly discover Respect and Fear there together with our most conceal'd Sentiments In the next place these Traces by these sensible Expressions of our inward Motions affect the Person who looks upon us they inspire him with Sentiments of Mildness and Civility by the Traces which our respectful or timerous Air produce machinally in his Brains which reflecting on his Face conceal that Majesty which appear'd there before and give the rest of his Body a Posture which composes our Trouble and re-assures us So that after many repercussions of those sensible Expressions our Air and Deportment are settled at last in the state which this Honourable Person desires Now as all the Motions of the Animal Spirits are attended by the Motion of the Soul and as the Traces of the Brain are followed by the Thoughts of the Mind it is evident that being now deprived of the Power to obliterate those Traces and to stop those Motions we find our selves sollicited by the presence of the Person who is above us to enter into his sentiments and desires and to apply our selves wholly to him as he is inclined to make his application to us though after a different manner And this is the Reason that the Conversation of the World revives and strengthens the desire of Pride as dishonest Commerce Feasting and the injoyment of Sensual Pleasures increase Carnal Desires the Moral of which deserves our observation 'T is very necessary there should be Traces in the Brain to represent a Man continually to himself that he may take care of his Person and that there should be others to form and maintain Society since Men were not made to live alone But Man having lost the Power to obliterate those Traces at pleasure and when it might be convenient they sollicit him continually to evil As he cannot help representing himself to himself he is continually excited to motions of Pride and Vanity to despise others and to attribute all things to himself and whereas he is not master of the Traces which sollicit him to maintain Society with others he is agitated as it were against his Will by motions of Complaisance Flattery Jealousie and the like Inclinations Thus all the Vices which are called Spiritual proceed from the Flesh as well as Incontinency and Intemperance There are not only dispositions in our Brain which excite Sensation and Motions in us in relation to the Propagation of the Species and the Preservation of Life there are perhaps yet a greater number of them which stir up Thoughts and Passions in us in reference to Society to our particular advancements and those of our Friends We are Naturally united to all the Bodies which surround us and by those Bodies to all things that have any relation to us Now we cannot be united to them but by certain Dispositions which are in our Brain Therefore not having the Power to hinder the Action of those Natural Dispositions our Union is changed into a Dependance and we become subject to all manner or Vices through our Body We are not pure Intelligence All the Dispositions of our Soul produce some Dispositions in our Body as the Dispositions of our Body excite the like Dispositions in our Soul It is not that the Soul cannot absolutely receive any thing but by the Body But because so long as it is united to it it can receive no alteration in its Modifications without the Body 's also receiving some It is true that it may be Inlightned or receive new Ideas without the necessity of the Body's having any share in them But it is because pure Ideas are no Modifications of the Soul as I have prov'd it elsewhere I do not speak of sensible Ideas here for those Ideas include a Sensation and all Sensations are Manners of the Souls Existence Second Objection Against the Eleventh and Twelfth Article If Original Sin is Transmitted upon the Account of the Communication Between the Brain of the Mother and that of her Child Sicut per unum hominem peccatum in hunc mundum intravit c. Rom. 5. it is the Mother who is the Cause of that Sin and the Father has no share in it Nevertheless St. Paul teaches us that by Man Sin came into the World He does not so much as mention the Woman Therefore c. ANSWER David assures us that his Mother conceived him in Iniquity And the Son of Syrach says that Sin proceeds from the Woman In Iniquitatibus conceptus sum in peccatis concepit me mater mea Ps 10. and that it is through her we are all liable to Death Neither of them spake of the Man St. Paul on the contrary says that it is by Man Sin was introduced into the World He speaks not of the Woman How must we reconcile those Testimonies and which of the Two ought we to Justifie if it were necessary to Justifie either A muliere initium factum est peccati per illam omnes morimur Ecch 25.23 Luc. 2.48 In Discourse we never attribute any thing to the Woman in which she has no share and which is only the Man's But we often attribute that to the Man which is proper to the Woman because
necessity of sending Dragoons into the Monasteries and Societies and to an infinite number of honest Men to cause them to abjure the Errours of the Cartesian Philosophy So true is it that Devotees do not always see the fatal Consequences of an Advice which impetuous Zeal dictates to those that are in Authority Monsieur Regis well known by the Philosophy he has Published having undertaken to oppose some Sentiments of F. Malebranch this Father neglected at first to Answer his new Adversary but when Monsieur Regis would have drawn an advantage from the silence of a Man who plainly perceived himself unfairly attack'd Father Malbranche published the last Year a short Answer to Monsieur Regis The name of Monsieur Arnaud was made use of in this Contestation which occasioned him to appear again upon the stage In the Journal des Scavans at Paris he Printed two Letters addrest to F. Malebranch who soon answered him and gave two Letters to the Journalist that were also Printed Monsieur Cousin left off his Correspondence with Monsieur Arnaud and refused to put in his Journal other Letters which M. Arnaud had written a little before his Death we shall doubtless see them in his Posthumous works for it is not probable that they will rob the Publick of the Remains of so great a man We shall be gainers thereby two wayes F. Malbranche will break that silence which he seems to have condemned himself to and we shall have new Explanations upon some important Difficult ties which M. Arnaud may have found in the VVorks of so hard an Adversary I have but one thing more to say of F. Malebranch It is that his Heart agrees perfectly with his Vnderstanding There is as much Vprightness in the one as Justness in the other He is a Christian Philosopher who acts as he thinks Never did any Man more perfectly regulate his Manners and Actions upon the Principles of his Philosophy Being perswaded that God is the only cause which acts truly upon our Body and in our Soul F. Malebranch accustoms himself upon every Sensation upon every Perception to elevate himself always towards the Supreme Being to humble himself in his Presence and to praise him continually VVith what assurance does not he as often as it 's possible approach to the Throne of Grace of the Eternal High Priest who continually intercedes for us VVith what fervour does he not beg to be admitted as a Living Stone in the Structure of the Mysterious Temple which this Divine Architect builds up to the Glory of his Father He is in a continual watchfulness and attention over himself to divert the Impressions which sensible Objects may make upon his Body and to stop whatever is capable of exciting the Passions He is the most sober and temperate Man in the World And if F. Malebranch so exactly observes his Duties towards God and himself he is not less regular in those which respect his Neighbour He is tender and compassionate to the unhappy courteous and affable to all the VVorld preventing and sincere in respect of his Friends good and indulgent to all those who injure him Being perswaded that the Love of his Neighbour ought to have for its principal end that Eternal Society to which we are called by the Gospel He endeavours to inspire all those who come near him with Sentiments of Piety and Religion to procure as much as he can their Eternal Happiness which he earnestly desires day and night In a word F. Malebranch has drawn his own Pourtraiture in his Treatise of Morality To compose the greatest part of which he had no need of long and new Reflexions upon the Duties of Man He hath told us without thinking of it what he exactly practiced after he had applied himself to the regulation of his Manners upon the Truths he had so attentively Meditated and so happily Explained A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH BOOK V. of the Passions CHAP. I. Of the Nature and Original of the Passions in general THE Mind of Man has two essential or necessary relations which are very different the one to God and the other to its Body as it is a pure Spirit it is essentially united to the Word of God to the Eternal Wisdom and Truth for 't is only by this Union that it is capable of thinking as has been shewn in the 3d Book as an humane Spirit it has an essential relation to its Body and because of this union it is sensible and imagines as has been explained in the First and Second Books I call that sense or imagination of the Mind when the Body is the natural or occasional cause of its thoughts and that understanding when it acts of it self or rather when God acts in it or when his light enlightens it after many different manners independantly of any thing whatever that passes in its Body 'T is the same in respect of the humane Will as a Will it essentially depends upon the Love which God bears to himself upon the Eternal Law in a word upon the Will of God 'T is only because God loves himself that we love any thing and if God did not love himself or if he did not continually imprint upon the Soul of Man a Love like to his I mean that motion of Love which we receive for good in general we should love nothing we should will nothing and consequently we should be without any will since the will is nothing else but the impression of Nature which carries towards good in general as we have often said before Book I. Ch. I. and elsewhere But the Will as it is an humane Will essentially depends upon the Body for 't is only from the motions of the Blood and Spirits that it perceives it self agitated with all sensible Emotions I therefore give the name of Natural Inclinations to all the motions of the Soul which are common to us with pure Intelligences and some of those in which the Body has a great share but whereof it is only indirectly the Cause and the End as I have explained in the preceding Book and here I design by the word Passions all the Emotions which the Soul naturally feels by means of the extraordinary Motions of the Animal Spirits and Blood These are the sensible Emotions which shall be the Subject of this Book Although the Passions are inseparable from the Inclinations and Men were no farther capable of sensible love or hatred than as they are capable of the mental yet I thought it would not be amiss to treat distinctly of 'em to avoid confusion Those that consider the Passions are much more strong and lively than the Natural Inclinations for other Objects and which are always produced from other Causes will acknowledge that 't is not without reason that I have separated things that are inseparable in their nature Men are only capable of Sensations and Imaginations as they are capable of pure Intellections the Senses and Imagination being inseparable from the Mind however
no one has opposed a distinct Treatise of these two Faculties of the Soul although they are naturally inseparable In fine the Senses and Imagination don't differ any more from the pure Understanding than the Passions do from the Inclinations so that we must distinguish these two last Faculties as it has been usual to do with the three first that we may be better able to discern what the Soul receives from its Author by means of the Body from that which it has from him independant of the Body The only inconvenience that will naturally result from the distinction of these two things thus naturally united will be as it happens upon like occasions a necessity of repeating some things which have been already said Man is one although composed of many parts and the union of these parts is so strict that it can't be touch'd in one place without affecting the whole all his Faculties have such a mutual dependance upon one another and are so subordinate that 't is impossible to explain any one of 'em without speaking something of the other Thus by endeavouring to avoid confusion I am obliged 10 repetition but 't is better to repeat than confound because my business is to write as clear as I can and in this necessity of repetition I can only endeavour so to repeat as not to be troublesom to my Reader The Passions of the Soul are Impressions of the Author of Nature which incline us to love out Body and whatever may be useful to its preservation as the Natural Inclinations are the Impressions of the same Author which chiefly incline us to love him as the Soverain Good The natural or occasional Cause of these Impressions is the motion of the Animal Spirits to beget and cherish an agreeable disposition to the Object which is perceived so that the Mind and Body are mutually assistant on this occasion For 't is the Order of God that the Motions of our Body which are proper to execute the Order of our Will should follow it and that the Motions of our Body which are mechanically excited in us at the sight of any Object should be accompanied with a passion of our Soul which inclines us to will that which appears useful to the Body 't is this continual impression of the Will of God upon us which so strictly unites us to a portion of Matter and if this impression of his Will should but cease for one moment we should from that moment be freed from the dependance we have upon all the changes which happen to our Body I can't comprehend how some persons imagine that there is an absolutely necessary connection between the Motions of the Spirit and Blood and the Emotions of the Soul some little particles of Choler are violently mov'd in the Brain therefore the Soul must necessarily be agitated with some Passion and this Passion must rather be Anger than Love What relation can be conceived betwixt the Idea of an Enemies Imperfection a Passion of Contempt or Hatred and betwixt the Corporeal Motion of some Particles of Blood which beat against some parts of the Brain How can a Man perswade himself of such a dependance and that the Union or Alliance of two things so different and incompatible as Mind and Matter can be caused and preserved after any other manner than by the continual and Almighty and Omnipotent Will of the Author of Nature Those who think that Bodies do necessarily and of themselves communicate Motion in the moment of their Concourse think something like truth for indeed this prejudice has some foundation Bodies seem to have an essential relation to Bodies but the Mind and Body are two kinds of Beings so opposite that those who think the Emotions of the Soul do necessarily follow the Motions of the Spirits and Blood think something that has not the least appearance of truth certainly 't is only our own Consciousness of the Union of those two Beings and our Ignorance of the continual Operations of God upon his Creatures which makes us imagine another Cause of the Union of our Soul and Body besides the Will of God It is difficult to determine whether this relation or connexion of the thoughts of Mans Mind with the Motion of his Body is the Punishment of Sin or the Gift of Nature and some Persons believe it would be rashness to decide either way 't is well known that Man before Sin was no Slave but absolate Master of his Passions and by his Will did easily stay the agitation of the Blood which caused them But I should be hardly perswaded that the Body did not sollicite the Soul of the first Man to an enquiry after things which were proper for the preservation of his Life or that Adam before his Fall was insensible that Fruits were agreeable to his sight and pleasant to his taste especially if I may believe the Scripture and that this so just so marvellous an Oeconomy of his Senses and Passions for the preservation of his Body was a Corruption of Nature rather than the first Institution Doubtless Nature is now corrupted the Body acts with too much power upon the Mind instead of submissively representing to it its necessities it tyrannizes over it and ravishes it from God to whom it ought to be inseparably united and continually prompts it to a pursuit of such sensible things as may be proper for its conservation the Mind is become as it were immaterial and earthy by Sin that relation and Essential Union which it has with God is lost I mean God has withdrawn himself from it as much as possible without destroying or annihilating it Innumerable disorders have followed the absence or estrangement of him who kept it in order and without making a longer enumeration of our Miseries Man is by the fall throughly corrupted in all his parts But this fall has not destroyed the Work of God that which God gave to the first Man is always sound in him the immutable Will of God which constitutes the Nature of every thing was not changed by the levity and inconstancy of Adam s Will every thing that God did Will he yet Wills and because his Will is efficacious he effects whatever he Wills Mans Sin was indeed the occasion that the Divine Will did not constitute the Order of Grace but Grace is not contrary to Nature the one destroys not the other Because God fights not against himself he never repents and his Wisdom having no limits his Works will have no end The Will of God which constitutes the Order of Grace is joined to that Will which effects the Order of Nature not to change it but to repair it There are only two General Wills in God and whatever is well regulated in the World depends upon one of these The Passions are very well ordered if they are only considered in order to the Bodies preservation although they sometimes deceive us in few and particular Cases which the Universal Cause has not
difference between not feeling Pleasure or being deprived of the sensation of it and actually suffering Pain so that all Evil is not such precisely because it deprives us of good but only as I have shewn the Evil which is External and which is not a manner of being that is in us Nevertheless as by Goods and Evils we generally mean things Good and Evil and not the Sensation of Pleasure and Pain which are rather Natural Marks whereby the Soul distinguishes Good from Evil it seems that we may say without equivocation that Evil is only a privation of Good and that the Natural motion of the Soul which drives us from Evil is the same with that which inclines us to Good For all Natural Motion being an impression of the Author of Nature who acts only for himself and can only incline us towards himself The true Motion of the Soul is always an essential love of good and but an accidenttal aversion to evil It is true that Pain may be considered as an Evil and in this sense the Motions of the Passions that it excites is not real for we do not will Pain and if we will positively that Pain should not be it is because we would positively preserve or perfect our Being The third thing that we may observe in every Passion is the Sensation which accompanies them for the Sensation of Love Aversion Desire Joy Sorrow are always different in different Passions The fourth is a new determination of the course of the Spirits and Blood towards the External parts of the Body and towards the Internal ones before the sight of the Object that moves the Passion the Animal Spirits were dispersed through all the Body to preserve all the parts of it in general but at the presence of this new Object the whole Oeconomy is troubled the greatest past of the Spirits are pushed into the Muscles of the Arms Legs Face and all the External parts of the Body to put them in a proper disposition for the Passion that Rules and to give it the necessary posture and motion for the acquisition of good or to fly the evil that presents it self but if its own Forces are not sufficient to answer its occasions these same Spirits are so distributed that they Mechanically make it utter certain words and cries which diffuse over the Face and the rest of the Body such an Air as is capable of agitating others with the same Passion it self is moved with For as Men and Animals are united together by the Eyes and Ears when any one of them is agitated he necessarily moves all those that look upon him and hear him and naturally makes an impression upon their imagination which interests them in his preservation As for the rest of the Animal Spirits they violently descend into the Lungs Liver Spleen and the rest of the Bowels to demand Contributions from all those parts and hasten them in a little time to furnish necessary Spirits to preserve the Body in the extraordinary action it must be in The fifth is the sensible emotion of the Soul which feels it self agitated by the unexpected overflowing of the Spirits This always accompanies the motion of the Spirits so that it interests it self in whatever affects the Body even as the motion of the Spirits are excited in the Body as soon as the Soul is carried toward any Object the Soul and Body being mutually united their motions are reciprocal The sixth are the different Sensations of Love Aversion Joy Sorrow Desire caused not by the intellectual fight of good or evil as those we have already spoke of but by the different shakings that the Animal Spirits cause in the Brain The seventh is a certain Sensation of Joy or rather of inward Complacency which stops the Soul in its passion and assures it that 't is in the condition that is proper for it in relation to the Object it considers This internal Complacency generally accompanies all the Passions those which proceed from the prospect of an Evil as well as those that proceed from the prospect of a Good Sorrow as well as Joy 'T is this Complacency that renders all our Passions agreeable and which inclines us to consent and abandon our selves to them In short 't is this Complacency that must be overcome by the delight of Grace the joy of Faith and Reason For as the joy of the Mind always results from the certain or evident knowledge that we are in the best estate we can be in relation to the things we perceive so the Complacency of the Passions is a Natural Consequence of the confused Sensations we have that we are in the best condition we can be in relation to the things we feel Now by the joy of the Mind and delights of Grace we must conquer the false Complacency of our Passions which makes us slaves to sensible goods All these things we have spoke of occur in every Passion when they are excited by confused Sensations and that the Mind perceives neither the good nor evil which can cause them for then 't is plain the three first things are not concerned in them We likewise see that all those things are not free that they are in us without our consent and even against it since the Fall and that there is only the consent of our Will which truly depends upon us But it seems necessary to explain all these things more at large and to render them more sensible by some Examples Let us suppose then that a Man has actually received some affront or that being naturally of a very lively and quick imagination he has been agitated by some accident as a disease a melancholy retirement or the like and imagines to himself in his Closet that such a Person who does not so much as think upon him is willing and prepared to hurt him The sensible prospect or imagination of the relation which is betwixt the actions of his Enemy and his own Designs will be the first cause of his Passion It is not even absolutely necessary that this Man should receive or imagine he received some affront for the motion of his Will to receive some new determination It is enough that he think it in his Mind only without the Body's having any part in it But as this new determination wou'd not be a determination of Passion but a pure inclination very weak and languishing we shou'd suppose that this Man actually suffers some great opposition in his designs or that he strongly imagines that he shall do so rather than make another supposition wherein the Senses and Imagination have little or no share The second thing we may consider in the Passion of this Man is an increase of the motion of his Will towards the good the possession whereof his real or imaginary Enemy would hinder him and the increase is so much the greater as the opposition that would be made appears stronger to him He first hates his Enemy only because he loves
this good and his hatred is so much the greater as his love is stronger because the motion of his Will in his hatred is here in effect only a motion of love the motion of the Soul towards good not differing from that whereby we fly the privation of it as has been already said The third thing is the Sensation proper to the Passion and in this it is a Sensation of Hatred The motion of Hatred is the same as that of Love but the Sensation of Hatred is quite different from that of Love which every one may know by his own experience Motions are actions of the Will but Sensations are modifications of the Mind The Motions of the Will are the Natural Causes of the Sensations of the Mind and these Sensations of the Mind in their turn maintain the Motions of the Will in their determination The Sensation of Hatred is in this Man a Natural Consequence of the Motions of his Will which is excited at the sight of Evil and this Motion is afterwards maintained by the Sensation it causes What we have said of this Man might even happen although he should have no Body But because he is composed of two parts naturally united the Motions of his Mind communicate themselves to his Body and those of his Body to his Mind Thus the new determination or the increase of the Motions of his Will naturally produces a new determination in the Motion of the Animal Spirits which always differs in all the Passions although the Motion of the Soul be generally the same The Spirits then are forcibly pushed into the Arms Legs and Face to give the Body a disposition necessary for the Passion and to disperse over the Face the Air a Man ought to have when we offend him in relation to all the circumstances of the Injury he receives and the quality or power of him that does and of him that suffers the Affront And this diffusion of the Spirits is so much the stronger more abundant and quicker as the good is greater the opposition stronger and the Brain more sensibly affected If then the Person of whom we speak should only receive some injury in his imagination or if he receives a real one but flight and such as can make no considerable shaking in the Brain the diffusion of the Animal Spirits will be weak and languishing and perhaps insufficient to change the common and natural disposition of the Body But if the injury be great and his imagination be heated it will cause a great shaking in his Brain and the Spirits would he diffused with so much force that in a moment they would create in his Body the air and gesture of the ruling Passion If it is strong enough to overcome his air would be threatning and fierce If it is weak and cannot resist the evil that oppresses him his air would be humble and submissive His Complaints and Tears would naturally excite in the Standers-by and even in his Enemy motions of Pity and from thence they would draw the relief that could be hoped for from his own power It is true that the Spectators and Enemy of this Miserable Person have the Spirits and Fibres of their Brain already agitated I with a violent motion contrary to that which produces Compassion in the Soul the Complaints of this Man would but exasperate their Rage and so his Misfortune would be inevitable should he always continue in the same air and gesture But Nature has well provided in this case for at the sight of the near loss of a great good it naturally forms upon the Face such lively and surprizing Characters of Rage and Despair as to disarm the most Barbarous Enemies and make them become like Statues The terrible and unexpected fight of the Lineaments of Death drawn by the Hand of Nature upon the Face of a Miserable Wretch stops in the Enemy who is affected with it the Motion of the Spirits and Blood which carried him to Revenge and in that moment of favour and attention Nature draws a-new a humble and submissive air upon the Face of this unfortunate Man who begins to hope because of the change of his Enemy's Countenance whose Animal Spirits receive a new determination they were not capable of a moment before so that he Mechanically enters into the motions of Compassion which naturally incline his Soul to Charity and Mercy A Passionate Man cannot without a great abundance of Spirits either produce or preserve in his Brain an Image of his misfortune lively enough or a commotion strong enough to give the Body a forced and extraordinary gesture the Nerves which answer to the inward part of his Body receive at the sight of any evil the necessary shocks and agitations that cause the humours that are fit to produce the Spirits which the passion requires to run into all the Vessels that have communication with the heart For the Animal Spirits being dispersed through the Nerves which go to the Liver Spleen Pancreas and generally to all the Bowels they agitate and shake them and by their agitation press forth the humors that these parts preserve for the Exigencies of the Machine But if these humors always flowed after the same manner into the heart if they there received at divers times a like fermentation and if the Spirits which are formed therein equally ascended into the Brain we shou'd not see such hasty changes in the motions of the Passions The sight of a Magistrate for instance wou'd not in a moment stop the transports of of a furious Man who is persuing his revenge and his face heated with Blood and Spirits wou'd not all of a sudden become pale and languid through the apprehension of some punishment Thus to hinder these humors that are mixt with the Blood from entring after the same manner into the Heart there are Nerves which environ them at their passage which by being contracted or dilated by the impression that the sight of the Object and power of the Imagination produce in the Spirits shut up or open the way to those humors And to hinder the same from receiving a like agitation and fermentation in the heart at divers times there are also Nerves that cause the Palpitations which being not equally agitated in the different motions of the Spirits do not push the Blood with the same force into the Arteries Other Nerves dispersed through the Lungs distribute the Air to the heart by contracting and dilating the branches of the Trachea which serve for respiration and after this manner regulate the fermentation of the Blood in relation to the circumstances of the Passion which rules And in fine to regulate the course of the Spirits with the greatest exactness and speed there are Nerves which environ the Arteries as well those which go to the Brain as those which conduct the Blood to all other parts of the Body So that the shaking of the Brain which accompanies the unexpected sight of some Circumstance because
of which it is proper to change all the motions of the Passion suddenly determine the course of the Animal Spirits to the Nerves which encompass these Arteries that by their contraction they may shut up the passage whereby the Blood ascends into the Brain and by their dilating lay open that which disperses it self through all the other parts of the Body These Arteries which carry the Blood to the Brain being free and all those which disperse it through the rest of the Body being strongly tied by these Nerves the Head will be filled with Blood and the Face coloured with it But any circumstance changing the shaking of the Brain which caused this disposition in these Nerves the Arteries that were contracted are unloosed and the others on the contrary are strongly contracted Thus the Head is void of Blood a paleness diffused over the Face and the little Blood which goes out of the Heart and which the Nerves we spoke of admit into it to maintain life descend mostly into the lower part of the Body the Brain is defective of Animal Spirits and all the rest of the Body is seized with a weakness and trembling To explain and particularly prove what we have already said it would be necessary to give a general knowledge of Physics and a particular one of Human Bodies But these two Sciences are also too imperfect to be treated of with all the exactness I could wish besides if I should push this matter farther it would soon carry me from my subject and therefore I shall only give a general and gross Idea of the Passions and am satisfied provided this Idea be not false These Shakings of the Brain and Motions of the Blood and Spirits are the fourth thing that is found in each of our Passions and they produce the fifth which is the sensible Emotion of the Soul In the same time that the Animal Spirits are pushed from the Brain into the rest of the Body there to produce the Motions that 's proper to maintain the Passion the Soul is carried towards the good that it perceives and that so much the more violently as the Spirits go out of the Brain with the more force because it is the same shaking of the Brain which acts the Soul and Animal Spirits The Motion of the Soul towards good is so much the greater as the sight of good is more sensible and the Motion of the Spirits which proceed from the Brain to disperse themselves into the rest of the Body is so much the more violent as the shaking of the Fibres of the Brain caused by the impression of the Object or Imagination is stronger so this same shaking of the Brain rendring the sight of the good more sensible it is necessary that the Emotions of the Soul in the Passions should augment in the same proportion as the Motion of the Spirits do These Emotions of the Soul differ not from those which immediately follow the intellectual sight of the good we have spoke of They are only stronger and more lively because of the union of the Soul and Body and the sensibility of the sight which produces them The sixth thing which occurs is the Sensation of Passion the Sensation of Love Aversion Desire Joy Sorrow c. This Sensation is not different from that we have already spoke of it is only more quick because the Body hath a great share in it But it is always followed with a certain Sensation of Sweetness which renders all our Passions agreeable to us and is the last thing observed in every one of our Passions as has been already said The cause of this last Sensation is thus At the sight of the Object of the Passion or any new Circumstance some of the Animal Spirits are pushed from the Head to the extream parts of the Body to put it into the gesture the Passion requires and others forcibly descend into the Heart Lungs and Bowels from thence to draw necessary assistances which has already been explained Now it never happens that the Body is in the condition it ought to be but the Soul receives much satisfaction from it whereas if the Body is in an estate contrary to its good and preservation the Soul suffers much pain Thus when we follow the Motions of our Passions and stop not the course of the Spirits which the sight of the Object of the Passion causes in our Body to put it in the condition it ought to be in relation to this Object The Soul will by the Laws of Nature receive this Sensation of delight and inward satisfaction because the Body is in the state it ought to be in On the contrary when the Soul following the Rules of Reason stops the course of the Spirits and resists these Passions it suffers pain proportionably to the evil which might from thence happen to the Body For even as the reflexion that the Soul makes upon it self is necessarily accompanied with the Joy or Sorrow of the Mind and afterwards with the Joy or Sorrow of the Senses when doing its duty and submitting to the order of God it would discover that in a proper condition or abandoning it self to its Passions it is touched with remorse which teaches it that 't is in an ill disposition Thus the course of the Spirits excited by the good of the Body is accompanied with a sensible Joy or Sorrow and afterwards with a Spiritual one according as the course of the Animal spirits is hindered or favoured by the Will But there is this remarkable difference between the Intellectual Joy that accompanies the clear knowledge of the good estate of the Soul and the sensible Pleasure which accompanies the confused Sensation of the good disposition of the Body that the Intellectual Joy is solid without remorse and as immutable as the truth which causes it whereas sensible Joy is generally accompanied with Sorrow of the Mind or remorse of Conscience whence it is unquiet and as inconstant as the Passion or Agitation of the Blood which causes it In fine the first is almost always accompanied with a great Joy of the Senses when it is a consequence of the knowledge of a great good that the Soul possesses and the other is seldom accompanied with any Joy of the Mind although it be a consequence of a great good which only happens to the Body if it is contrary to the good of the Soul It is therefore true that without the Grace of JESVS CHRIST the satisfaction the Soul tastes in abandoning it self to its Passions is more agreeable than that it feels in following the Rules of Reason and it is this Satisfaction which is the cause of all the Disorders that have followed Original Sin and it would make us all Slaves to our Passions if the Son of God did not deliver us from their servitude by the delights of his Grace For indeed what I have said on the behalf of the Joy of the Mind against the Joy of the Senses is
is accompanied with a greater number of Accessory Ideas or that the Good or Evil are more Circumstantiated in respect to us If we remember what has been said of the connexion of Ideas and that in all great Passions the Animal Spirits being extreamly agitated stir up in the Brain all the Traces which have any relation with the Object which affects us we shall find that there are an infinite number of different Passions which have no particular name and which we can no way explain but must confess they are inexplicable If the Original Passions which compose the rest were not capable of more or less we should have no difficulty in determining the number of all the Passions but the number of those Passions which are produced by the complication of others must necessarily be infinite because the same Passion having infinite degrees it may by joining it self with others be infinitely complicated So that perhaps two Men were never moved by the same Passion if by the same Passion we understand the collecting together of all equal Motions and like Sensations which at the presence of any Object is stirred up in us But as the more or less do not alter the Species so we may say that the number of Passions is not infinite because the Circumstances which accompany the Good or Evil may be limited But let us explain our Passions in particular When we see any thing the first time or when we have many time seen it attended with certain Circumstances we are surprized and admire at it if we afterwards see it appear in another manner Thus a new Idea or a new Connexion of old Ideas begets in us an imperfect Passion which is the first of all and which I name Admiration I call this Passion imperfect because it is neither excited by the Idea nor Sensation of Good The Brain being then shaken in certain places which never were before affected or after a manner that is perfectly new the Soul is sensibly touched with it and consequently strongly applies it self to whatever it finds new in that object for the same reason as a simple tickling at the Soles of the Feet excites a most lively and moving Sensation in the Soul rather through the novelty than the force of the impression There is yet other Reasons for the Souls applying it self to Novelties but I have explained them where I spoke of Natural Inclinations We here consider the Soul in relation to the Body and according to this relation 't is the emotion of the Spirits which is the Natural Cause of its application to new things In Admiration strictly taken we consider things only as they are in themselves or according to their appearances and not as they relate to us or as they are good or bad And therefore the Spirits diffuse not themselves through the Muscles to give a proper disposition to the Body to pursue good or avoid evil nor agitate the Nerves which goes to the Heart and to the rest of the Bowels to hasten or delay the fermentation and motion of the Blood as it happens in the rest of the Passions All the Spirits go towards the Brain there to trace a lively and distinct image of the surprizing object that the Soul may consider and know it again But the rest of the Body continues in the same posture and as if it were immoveable For there being no emotion in the Soul there is also no motion in the Body If what we admire appears great the admiration is always followed with Esteem and sometimes with Veneration But on the contrary it is always accompanied with Contempt and sometimes Disdain when it appears little The Idea of Greatness produces a great motion of Spirits in the Brain and the trace that represents it is preserved a long time A great motion of Spirits likewise excites the Idea of Greatness in the Soul and strongly fixes the Mind on the consideration of this Idea But the Idea of Littleness creates in the Brain but an inconsiderable motion of the Spirits and the trace which represents it does not continue long Also when the Spirits are but little moved they cause in the Soul an Idea of Meanness and stays the Mind but a very little in the consideration of this Idea These things deserve to be well observed When we consider our selves or any thing which is united to us our Admiration is always attended with some Passion which moves us But this agitation is only in the Soul and in the Spirits which go to the Heart because there being no good that it makes us seek after nor evil that it makes us shun the Spirits are not dispersed through the Muscles to dispose the Body to any action The thoughts of the perfection of our Being or of any thing belonging to it naturally produces Pride the esteem of our Selves contempt of others Joy and some other Passions The prospect of Grandeur produces Haughtiness that of Power Generosity or Boldness and the sight of any other advantagious quality naturally produces some other Passion which will be always a kind of Pride On the contrary the foresight of some Imperfection of our Being or of any thing which belongs to it will naturally produce Humility contempt of our selves respect for others sorrow and some other Passions The prospect of Poverty creates meanness of Spirit that of weakness Timerousness and thus the sight of any disadvantageous quality naturally produces a Passion which will be a kind of Humility But this Humility as well as that Pride is properly neither a Virtue nor a Vice They are both of 'em only Passions or involuntary Motions which are nevertheless very useful to civil Society and even absolutely necessary in some occurrences for the preservation of the Life or Goods of those who are actuacted by them It is necessary for instance to be humble and timerous and even outwardly to testifie the disposition of our Minds by a respectful and modest Air when we are in the presence of a Person of Quality or of a proud and powerful Man For 't is commonly advantagious for the Good of the Body that the imagination should submit at the sight of sensible Grandeur and that it should give it external Marks of its Humility and inward Veneration But this is Naturally and Mechanically performed without the Will 's having any share in it and often even notwithstanding all its Resistance Even Bruits themselves have need of it as Dogs to prevail with those they live with have their Machine composed after such a manner that they assume such an Air as they ought to have in relation to those about 'em as is absolutely necessary for their preservation And if Birds or any other Animals have not a fit disposition of Body to give 'em this Air 't is because they have no occasion to asswage those the effects of whose Anger they can avoid by flight and without whose help they can preserve their lives It cannot be too much considered
that all the Passions which are excited in us at the sight of some external object does Mechanically imprint upon the face of those that are struck with it a suitable Air that is an Air that Mechanically disposes all those who see it to such Passions and Motions as are useful to the good of Society nay Admiration it self when it is only caused in us by the fight of something External and which others may consider as well as we diffuses through our Face an Air which Mechanically imprints Admiration in others and which even acts upon their Brain after so regulated a manner that the Spirits which are contained in it are impelled into the Muscles of their Face to form there an Air like ours This Communication of the Passions of the Soul and Motions of the Animal Spirits to unite Men together in relation to good and evil and to make 'em resemble each other not only by the disposition of their Minds but also by that of their Body is so much the greater and more observable as the Passions are more violent because then the Animal Spirits are agitated with more force Now this is necessary because the Evils being greater or more present we must apply our selves the more and be strongly united amongst our selves to shun or to discover them But when the Passions are very moderate as Admiration commonly is they don't sensibly communicate themselves nor produce such an Air by which they are accustomed to do it For since there 's no extraordinary occasion 't would be unnecessary to put any force upon the imagination of others or to divert them from their employments on which perhaps 't is more requisite they should be engag'd than in considering the Causes of these Passions There is nothing more surprising than this Oeconomy of our Passions and disposition of our Body in relation to those objects which encompass us Whatsoever is Machinally performed in us is most worthy the Wisdom of him who Created us And as God has made us capable Of all the Passions which act in us chiefly to unite us to all sensible things for the preservation of Society and of our own Bodies and his design is so faithfully executed by the construction of his work so we cannot but admire the Springs and curiosity thereof Yet our Passions and all these imperceptible Bands by which we are united to whatever is about us often prove through our faults very considerable Causes of our Errors and Irregularities For we make not that use we ought of our Passions we permit them every thing and do not so much as know the limits that should be prescribed to their Power Thus even these Passions which like Admiration are but weak and agitate us the least have yet power enough to lead us into Error Of which here follows some instances When Men and chiefly those who have a vigorous Imagination consider themselves on the best side they are commonly very well satisfied with themselves and their inward satisfaction never fails of encreasing when they compare themselves with such as are more dull and heavy than they Besides there is many Persons that admire 'em too and very few who oppose them with any success or applause for Reason is scarcely ever applauded in opposition to a strong and lively imagination and in short such a sensible Air of submission and respect is form'd upon the Face of all their Hearers who have likewise such lively traces of admiration at every new word they speak that they also admire themselves and their Imagination swells them up with all these advantages and makes 'em extreamly satisfied in their own Abilities For if we cannot see a Passionate Man without receiving some impression from his Passion or in some measure engaging our selves in his Sentiments how could it be possible for those who are surrounded with a great number of Admirers to give no reception to a Passion which so agreeably flatters Self-Love Now this high esteem that Persons of a strong and lively Imagination have of themselves and their good Qualities swell 'em up with Pride and makes them assume a Majestic and Decisive Air They hear others with Contempt answer 'em in Raillery and only think in relation to themselves Looking upon the attention of the Mind as a kind of Servitude even where 't is necessary to discover the Truth they become wholly Indocible Pride Ignorance and Blindness are always Companions The Mighty Wits or rather the Proud and Vain-glorious ones will never be Disciples of the Truth They never retire within themselves but to admire and applaud their own Acquirements So that he who resists the Proud shines in the midst of their darkness without dissipating it There is on the contrary a certain disposition in the Blood and Animal Spirits which gives us too mean an opinion of our selves Their scarcity heaviness and fineness joined to the grossness of the Fibres of the Brain make our Imagination weak and languishing And the Sight or rather confused Sensation of this weakness and languor of our Imaginations creates such a vicious humility in us as we may call meanness of Spirit All Men are capable of the Truth but do not apply themselves to him who is only able to teach them The Proud depend upon themselves and hearken to none else And these mistaken humble ones address themselves to the Proud and submit to all their Decisions Thus both listen only to Man The Mind of the Proud obeys the fermentation of their own Blood that is their own Imagination And that of the mean spirited submits to the commanding Air of the Proud so that both are subjected to Vanity and Lyes The Proud are like a rich and powerful Man who having a great Equipage measures his own greatness by the number of his Followers and his strength by that of his Horses which draw his Coach These mistaken humble ones having the same Spirit and same Principles resemble a poor miserable languishing wretch who imagines himself almost nothing because he possesses nothing Yet our Equipage is not our selves and so far is the abundance of the Blood and Spirits vigour and impetuosity of the Imagination from leading us to Truth that on the contrary there is nothing which diverts us more from it It is the dull if I may call them so the cold and sedate Minds which are most capable of discovering the most solid and intricate Troths In the silence of their Passions they may hearken to that Truth which teaches them in the most secret recesses of their Reason but unhappily they think not of applying themselves to its word because it speaks without a sensible lustre and in a low voice and nothing affects them but a noise Nothing convinces them but what seems sparkling great and magnificent to the Judgment of the Senses they are not pleased without they are dazled and choose rather to hearken to those Philosopbers who relate their Visions and Dreams to them and who with the false
any thing when we don't admire it the Animal Spirits are not then easily carried to those places which are necessary to represent it 't would be in vain to sollicit our attention we could not animadvert or at least not very long although we might otherwise be perswaded after an abstracted manner and which agitated not the Spirits that the thing very well deserved our application It is requisite we should deceive our Imagination to stir up our Spirits and that we should after a new manner represent the Subject we would meditate on that we might excite in our selves some motion of Admiration We every day see such Persons as have no inclination for Study nothing appears more painful to them than application of Mind yet are they convinced they ought to study certain things and to that end they use their utmost endeavours but they are unsuccessful and they advance not much but immediately leave them It is true the Animal Spirits obey the orders of the Will and make it attentive whenever we desire it But when the Will which commands is purely reasonable and depends not upon any Passion it is performed after so weak and languishing a manner that our Ideas then resemble Phantoms which are but just seen and disappear in a moment Our Animal Spirits receive so many secret orders from our Passions and both by Nature and habit have so great a facility to execute them as that they are very easily diverted from the new and difficult ways where the Will would engage them to go so that 't is chiefly in these Occurrences that we have need of particular Grace to assist us in the discovery of the Truth because we cannot by our own power long resist the influences of the Body which conquer and suppress the Mind or if we have this ability we never make use of it But when we are excited by any motion of Admiration the Animal Spirits naturally disperse themselves towards the Traces of the Object which caused it They clearly represent it to the Mind and produce in the Brain what is necessary to create knowledge and evidence without troubling the Will to fatigue it self by forcing these unwilling Spirits Thus those who are capable of Admiration are much fitter for Study than such as are not susceptible of it The first are quick and ingenious the last dull and stupid Yet when Admiration becomes excessive and proceeds either to astonish or affright us or does not incline us to Rational Curiosity it commonly produces ill Effects For then the Animal Spirits are all employed to represent the Object we admire on one side only we don't even think whether we may consider it farther or not nor do the Animal Spirits disperse themselves so much as into the common parts of the Body to perform their functions there but imprint such deep footsteps of the Object they represent and break so great a number of the Fibres of the Brain that the Idea they create can never after be effaced from the Mind It is not enough for Admiration to render us attentive it must also make us curious Nor is it sufficient for us to consider one side of any Object to discover it fully we must examine it throughly or else we cannot judge truly of it So that when Admiration does not induce us to examine things with the utmost exactness or when it hinders us from it it is very useless in the discovery of Truth Then it only fills the Mind with probabilities and appearances and inclines it to judge rashly of every thing To Admire for Admiration sake is not sufficient we must Admire that we may afterwards examine with the more facility the Animal Spirits which naturally stir up Admiration in us freely offer their assistance to the Soul that it may use them to represent the Object more distinctly and that it may better discover it This is the institution of Nature for Admiration must lead us to Curiosity and Curiosity guide us to the discovery of Truth But the Soul does not know how to make use of its power it prefers a certain Sensation of Complacency which it receives from this abundance of Spirits that affect it before the knowledge of the Object which excites them It chooses rather to enjoy plenty of Spirits than to dissipate them by use in which it resembles certain Covetous Persons who prefer the possession of their Silver before the benefits they might in their Necessities receive from it Men generally please themselves with whatever affects them in any Passion They don't only give their Money to make themselves affected with Sorrow at the representation of a Tragedy but likewise throw it away upon Leigerdemain that may raise their Admiration for we cannot say they give it to be deceived The Sensation of Internal Pleasure which the Soul feels in Admiration is then the chief cause why we dwell upon it without making that use of it that Reason and Nature prescribes us For 't is this Sensation of Complacency which keeps the Admirers so strictly united to the Subjects of their Admiration that they will fall into a Passion if we shew them the vanity of it When an Afflicted Person tastes the sweetness of Sorrow we anger him if we try to divert him from it It is the same with those who admire any thing it seems to 'em as if we would injure them when we endeavour to shew them their Admiration is without any Reason because they feel that secret Pleasure they received from the Passion diminish proportionally as the Idea which caused it is effaced out of their Mind The Passions always endeavour to justifie themselves and insensibly perswade us that 't is reasonable to follow them The Complacency and Pleasure they make the Mind feel which ought to be their Judge corrupts it in their favour and inspires it with such like Reasoning I ought to judge of things only according to the Ideas I have of 'em And of all my Ideas the most sensible are the most real since they act the most powerfully upon me It is therefore by them I ought the rather to judge Now the Subject I admire includes a sensible Idea of greatness then I must judge according to this Idea for I ought to have an esteem and love for greatness So that I have reason to stop at this Object and employ my self upon it Indeed the pleasure I feel at the sight of the Idea which represents it is a Natural proof that 't is my good to think upon it for it seems to me that I grow great my self whilst I consider it and that my Mind has more extension when it embraces so great an Idea The Mind ceasing to be when it thinks of nothing if this Idea shou'd vanish it seems to me that my Mind would vanish with it or that it would become less and more contracted if it applied it self to an Idea that was less The preservation of this great Idea is then the preservation of
inclines it to favour the Passions Thus the Passions act upon the Imagination and the Imagination being corrupted fights against Reason by continually representing things to it not according as they are in themselves whereby the Mind might make a true Judgment but as they relate to the present Passion to incline it to make a Judgment in favour of it The Passions do not only corrupt both the Imagination and Mind in favour of 'em but likewise produce in the rest of the Body every disposition that is necessary for their preservation The Spirits which are agitated by them stop not in the Brain but are carried as I have already intimated to all the other parts of the Body They are chiefly dispersed into the Heart Liver Spleen and into the Nerves which encompass the principal Arteries In short they are thrown into all parts whatever which can supply necessary Spirits for the preservation of the ruling Passion But when these Spirits are thus dispersed into the parts of the Body they by little and little destroy whatever can resist their course till at last they make their passage so slippery and smooth that the smallest Object extreamly agitates us and consequently inclines us to form such Judgments as favour the Passions And 't is after this manner that they establish and justifie themselves If we consider how various the constitution of the Fibres of the Brain is how different the agitation and abundance of the Spirits and Blood in different Sexes and at different Ages it will be easie enough to discover very near what Passions certain Persons are most subject to and consequently what Judgments they will make upon such Objects For Instance we may nearly guess by the abundance or scarcity of Spirits which we observe in certain Persons that the very same thing being equally proposed and explained to them many will form Judgments of hope and joy upon it and others of fear and sorrow For those who have abundance of Blood and Spirits as commonly Young Men Sanguine and Cholerick Persons have easily conceive hope because of the secret sense of their Strength They will not believe they shall find any opposition in their designs which they cannot conquer and immediately please themselves with the foretast of a good they hope to possess and will form all sorts of Judgments which are fit to justifie their hope and joy But such as want agitated Spirits as Old Men Melancholy and Flegmatick Persons do being inclined to fear and sorrow because their Soul grows weak and is destitute of Spirits to execute its Orders they form quite contrary Judgments imagining unconquerable difficulties to justifie their fear and abandon themselves to envy sorrow despair and to certain kinds of aversion of which weak Persons are most susceptible CHAP. XII That such Passions as have Evil for their Object are most dangerous and unjust and such as are attended with the least knowledge are the most lively and sensible OF all the Passions those whose Judgments are most unreasonable and most to be feared are all kinds of Aversion There are no Passions whatever that corrupts the Reason more in favour of 'em than hatred and fear do Hatred chiefly in the Cholerick or in such whose Spirits are in continual agitation and Fear in the Melancholic or in those whose gross and heavy Spirits are neither soon agitated nor easily appeased But when Hatred and Fear conspire together to corrupt the Reason which is very common then there are no Judgments so unjust and fantastic but they are capable of producing and maintaining with an insuperable obstinacy The reason of which is because the Soul is in this life more lively affected with evil than good the sensation of pain being more quick than that of pleasure We are much more sensible of injuries and reproaches than praises and applause and if we meet with some Persons that have a great indifference for the enjoyment of certain pleasures or the receiving of certain honours yet would it be very difficult to find any who would quietly suffer pain and contempt Thus Hatred Fear and the other kinds of Aversion which have Evil for their Object are very violent Passions They give the Mind such unforeseen shocks and stupify and discompose it and soon penetrate into the most secret recesses of the Soul They dethrone Reason and upon all sorts of subjects pronounce erroneous and unjust Judgments in favour of their folly and tyranny Of all the Passions these are the most cruel and distrustful the most destructive to Charity and Civil Society and likewise the most ridiculous and extravigant for they form such impertinent and fantastic Judgments as excites the laughter and indignation of all Men. These Passions put these extravagant Speeches in the Mouth of the Pharisees Joh. c. 11.47 What do we this Man works many Miracles If we let him alone all Men will believe in him And the Romans will come and destroy both our City and Nation They agreed that JESVS CHRIST did many Miracles the resurrection of Lazarus was undeniable But what was the Judgment of their Passions To put JESVS CHRIST to death and Lazarus whom he had raised to life And why must JESVS CHRIST die because if we let him alone all Men will believe him and the Romans will come and ruine our Nation And why must Lazarus be put to death because upon his account many Jews went away and believed in JESVS Joh. c. 12.11 These are both cruel and extravagant Judgments together cruel through hatred and extravagant through fear The Romans will come and ruine our City and Nation 'T was the same Passions induced a great Assembly consisting of Annas the High Priest Caiaphas John Alexander and all those who were a kin to the High Priest to speak thus What shall we do with these Men for that indeed a notable Miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem and we cannot deny it Acts c. 4. 16 17. But that it spread no farther amongst the People let us threaten to punish them if henceforward they teach any more in the Name of JESUS All these great Men pronounced both an impertinent and an unjust Judgment because they were agitated by their Passions and blinded by their false Zeal They durst not punish the Apostles because of the People and because the Man who had been miraculously cured was above 40 years old and present in the Assembly But threatened them to hinder 'em from preaching in the Name of JESVS Believing they ought to condemn a Doctrine whose Author they had put to death You intend say they to the Apostles to bring this Man's Blood upon us When false Zeal is joined to Hatred Acts c. 5. it shelters it from the reproaches of Reason and after such a manner justifies it that we do not scruple to follow its motions and when ignorance and weakness accompany fear they extend to an infinite number of subjects and so well
keep in our Studies always to preserve Evidence in our Perceptions Of all our Discoveries the first is the Existence of our Souls all our Thoughts are undoubted Proofs of it for there is nothing more evident than whatever actually thinks is actually something But if it is easie to know the Existence of our Souls it is not so easie to know the Essence and Nature of them If we would know what it is we must above all things take great care not to confound it with the things it is united to If we doubt if we will if we reason we must only believe that the Soul is a thing which doubts wills reasons and nothing more provided we have no Proof of its having any other Properties For we know our Souls only by the Internal Sensation we have of them We must not take our Soul for our Body nor for the Blood nor Animal Spirits nor for Fire nor an infinite number of other things for which Philosophers have taken it We must believe of the Soul only what we cannot hinder our selves from believing of it and what we are fully convinced of by the internal Sensation we have of our selves for otherwise we should be deceived Thus we may know by a simple Prospect or an internal Sensation what can be known of the Soul without being obliged to make such Arguments as may be Erroneous For when we reason the Memory Acts and where we make use of our Memory we may be deceived perhaps there is some Ill Genius on which we depend in our Discoveries and which diverts it self in deceiving us If for instance I suppose a God who took pleasure in seducing me I am well perswaded he could not deceive me in any simple Discoveries as in those whereby I know that I am or of what I think or that twice 2 are 4. For although I should really suppose such a God and as powerful a one as I can feign to my self I find that in this extravagant Supposition I could not doubt that I was or that twice 2 were equal to 4 because I perceived these things by a simple view without the use of my Memory But when I argue not seeing evidently the Principles of my Reasonings and only remember that I have evidently seen them If this deceiving Deity joyns this Memory to false Principles as he might do if he would I should only reason falsly like those that make long Computations imagining they remember well how they have known that 9 times 9 makes 72 or that 21 is a prime Number or some such-like Error from whence they draw false Conclusions Thus it is necessary to know God and to know that he is no Deceiver if we will be fully convinced that the most certain Sciences as Arithmetick and Geometry are true Sciences for without that their Evidence is not full and we may still refuse our Assent And it is further necessary to know by a simple View and not by Reasoning that God is no Deceiver since that may always be false if we suppose God to deceive us All common Proofs of the Existence and Perfections of God taken from the Existence and Perfections of his Creatures have this Defect it seems That they convince not the Mind by a simple View All these Proofs are Reasonings which are convincing in themselves But being Reasonings they are not convincing if we suppose an ill Genius which deceives us They sufficiently prove that there is a Power Superior to us for even this Extravagant Supposition establisheth it But they do not fully convince that there is a God or an Infinitely Perfect Being So in these Reasonings the Conclusion is more evident than the Principles It is more plain that there is a Power Superior to us than that there is a World since there is no Supposition that can hinder us from demonstrating this Superior Power whereas supposing an ill Genius which delights to deceive us it is impossible to prove there is a World For we might always conceive that this Ill Genius would give us Sensations of things which existed not As our Dreams and certain Sicknesses make us see things that never were and make us even effectively feel Pain in our Imaginary Members which we have lost or which we never had But the Proofs of the Existence and Perfections of God taken from the Idea we have of Infinity are Proofs from a simple View We see that there is a God as soon as we behold Infinity because necessary Existence is included in the Idea of Infinity and there is nothing but Infinity to which we can give the Idea we have of an Infinite Being We see also that God is no Deceiver because knowing that he is infinitely Perfect and that Infinity wants no Perfection we see clearly that he will not seduce us and even that he cannot since he is not capable of willing it So that there is a God and a True God who cannot deceive us although he does not always enlighten us and though we often deceive our selves when we think he enlightens us All these Truths are seen at one view by an attentive Mind although we seem here to use a train of Arguments to shew them to others We may suppose them as undoubted Principles upon which we may reason for having first discovered that God is not pleased with deceiving us we may then be permitted to reason It is evident that the Certainty of Faith also depends upon this Principle That there is a God which is not capable of deceiving us For the Existence of God and Infallibility of the Divine Authority are rather Natural Knowledges and Notions common to Minds that are capable of a Serious Attention than Articles of Faith Although it be a particular Gift of God to have a Mind capable of a sufficient Attention to apprehend and be willing to apprehend these Truths as we ought From this Principle That God is no Deceiver we may also conclude That we certainly have a Body to which we are united after a very particular manner and that we are surrounded with many others For we are Internally convinced of their Existence by the continual Sensations that God produces in us and which we cannot correct by Reason without hurting our Faith although we may by Reason correct the Sensations which represent them to us with certain Qualities and Perfections which they have not So that we ought not to believe them such as we see them or imagine them but only that they Exist and are such as we conceive them by our Reason But that we may reason orderly we ought not yet to examine whether or no we have a Body and if there are any others about us or whether we have only Sensations of Bodies which Exist not These Questions include too great Difficulties and it is not perhaps so necessary to resolve them to perfect our Knowledge as we may imagine nor even to have an exact Knowledge of Physicks Morality and some other Sciences
they mean and all the Diffiulty there is to resolve this trifling Question proceeds from their not having conceived it clearly and not thinking that Fishermen as well as others sometimes look in their Cloaths for certain little Animals which they throw away as soon as they have taken them and still carry with them what they cannot catch Sometimes also there are not all the necessary Conditions in a Question for the answering it and that makes it at least as difficult as when unuseful ones are added For instance in this to make a Man immoveable without binding or hurting him or rather having put a Man's little Finger in his own Ear by this Posture to make him so immoveable that he cannot stir from the Place where he is put until his little Finger is taken from his Ear again This at first appears impossible and it is so indeed for we can walk very well although our little Finger be in our Ear. But here is a Condition wanting which would remove all Difficulty if it was expressed viz. That he must be made to embrace some Pillar or something like it with that Arm whereof the Finger is in his Ear for then he cannot get from the Place without taking his Finger from his Ear. It is not added as a Condition of a Question that there is yet some other thing to do on purpose that the Mind should not seek for it nor discover it But those who undertake to resolve these sort of Questions must make all necessary Demands to clear the Point wherein the Difficulty of the Question consists These Arbitrary Questions seem to be trifling and so indeed they are in one Sence for we learn nothing by resolving them Yet are they not so different from Natural Questions as perhaps we may think them to be we must do very nigh the same things to resolve both For if the Craft and Malice of Men make Arbitrary Questions perplexing and difficult to resolve Natural Effects are also in themselves incompassed with Obscurity and Darkness And these Darknesses must be dispersed by the Attention of the Mind and Experiments which are kind of Demands that we make to the Author of Nature even as we take away Equivocal and useless Circumstances from Arbitrary Questions by Attention of the Mind and by the proper Demands we make to those who propose them But let us explain these things Methodically and in a more Serious and Instructive Manner There is a great Number of Questions which seem very difficult because we understand them not and which therefore want an Explication Yet which ought rather to pass for Axioms than true Questions for it seems to me that we ought not to place in the Number of Questions certain undoubted Propositions whose Terms we conceive We demand for instance as a Question difficult to be resolved whether or no the Soul is immortal because those that make the Question or that pretend to resolve it do not clearly conceive the Terms of it As the Words Soul and Immortal signifie different things and know not how they are understood so they cannot resolve whether it is Immortal or not For they neither know precisely what they demand nor what they seek By this Word Soul we may understand a Substance which thinks wills feels c. we may take the Soul for the Circulation of the Blood and Configuration of the Parts of the Body or we may take it for the Blood and Animal Spirits So by this Word Immortal we mean what cannot perish by the ordinary Power of Nature or else what can never change or what can neither corrupt nor dissipate like a Vapour or Smoke Thus suppose we take the Words Soul and Immortal in some one of these Significations the least Attention of Mind will make us able to judge whether it is Immortal or not For first 't is plain that the Soul taken in the first Sense viz. for a Substance which thinks is Immortal if we also take Immortal in the first Sense for what cannot perish by the common Power of Nature for 't is not even conceivable that any Substance can become nothing we must have Recourse to the extraordinary Power of God to conceive it possible Secondly the Soul is immortal if we take Immortal in the third Sense for what cannot corrupt nor resolve into a Vapour or Smoke for 't is evident that what cannot be divided into an infinite Number of Parts cannot corrupt or be resolved into a Vapour Thirdly the Soul is not Immortal if we take Immortal in the second Sense for what cannot change For we have sufficient convincing Proofs of the Variations of our Soul That sometimes it feels Pain sometimes Pleasure sometimes it wills certain things and then again ceases to will them as being united to the Body it cannot be separated from them c. If we take the Word Soul in any other Signification 't will be very easie to see whether it is Immortal or not by taking the Word Immortal in a fixed and certain Sense so that what makes these Questions difficult is because we conceive them not distinctly and the Terms which express them are Equivocal so that they have rather need of Explanation than Proof It is true some Persons are stupid enough and others sufficiently Imaginative to take the Soul always for a certain Configuration of the Parts of the Brain arid Motion of the Spirits and it is certainly impossible to prove to these sort of Men that the Soul is Imortal and cannot perish For on the contrary 't is evident that the Soul taken in the Sense they understand it is Mortal so that 't is not a Question difficult to resolve but a Proposition difficult to make Men understand which have not the same Idea's of it as we have and who do all they can not to have them and to blind themselves When it is asked if the Soul is Immortal or any other Question whatever we must immediately take away the Equivocal Terms and know in what Sense they are taken that we may be able distinctly to conceive the Condition of the Question And if those that propose it know not what they mean we must require them to form some distinct Notions and determine them If we ask them and find their Idea's agree not with ours it will be useless to answer them For what Answer can we make to a Man who for instance imagines that a Desire is only the Motion of some Spirits and a Thought is nothing else but a Trace or an Image that Objects or Spirits have produced in the Brain and that all the reasoning of Men consist merely in the different Situation of some little Parts which are diversely disposed in the Head To answer him that the Soul taken in the Sense he means it is Immortal is to deceive him or make our selves ridiculous to him But to answer him it is Immortal would be in one Sense to confirm him in an Error of the greatest
Consequence We must therefore not answer him at all but only endeavour to make him re-enter into himself that he may receive the same Idea's as we do of him who is only capable of enlightening him 'T is also a Question which appears difficult enough to resolve viz. Whether Beasts have a Soul or not Yet when we take away the Equivocation it seems no longer difficult and the Generality of those Men who think they have do not know the Opinions of those who think they have not We may take the Soul for something Corporeal diffused through the whole Body which gives it Life and Motion or else for something Spiritual Those who say Animals have no Soul understand it in the Second Sense for no Man ever denied but that there was in Animals something Corporeal which was the Principle of their Life and Motion since they cannot even deny it to Watches Those on the contrary who affirm Animals have Souls mean it in the first Sense for there are few who believe Animals have a Spiritual and indivisible Soul so that the Peripateticks and Cartesians do both believe that Beasts have a Soul viz. a Corporeal Principle of their Motion and both of them believe they have none viz. That they have nothing in them Spiritual and indivisible Thus the Difference that is between the Peripateticks and Cartesians is not in that the first believe Beasts have Souls and the last believe it not But only in that the first think Animals capable of feeling Pain Pleasure seeing Colours hearing Sounds and generally of having all the Sensations and Passions that we have and the last doubt it The Cartesians distinguish the Word Sensation to take away the Equivocation of it For instance they say that when we are too near the Fire the Particles of Wood strike against the Hand and shake the Fibres that this shaking is communicated to the Brain that it determines the Animal Spirits which are there contained to diffuse themselves through the External Parts of the Body in a proper manner to make them retire They agree that all these things or the like may meet in Animals and that they certainly meet there because these are the Properties of Bodies and the Peripateticks grant this The Cartesians further say that in Man the shaking of the Fibres of his Brain is accompanied with a Sensation of Heat and that the Course of the Animal Spirits to the Heart or Bowels is followed with the Passion of Hatred or Aversion But deny that these Sensations or Passions of the Soul is in Beasts The Peripateticks on the contrary affirm that Beasts feel Heat as well as we that like us they have an Aversion for whatever incommodes them and generally that they are capable of all the Sensations and Passions that we are The Cartesians do not think that Beasts feel Pain or Pleasure or that they love or hate any thing because they admit nothing but what is material in Beasts and they do not believe that Sensations or Passions are Properties of Matter whatever it may be Some Peripateticks on the contrary think that Matter is capable of Sensation and Passion when it is as they say Subtilized that Beasts may feel by the means of Animal Spirits viz. by the means of a Matter extreamly fine and delicate and that even the Soul is not capable of Sensation and Passion but only as it is united to this Matter Thus to resolve the Question whether Beasts have a Soul we must re-enter into our selves and consider the Idea we have of Matter with all the Attention we are capable of And if we conceive that Matter Figured after such manner as Square Round Oval c. is capable of Pain Pleasure Heat and Cold Colour Smells Sound c. we may affirm that the Souls of Beasts how material soever they are may be capable of Sensation If we conceive it not we must not assert it is for we must only affirm what we conceive So if we conceive that Matter agitated up and down in a Circular Spiral Parabolick Eliptick Line c. be capable of Love Hatred Joy Sorrow c. we may say that Beasts have the same Passions with us If we see it not we must not say it at least without confessing we speak what we do not know But I think it may be affirmed that we never believe any Motion of Matter can be capable of Love or Joy provided we think Seriously of it So that to resolve this Question if Beasts feel we need only take away the Equivocation as Cartesians do for this way we reduce it to a Simple Question that an indifferent Attention of Mind will suffice to resolve it It is true that St. Austin supposing according to the common Prejudice that Beasts have Souls or at least I have not read in his Works that he ever Seriously examined it or called it in Question and perceiving well the Contradiction of saying that a Soul or Substance that thinks feels desires c. should be Material he believed that the Souls of Beasts were certainly Spiritual and Indivisible He has proved by evident Reasons L 4. de anima ejus origine c. 23. l. 5. de quantitate animae and elsewhere that all Souls that is whatever feels imagines fears doubts desires c. are necessarily Spiritual but I have not observed that he had any Reason to say that Beasts had Souls He does not give himself the Trouble to prove it because 't is very probable that in his Time there was hardly any one that doubted of it Now there are some who endeavour wholly to deliver themselves from their Prejudices and who call all Opinions in Question that are not maintained upon clear and demonstrative Reasons who begin to doubt whether Animals have a Soul capable of the same Sensations and Passions as ours but they always find many prejudiced Defenders who pretend to prove that Beasts feel will think and reason as we do although in a much more imperfect manner Dogs say they know their Masters they love them suffer patiently the Blows they receive from them because they judge it advantageous for them not to abandon them But for Strangers they hate them so violently that they cannot so much as suffer themselves to be caressed by them All Animals have a Love for their Young Ones and those Birds that make their Nests in the Extreme Branches of a Tree make it plainly appear that they fear certain Animals that would devour them They think these Branches are too weak to bear their Enemies and yet strong enough to support their Little Ones and Nests too There is amongst the Spiders and the most vile Insects something that looks like an Intelligence which Animates them For we cannot forbear admiring the Conduct of an Animal which although blind finds a means to catch others in its Snares that have both Eyes and Wings and are bold enough to attack the greatest Animal that is It is true that all the
Actions of Beasts shew that there is an Intelligence for whatever is regular declares it a Watch even shews it It is impossible that Chance should compose its Wheels there must be an Intelligence which has regulated its Motions We plant a Seed in an inverse Order the Roots which are upwards sink of themselves into the Earth and the Germ which was turn'd towards the Earth also turns again to come forth and this testifies an Intelligence This Plant is joynted at convenient Distances to fortifie it self it covers its Grain with a Skin to preserve it if encompasses it with Prickles which defends it This shews an Intelligence In fine all that we see Plants do as well as Animals certainly denotes an Intelligence All true Cartesians grant it But they all distinguish for they take away as much as possible the Equivocation of Terms The Motions of Beasts and Plants shew an Intelligence but this Intelligence is not of Matter it is distinct from Beasts as that which disposes the Wheels of a Watch is distinct from the Watch. For indeed this Intelligence appears infinitely wise infinitely powerful and the same which has formed us in our Mothers Belly and given us Growth to which we could not by all the Efforts of our Minds and will add one Cubit Thus in Animals there is neither Intelligence nor Soul as we commonly understand it They eat without Pleasure cry without Pain and grow without Knowledge They fear nothing they know nothing and they act after such a manner as intelligently shews that it is God who made them that preserves them he has so formed their Bodies that they Machinally and without Fear shun whatsoever would destroy them otherwise we must grant that there is more Understanding in the least Animal or even in one Grain than in the Wisest Man For it is certain there is more different Parts and more regular Motions produced in them than we are capable of knowing But as Men are accustomed to confound all things and to imagine that their Soul produces in their Bodies almost all the Motions and Changes that happen to it They falsly affix to the Word Soul the Idea of producing and preserving Bodies Thus they think their Soul produces in them whatsoever is absolutely necessary for the Preservation of Life although it know not even how the Body it Animates is composed They judge it necessary that there should be a Soul in Beasts to produce all the Motions and Changes which happen to them because they are like to what is performed in our Bodies For Beasts are begotten nourished fortified as out Bodies are They Drink Eat Sleep like us because we are wholly like Beasts in our Bodies and all the difference there is between us and them is That we have a Soul and they have not But the Soul we have does not form our Bodies it digests not our Food it gives neither Motion nor Heat to our Blood It Feels Wills and Reasons and animates the Body in this respect It has Sensations and Passions which have relation to it It is not that 't is diffused through all our Members that it communicates Sensation and Life to it for our Body can receive nothing of what occurs in our Mind It is then plain That the reason why we cannot resolve many Questions is because we distinguish nor and even forget to distinguish the different things that the same word may signifie Sometimes indeed we may think of distinguishing but then often we do it so ill that instead of taking away the Equivocation of Terms by the Distinctions we give them we make them become more obscure For instance If it be demanded whether the Body sees how it sees and after what manner the reasonable Soul animates the Animal Spirits the Blood and other living Humours if the Teeth Hair and Nails are animated c. we distinguish the words to live and be animated in living or being animated with a rational Soul or a Sensitive or a Vegetative one but this distinction does only confound the state of the Question for these words themselves have need of an Explanation and it may be even that the two last Vegetative and Sensitive Soul are inexplicable and incomprehensible after the manner we commonly understand them But if we would joyn any clear and distinct Idea to the word Life we may say that the Life of the Soul is the Knowledge of Truth and Love of God or rather that its Thought is its Life And that the Life of the Body consists in the Circulation of the Blood and just Temperament of Humours or rather that the Life of the Body is the Motion of its Parts proper for its Preservation And then the Idea's applied to the word Life being clear it will also be evident 1. That the Soul cannot communicate its Life to the Body for it cannot make it Think 2. That it cannot give it the Life by which it is nourished grows c. since it cannot so much as know how it must digest what it eats 3. It can make it feel any thing since Matter is incapable of Sensation c. Thus we may without Pain resolve all other Questions that can be put upon this Subject provided the Terms whereby they are expressed stir up clear Idea's And it is impossible to resolve them if the Idea's of the Terms which express them are confused and obscure Yet is it not always absolutely necessary to have Idea's which perfectly represent the things whose Relations we would examine It often suffices to have an imperfect or weak Knowledge of them because sometimes we do not enquire after an exact Knowledge of their Relations as I shall here explain There are Truths or Relations of two sorts some exactly known and others that are but imperfectly discovered We exactly know the Relation between such a Square and such a Triangle but we do not perfectly know the Relation between Paris and Orleance we know that a Square is equal to a Triangle or double or treble to it c. but we only know that Paris is greater than Orleance without knowing how much Moreover Between imperfect Knowledges there are an infinite number of Degrees and even all these Knowledges are only imperfect in relation to the more perfect ones For instance We perfectly know that Paris is greater than the Royal Place and that Knowledge is not imperfect but in relation to an exact Knowledge according to which we should justly know how much Paris is bigger than the place it includes Thus there are Questions of many sorts 1. There are some in which we seek the perfect Knowledge of all exact Relations that two or many things have between themselves 2. There are some in which we enquire after the perfect Knowledge of some exact Relation between two or many things 3. There are some in which we seek a perfect Knowledge of some Relation that is very near exact which is between two or more things 4. And some wherein we
in which let there be inserted the Tubes of two equal Bellows and only apply a Force 1600 Times greater than the other to the Mouth of the greater Bellows for then the Force of 1600 Times the less shall overcome the greater The Demonstration of it is clear from Mechanicks since the Powers are not exactly in Reciprocal Proportion with the Orifices and the Relation of the least Force to the least Orifice is greater than the Relation of greater Force to the greater Orifice But to resolve this Problem by a Machine which represents the Effect of the Muscles better than this Instance already mentioned Blow up a Foot-ball and let there be a great Stone of 5 or 6 Hundred Weight laid upon it when half filled with Wind or place the Ball upon a Table with a Board over it and a Stone over that or let some heavy Man sit upon it holding himself by something that he may be able to resist the swelling of the Foot-ball For if one blow in the Foot-ball once only with his Mouth it will raise up the Stone which presses it down or the Man who sits upon it provide a the Orifice by which the Wind enters the Foot-ball have a Sucker to hinder it from going out whilst the Person takes Breath The Reason of this is that the Orifice in the Ball is so small or ought to be supposed so small in Relation to the whole Ball which is compressed by the Stone that a small Force is capable to overpower a great one by this method If we consider also that ones Breath is capable of pushing a Ball of Lead very violently by the means of a long Tube because the Force of the Breath dissipates not but continually renews we may visibly discover that the necessary Proportion between the Orifice and Capacity of the Ball being supposed ones Breath only may easily overcome a very great Force If then we conceive that all the Muscles or each of the Fibres which compose them have like this Foot-ball a Capacity fit to receive the Animal Spirits that the Pores by which the Spirits insinuate themselves are still smaller in Proportion than the Neck of a Bladder or Orifice of a Ball that the Spirits are kept in and pushed forward in the Nerves like Air in Tubes and that the Spirits are more agitated than the Breath of the Lungs and pushed with more Force in the Muscles than in Balls We shall discover that the Motion of the Spirits which are dispersed through the Muscles can overcome the Force of the most weighty Burthens we can bear and that if we cannot carry the heaviest the Defect of the Power proceeds not so much from the Spirits as that of the Fibres and Membranes that compose the Muscles which would break if we made too great an Effort Besides if we observed that by the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body the Motions of these Spirits as to their Determinations depend upon the Will of Man we should plainly see that the Motions of the Arms must be voluntary It is true we remove our Arms with so much Quickness that at first it seems incredible that the Effusion of the Spirits in the Muscles which compose them should be quick enough to produce such a Motion But we must consider that these Spirits are extreamly agitated always ready to go from one Muscle to another and that there is not need of many to swell them up so little as is necessary to move them only or when we lift any thing that 's very light from the Ground for when we have any thing heavy to lift we cannot do it so speedily Burthens being heavy will much swell and stretch the Muscles To swell them up after this manner requires more Spirits than there is in the adjoyning or opposite Muscles There must therefore be some little Time to collect these Spirits in a Quantity sufficient to resist this Weight So that those which are laden cannot run and those that take any weighty thing from the Ground cannot do it with so much Haste as those who take up a Straw If we further reflect that those that have more Heat or a little Wine in their Heads are much quicker than others as amongst Animals those whose Spirits are more agitated as Birds move more swiftly than they that have their Blood cold like Frogs And that even amongst them there are some as the Camelion the Tortoise and other Infects whose Spirits are so little agitated that their Muscles fill not faster than a little Foot-ball which we should blow up If we well consider all these things it may be we might think the Explanation already given fit to be received But although this Part of the proposed Question which regards Voluntary Motions is sufficiently resolved We must not however affirm that it is wholly so and that there is nothing more in our Bodies which contributes to these Motions than what we have attributed to it for there is probably in our Muscles a thousand Springs which facilitate these Motions and will be eternally unknown to those even who make the strictest Scrutinies into the Works of God The second Part of the Question which must be examined respects Natural Motions or those sort of Motions which have nothing extraordinary as the Convulsive have but that are absolutely necessary to the Preservation of our Machine which consequently depend not entirely upon our Wills I consider then first with all the Attention I am capable what the Motions are which have these Conditions and if they are wholly alike but because I immediately discover that almost all of them differ one from another not to perplex my self with too many things I only insist upon the Motion of the Heart This Part is the most known and its Motions most sensible I then examine its Structure and amongst many others observe two things The first that 't is composed of Fibres like other Muscles the second that there is two very considerable Cavities in it I therefore judge that its Motions may be performed by the Animal Spirits because it is a Muscle and that the Blood there ferments and dilates its self since there are Cavities there The first of these Determinations is founded upon what I have already said and the second because the Heart is much hotter than all the other Parts of the Body as it is that which disperses Heat with the Blood into all our Members that these two Cavities could neither have been formed nor preferved but only by the Dilatation of the Blood and that thus they are serviceable to the Cause which produced them I can then give a sufficient Reason for the Motion of the Heart by the Spirits which agitate it and the Blood which dilates it when this Blood is fermented For although the Cause I bring for its Motion should not perhaps be true yet it appears certain to me that it is sufficient to produce it It 's true that the Principle of the
God Wills it If God Will At every Objection see the Article against which it is made that Minds shall be subject to Bodies that they shall love and fear them this is no disorder If it were Gods pleasure that two times two should not be four we should not lye in saying that two times two was not not four for it would be a truth God is the Principle of all Truth and the Master of all Order He supposes nothing neither Truth nor Order but makes both Answer All is then overthrown There is no longer any Science nor Morality nor undeniable proofs of Religion This Consequence is clear to any one who apprehends this false Principle that God produces Order and Truth by a Will absolutely Free But that is no Answer I Answer then That God neither does nor wills any thing without knowledge that therefore his Will supposes something but what is supposes is nothing that is Created Order Truth Eternal Wisdom is the Pattern of all the Works of God and this Wisdom is not made God who makes all things never made it though he constantly begets it by the necessity of his Being Whatever God Wills is in Order from this only reason that God Wills it I own it But it is because God cannot Act against himself against his Wisdom and Light He may forbear to produce any External thing but if he will Act he can only do it according to the Immutable Order of that Wisdom which he necessarily loves for Religion and Reason teach me that he does nothing without his Son without his Word without his Wisdom Therefore I am bold to say that God cannot positively Will that the Mind should be subject to the Body because this Wisdom according to which God Wills whatever he Wills shews me clearly that this is contrary to Order And I see this clearly in that Wisdom because that is the soveraign and universal Reason of which all Spirits do participate for which all Intelligences are Created by which all Men are Reasonable For no Man is his own Reason Knowledge and Wisdom unless it be perhaps when his Reason is particular his Knowledge a false Light and his Wisdom Folly As most Men know not distinctly that nothing but Eternal Wisdom directs them and that Intelligible Ideas which are the immediate Object of their Mind are not Created they imagine that Eternal Laws and Immutable Truths have been establish'd such by a Free Will of God And 't is for that very reason Descartes says that God could have made two times four not to be eight and that the three Angles of a Triangle should not be equal two right ones An Answer to the 6th Objection against his Meditations Art 6. Art 8. and Lett. 68. of the 3d Vol. because there is no Order says he no Law no Reason of Goodness and Truth but what depends on God and that it is he who from all Eternity has ordained and establish'd Eternal Truths as Soveraign Law-giver This Learned Man did not mind that there is an Order a Law a soveraign Reason which God loves necessarily which is Coeternal with him and according to which it is necessary he should Act supposing he will Act. See the Explanation of the 6th Chapter of the 2d Part of the 3d Book How all things are seen in God For God is indifferent as to his External Works but he is not indifferent though perfectly free in the manner by which he does 'em he always Acts in the Wisest and most perfect manner possible he always follows the immutable and necessary Order Therefore God may chuse whether he will create Spirits and Bodies but if he creates those two kinds of Beings he must create them in the simplest way and place them in a perfect order He may for instance unite Spirits to Bodies but I affirm that he cannot subject them to 'em unless in pursuance of the Order which he always follows the Sin of Spirits obliges him to proceed thus as I have already explained in the 7th Article and first Remark towards the latter end To prevent some Instances which might be objected against me I think my self obliged to say that Men are in the wrong to Consult themselves when they have a mind to know what God can do or will They ought not to judge of his Will by the Internal Sensations they have of their own Inclinations for then they would often make an Injust Cruel and Sinful instead of a powerful God They ought to lay aside the general Principle of their Prejudices which makes them judge of all things according to themselves They must attribute nothing to God but what they conceive clearly to be included in the Idea of an infinitely perfect Being for they ought only to judge of things by clear Ideas Then the God they will adore will not be like unto those of Antiquity which were Cruel Adulterous Voluptuous like the Persons who had set them up Nor will he so much as resemble the God of some Christians who to make him as powerful as Sinners desire him ascribe to him an absolute power of Acting against all Order of leaving Sin unpunished and Condemning some Persons to Eternal Torments though never so Just and so Innocent The Second Objection against the First Article IF God Wills that Order which makes Monsters I do not say among Men for they have sinn'd but amongst Animals and Plants What is the Cause of the general Corruption of the Air which breeds so many Distempers By what Order are Seasons irregular and the Sun of Frosts burn up and destroy the Fruits of the Earth Does it argue Wisdom or Order to give an Animal parts altogether useless and to freeze Fruits after having form'd them Is it not rather because God does what he pleases and that his Power is above all Order and Rule For to speak of things of greater Consequence than some Fruits with which it is lawful to do what he pleases the Clay out of which God makes Vessels of Wrath is the same wherewith he makes Vessels of Mercy Answer These difficulties are only fit to obscure Truth because they proceed from the darkness of the Mind We know that God is Just We see that the Wicked Prosper Must we deny what we see must we doubt what we know because perhaps we may be so stupid as not to know or such Libertines as not to believe what Religion teaches us of future Punishments So likewise we know that God is Wise and that he does nothing but what is Good yet we see Monsters or defective Works What shall we believe that God was mistaken or that those Monsters are not from him Certainly those who have sense or steadiness of Mind will believe neither for it is evident that God does all and that he does nothing but what is as perfect as possible in respect to the simplicity and small number of means which he imploys in the formation of his Works We must keep
easily when it has a Spherical Figure than when it has a Cubical one But the Figure of a Body is different from its Motion and it may be Spherical and stand still It is true Spirits are not like Bodies they can feel no Pleasure without being in Motion because God who only makes and preserves them for himself moves them continually towards Good But this does not prove that the Pleasure of the Soul is the same thing with its Motion for two things though different may always meet together Finally I answer That though Pleasure were not different from the Love or Motion of the Soul that which the first Man felt in the use of the Goods of the Body did not incline him to love those Bodies Pleasure inclines the Soul towards the Object which occasions it I grant it But it is not the Fruit which we eat with Pleasure which occasions that Pleasure in us Bodies cannot act in the Soul and make it in any measure happy God only can do that 'T is through Error we fancy that Bodies have that in them which we feel by their means Adam was not so stupid before his Fall as to imagine that Bodies occasion'd his Pleasure Therefore the Motion which accompanied his Pleasures did not move him towards Bodies If Pleasure contributed towards the Fall of the first Man it was not by causing that in him which it now causes in us It is only the taking up or dividing the Capacity he had to think it blotted or diminished in his Mind the Presence of his real Good or of his Duty Objection against the Sixth Article WHat likelihood is there that the immutable Will of God should have depended on the Will of Man and that in favour of Adam Exceptions should have been made in the general Law of the Communication of Motions Answer At least it is not evident that there can be no such Exceptions But it is plain that immutable Order requires that the Body should be subject to the Mind and it were contradictory to believe that God neither loves nor wills Order In the Explanation which relates to the Nature of Ideas I shall explain more particularly what Order is and why God loves it necessarily For God necessarily loves his Son Therefore it was was necessary before the fall of the first Man that Exceptions should be made in his Favour in the general Law of the Communication of Motions This perhaps may seem abstruse but here is something that is more sensible Man though a Sinner has the Power to move and stop his Arm whenever he pleases Therefore according to the different Volitions of Man the Animal Spirits are determin'd to produce or stop some Motions in his Body which certainly cannot be done by the general Law of the Communication of Motions Thus the Will of God being still at this very time subject to ours why might it not have been subject to Adam's If for the advantage of the Body and for the sake of Civil Society God stops the Communication of Motions in Sinners why should he not have stopt it in favour of a Just Man for the Good of his Soul and for the Preservation of the Union and Society he had with him for God had only made Man for himself As God will have no Society with Sinners he has taken from them after the Fall the power they had to leave as it were the Body to unite themselves to him But he has left them the Power to stop or change the Communication of Motions in reference to the preservation of Life and Civil Society because he was unwilling to destroy his own Work having even before he had form'd it designed according to St. Paul to restore it and reform it in Jesus Christ Objection against the Seventh Article MAN still conveys his Body at this time where he will he moves as he pleases all the parts of it the motion of which is necessary for the prosecution and avoiding of sensible Good and Evils And consequently he stops or changes every moment the Natural Communication of Motions not only in things of small Consequence but also in things which are of no use for Life or Civil Society and even in Crimes which ruine Society shorten Life and dishonour God in all respects God Wills Order I grant it But does Order require that the Laws of Motion should be violated for Evil and remain inviolable on the account of Good Why should not Man have the Power to stop the Motions which sensible Objects produce in his Body since those Motions hinder him from doing good from drawing near to God again and from returning to his Duty and still have the Power to do so much evil with his Tongue his Arm and with the other parts of the Body the Motions of which depend upon his Will Answer To answer this Objection we must consider that Man having sinn'd was to return to his Original Nothingness For being no longer in order nor in a possibility to return to it he ought to cease to exist God loves nothing but Order See the 5th Dialogue of the Christian Conversation a Sinner is not in Order Therefore God does not love him Sinners then cannot subsist since Creatures only subsist because God will have them to be and God will not have them to be unless he loves them Neither can a Sinner restore himself to Order because he cannot justifie himself and whatever he can suffer cannot attone for his Offence Therefore he ought to be reduced to nothing again But whereas it is unreasonable to think that God should make a Work to annihilate it or to put it yet into a worse condition it is evident that God would not have made Man nor permitted his fall which he had foreseen had he not had in view his Sons Incarnation in whom all things subsist and by whom the Universe receives a Beauty Perfection and Greatness worthy the Wisdom and Power of its Author We may then consider that Man after his Sin is without a Restorer but under expectation of one If we consider him without a Restorer we see clearly that he can have no Society with God that he cannot have the least power in himself to draw near unto God again that God must needs repulse and use him ill when he pretends to leave the Body to unite himself to him That is to say that Man after Sin must lose the power of freeing himself from sensible Impressions and Motions of Concupiscence Moreover he ought to be annihilated for the reasons abovesaid But he expects a Restorer and if we consider him under that expectation it is plain he must subsist together with his Posterity out of which the said Restorer is to come and therefore it is necessary that Man after his fall should still retain the power of moving diversly all those parts of his Body whose motions may be useful towards his preservation It is true Men continually abuse that Power they have
of producing certain Motions and that that Power for instance they have to move their Tongue several ways occasions an infinite number of Evils But then it is evident that this Power is absolutely necessary to maintain Society to ease one another in the wants of this present Life and to be Instructed in that Religion which gives the hopes of that Redeemer for whose sake the World subsists If we carefully examine those Motions which we produce in our selves and in what part of our Body we can produce them we shall find clearly that God has left us no more Power over our Body than what is necessary to preserve our Life and maintain Civil Society For instance the Beating of the Heart the Dilatation of the Diaphragme the Peristaltick Motion of the Bowels the Circulation of the Spirits and Blood and divers Motions of the Nerves in our Passions are produced in us without staying for Orders from the Soul As they must needs be partly the same on the same Occasions nothing obliges God to submit them now to the Will of Men But whereas the Motions of the Muscles which serve to stir the Tongue the Arms and Legs must change every moment according to the almost infinite diversity of the Good or Ill Objects which surround us it was necessary those Motions should depend on the Will of Men. We must observe that God always Acts by the most simple Means and that the Laws of Nature must be general and therefore having given us the Power to move our Arm and Tongue he must not take away that Power from us to strike a Man unjustly or to Calumniate him For if our Natural Faculties did depend on our Designs there would be no Uniformity nor certain Rule in the Laws of Nature which nevertheless must be very plain and general to be suitable to the Wisdom of God and conformable to Order Insomuch that God in pursuance of his Decrees chooses rather to perform the Materiality of Sin as the Divines say or to serve the Injustice of Men as one of his Prophets says than by changing his Will to put a stop to the disorder of Sinners But he reserves his Vengeance for the unworthy treatment he meets with until he may be allow'd to do it without acting against the Immutability of his Degrees that is when Death having corrupted the Body of the Voluptuous God will lye no longer under the necessity he has impos'd upon himself of giving them Sensations and Thoughts relating thereunto Objection against the Eleventh and Twelfth Articles ORiginal Sin does not only make Man a Slave to his Body and subject to the motions of Concupiscence but likewise fills him with Spiritual Vices The Childs Body is not only corrupted before Baptism but its very Soul and all its Faculties are infected by Sin Though the Rebellion of the Body is the chief cause of some gross Vices as Intemperance and Incontinency yet it does not occasion Vices that are purely Spiritual such as Pride and Envy So that Original Sin is something very different from the Concupiscence wherewith we are Born and is probably the privation of Grace or of Original Justice Answer I own that Children are depriv'd of Original Righteousness and I prove it when I show they are not born Just and that God hates them For in my Opinion it is impossible to give a clearer Idea of Justicâ— and of Righteousness than in saying that the Will is upright when it loves God and that it is irregular when it is turn'd towards the Body But if by Original Justice or Grace you mean certain or unknown Qualifications like unto those which 'tis said God had infus'd into the Soul of the first Man to adorn it and to render it agreeable in his sight it is also evident that the privation of this Justice is not Original Sin for properly speaking that Privation cannot be transmitted If Children have nor those Qualifications it is because God does not give 'em to them And if God does not give 'em it is because they are unworthy of it 'T is then that unworthiness which is transmitted and which is the cause of the privation of Original Justice Therefore 't is that unworthiness which properly speaking is Original Sin Now this unworthiness which consists as I have shown in this that the Inclinations of Children are actually corrupted that their Heart is turn'd towards Bodies and Loves them this I say is really in them It is not the Imputation of their Fathers Sin they are actually in disorder So those that are justify'd by Jesus Christ of which Adam was the Figure are not justify'd by Imputation They are actually restor'd into Order by an inward Justice different from that of Jesus Christ tho' it is only he that has merited it for them The Soul has but two Natural or Essential Relations the one to God the other to its Body Now it is evident that the Relation or Union it has with God can neither corrupt it or make it vicious Therefore it is only so in the moment of its Creation by the Relation it has to its Body So that it is necessary to say either that Pride and the other Vices which are call'd Spiritual may be Communicated by the Body or that Children are not liable to them at the moment of their Birth I say at the moment of their Birth for I do not deny but those ill habits are easily acquir'd Yet pure Intelligences have no other relation then to God and that in the moment of their Creation they were subject to no Vice yet they are fallen into Disorder but 't is only by their having made an ill use of their Liberty and Children have made no use of it for Original Sin is not free But I am of Opinion that those are mistaken who fancy the Rebellion of the Body only occasions gross Vices as Intemperance and Incontinency and not those which are call'd Spiritual as Pride and Envy And I am perswaded that there is such a Correspondence between the dispositions of our Brain and those of our Soul that perhaps the Soul has no ill habit but what derives its Principle from the Body Saint Paul in divers places calls Law Wisdom Desires and the Works of the Flesh whatever is contrary to the Law of the Spirit he does not mention Spiritual Vices He places among the Works of the Flesh Idolatry Heresies Dissentions and many other Vices which are call'd Spiritual According to his Doctrine we follow the motions of the Flesh in being guilty of Vain-glory Gal. c. 5. Passion and Envy Finally it appears by the Expressions of that Apostle that all Sins proceed from the Flesh not that the Flesh commits them or that the Spirit of Man without Grace or the Spirit of Jesus Christ does that which is good but because the Flesh acts upon the Mind of Man in such a manner that it does no Evil which the Flesh does not sollicit Rom. c. 7. St. Paul
credit to the testimony of our Senses or of some Men who dare speak to us as our Masters Experience whatever Men may say does not countenance Prejudices For our Senses as well as our Masters according to the Flesh are only occasional causes of the instruction which the Eternal Wisdom gives us in the most secret part of our Reason But whereas that Wisdom teaches us by an operation which is no wise sensible we fancy that it is our Eyes or the Worlds of those who strike the Air at our Ears which produce that Light or pronounce that intelligible Voice which instructs us 'T is for that Reason as I have said elsewhere that Jesus Christ was not only satisfied with instructing us after an intelligible manner by his Divinity he thought fit also to instruct us after a sensible one by his Humanity He would show us that he was our Master in all things And because we cannot easily look within our selves to consult him as Eternal Truth Immutable Order and Intelligible Light he has made Truth sensible by his Words Order lovely by his Example Light visible by a Body which diminishes the splendour of it and yet we are still so ingrateful so injust so stupid and sensless as to look not only upon other Men as our Masters contrary to his express prohibition but perhaps even upon the most despicable and vile Bodies SECOND OBJECTION The Soul being more perfect than Bodies why should it not contain that in it self which represents them Why should not the Idea of Extension be one of its Modifications God only acts in it and modifies it We grant it But why should it see Bodies in God if it can see them in its own substance It is not material it is true But God though a pure Spirit sees Bodies in himself Why then should not the Soul see them in beholding it self though it be Spiritual ANSWER Do we not see that there is this difference between God and the Soul of Man that God is an Unlimited Universal and Infinite Being and that the Soul is a particular Species of Being 'T is one of the Properties of Infinity to be at once one and all things composed as it were of an Infinity of Perfections and so simple that every Perfection it possesses includes all others without any real distinction for as every Divine Perfection is Infinite it constitutes the whole Divine Being But the Soul being a Limited Being it cannot have Extension in it self without becoming Material Therefore God includes in himself all Bodies after an intelligible manner He sees their Essences or Ideas in his Wisdom and their Existence in his Love or in his Will It is necessary to say so since God made Bodies and knows what he has made even before any thing was made But the Soul cannot see that within it self which it does not include Moreover it cannot clearly see that which it does include it can only feel it confusedly But to explain this The Soul does not include intelligible Extension as one of its manners of Being because Extension is not a manner of Being it is really a Being We conceive Extension alone or without thinking on any thing else but we cannot conceive manners of Being without perceiving the Subject or Being whereof they are the manners We perceive that Extension without thinking on our Mind besides we cannot conceive Extension can be a Modification of ones Mind Extension being limited makes some figure and the limits of the Mind cannot be figured Extension having parts may be divided at least in some sense and we see nothing in the Soul that is divisible Therefore Extension which we see is not a manner pf the Minds Being and therefore cannot see it in it self How is it possible to see in one kind of Being all sorts of Beings and in one particular and finite Being a Triangle in general and an infinite number of Triangles For in fine the Soul perceives a Triangle or a Circle in general though it implyes a contradiction that the Soul could have a Modification in general The Sensations of Colour which the Soul ascribes to Figures make them particular because none of the Modifications of a particular Being can be general Certainly we may affirm what we conceive clearly We clearly conceive that Extension which we see is a thing distinct from us Therefore we may say that Extension is no Modification of our Being and it is really something that is distinct from us For we must observe that the Sun for instance which we see is not that which we behold The Sun and whatever is in the material World is not visible in it self I have proved it elsewhere The Soul cannot see the Sun to which it is immediately united Now we clearly see and plainly feel that the Sun is something distinct from us Therefore we speak against our Knowledge and our Conscience when we say that the Soul sees all Bodies which surround it in its own Modifications Pleasure Pain Taste Heat Colour all our Sensations and Passions are Modifications of our Soul But though they are so do we know them clearly Can we compare Heat with Taste Odour with Colour Can we distinguish the affinity there is between Red and Green and even between Green and Green It is not so with Figures we compare them one with another we exactly know their proportions we precisely perceive that the Square of the Diagonal of a Square is double to that Square What affinity can there be between those intelligible Figures which are very clear Ideas and the Modifications of our Soul which are only confused Sensations And why should we pretend that those intelligible Figures cannot be perceived by the Soul unless they are Modifications of it since the Soul knows nothing of what happens to it by clear Ideas but only by Conscience or Internal Sensation as I have proved elsewhere and shall prove it again in the following Explanation If we could only see the Figure of Bodies in our selves they would on the contrary be unintelligible to us for we know not our selves We are only darkness to our selves and must look out of our selves to see our selves and we shall never know what we are until we consider our selves in him who is our Light and in whom all things become Light For it is only in God that the most material Beings are perfectly intelligible but out of him the most Spiritual Substances become absolutely invisible The Idea of Extension which we see in God is very clear But as we do not see the Idea of our Soul in God we feel indeed that we are and what we actually have But it is impossible for us to discover what we are or any of the Modifications whereof we are capable THIRD OBJECTION There is nothing in God that is moveable there is nothing in him that is Figured if there be a Sun in the intelligible World that Sun is always equal to it self and the visible Sun appears
could not by a simple view discover if those qualities belonged to the Soul We imagine that Pain is in the Body and that is the reason we suffer it and that Colour is diffused through the surface of Objects although we very clearly conceive that these Objects are distinct from the Soul To be well assured whether sensible qualities are or are not modifications of the Mind we never consult this pretended Idea of the Soul But on the contrary the Cartesians themselves consult the Idea of Extension and argue after this manner Heat Pain and Colour cannot be the modifications of Extension for Extension is only capable of different Figures and different Motions And there is but two kinds of Beings that of Spirits and that of Bodies therefore Pain Heat Colour and all other sensible qualities belong to the Mind Since we are obliged to consult the Idea we have of Extension to discover whether or no sensible qualities are modifications of the Soul is it not evident that we have no clear Idea of the Soul Else we should never bethink our selves of going so far about When a Philosopher would discover whether Roundness belongs to Extension does he consult the Idea of his Soul or any other Idea than that of Extension Does he not clearly see in the Idea of Extension it self that Roundness is a modification of it And would it not be extravagant if he should argue after this manner to explain it that there is only two kinds of Beings that of Spirits and that of Bodies but Roundness is not a modification of a Spirit therefore 't is a modification of a Body We discover then by one simple view without reasoning by a bare application of the Mind to the Idea of Extension that Roundness and all other Figures whatever are modifications which belong to the Body and that Pleasure Pain Heat and all other sensible qualities are not modifications thereof No Question can be proposed about what does or does not belong to Extension which cannot be answered easily quickly and boldly by the consideration only of the Idea which represents it All Men are agreed upon what ought to be received about this subject For those who say that Matter can think don't imagine it has this faculty because it is extended since they acknowledge that Extension taken precisely as such cannot think But we are not so well agreed about what we ought to believe of the Soul and its modifications There are some who think Pain Heat or Colour does not so much as appertain to it 'T would seem very ridiculous amongst some Cartesians to say the Soul actually becomes Blew Red or Yellow or receives a tincture of the Colours of the Rainbow whilest it contemplates thereon There are many persons who doubt and still more who don't believe that the Soul becomes actually stinking when we smell Carrion and that the taste of Sugar Pepper and Salt are properties belonging to it Where is then the clear Idea of the Soul that the Cartesians may consult it and agree all upon the subject where Colours Taste Odours c. ought to center Yet if the Cartesians were agreed upon this point we could not conclude from thence that they would have a clear Idea of the Soul for if they should at last grant that 't is that which is actually Green or Red when we see Green or Red yet would it be only by long and tedious reasonings that they could conclude it They would never discover it by a simple view nor ever find it by consulting the pretended Idea of the Soul but rather by considering that of the Body They only affirm that sensible qualities appertain to the Soul because they belong not to Extension whereof they have a clear Idea nor could they ever otherwise convince those of it who having weak Minds are incapable of complicated Perceptions or Arguments or rather those who cannot stay long on the clear Idea of the Body but confound all things There will be always Peasants Women and Children and perhaps even some Learned Men who will doubt of it But Women and Children Learned and Ignorant the most Ingenious and most Stupid plainly see by the Idea they have of Extension that 't is capable of all manner of Figures And as clearly apprehend that Extension is not capable of Pain Taste Smell nor any Sensation when they faithfully and with application consult only the Idea which represents it for the Idea which represents Extension includes no sensible quality It is true they may doubt whether Bodies are or are not capable of Sensation or of receiving any sensible quality But then by the Body they mean something else besides Extension and have no clear Idea of the Body taken in this sense But when Des Cartes or the Cartesians to whom I speak affirm that they know the Soul better than the Body only understand Extension by the Body then how can they maintain that we have a clearer knowledge of the Nature of the Soul than we have of the Body since the Idea of Body or Extension is so clear that all the World agrees on what it includes and that of the Soul so confused that the Cartesians themselves every day dispute whether the modifications of Colour belong to it We know say these Philosophers according to Des Cartes the nature of a substance so much the more distinctly as we know more of its Attributes Now there is nothing whereof we know so many Attributes as of our Mind because as many as we discover in any thing else we may place to the account of the Mind since it knows them And therefore its Nature is more known than that of any other thing But who is there that don't see a great deal of difference betwixt knowing by a clear Idea and knowing by Conscience When I know that 2 times 2 are 4 I know it very clearly but I don 't clearly know what it is in me that knows it It is true I feel that I know it by Conscience or inward Sensation but I have not so clear an Idea of it as I have of Numbers whose relations I can clearly discover I can reckon three properties in my Mind that of knowing that 2 times 2 are 4 that of knowing that 3 times 3 are 9 and that of knowing that 4 times 4 are 16. And if you will these three properties shall be different from one another and thus I could count an infinite number of properties in my self but I deny that we clearly know the Nature of things which we cannot thus reckon We may say that we have the clear idea of a Being and are acquainted with its Nature when we can compare it with others of which we also have a clear Idea or at least when we can compare the modifications whereof it is capable amongst themselves We have clear Ideas of Numbers and the parts of Extension because we can compare these things together As we may compare 2 with 4 4 with 16
and each number with any other so we may compare a Square with a Triangle a Circle with an Ellipsis a Square and a Triangle with any other Square and Triangle and by this means clearly discover the relations which these Figures and Numbers have to one another But we cannot compare our Mind with other Beings to discover clearly any relation of them nor can we so much as compare its modifications together We can never clearly discover the relations between Pleasure and Pain Heat and Colour or to speak only of the modifications of the same kind we cannot exactly determine the relations between Green and Red Yellow and Purple nor even between Purple and Purple We see plainly that one is darker or brighter than the other yet do we not evidently know either how much or what it is to be darker or brighter We have therefore no clear Idea of the Soul or its modifications and although I see or feel Colours Tasts Odours I may say as I have before that I know them not by a clear Idea since I cannot clearly discover their relations 'T is true I can discover the exact relation between Sounds as for instance that the Octave is double a fifth as 3 to 2 a fourth as 4 to 3. but I cannot know these proportions by the sensations I have of ' em If I know the Octave is double 't is because I have learnt by experience that the same string sounds an Octave when having struck it whole we strike it again after having divided it into two equal parts or that I know the number of vibrations is double in equal times or something of the like nature and this because the tremblings of the air the vibration of the string and even the string it self are such things as we may compare by clear Ideas and that we distinctly know the relations between the string and its parts as also between the swiftness of different vibrations But we cannot compare Sounds amongst themselves or as they are sensible Qualities and Modifications of the Soul nor this way are their proportions or relations to be discovered And although Musicians very well distinguish the different concords 't is not because they distinguish the proportions of them by clear Ideas They judge of different Sounds only by the Ear Reason has nothing to do in it But we cannot say that the Ear judges by a clear Idea or otherwise than by sensation Musicians therefore have no clear Idea of Sounds as they are Sensations and Modifications of the Soul and consequently we conceive neither the Soul nor its Modifications by a clear Idea but only by Conscience or inward Sensation Nay what is more we do not so much as know wherein consist those Dispositions of the Soul which make it more ready to act and represent Objects to it self we cannot so much as discover in what these Dispositions can consist Nor can we by Reason possitively affirm whether the Soul alone separated from the Body or considered without relation to the Body is capable of Habits and Memory But how could we be ignorant of these things if the Nature of the Soul were better known to us than that of the Body Without any difficulty we perceive wherein consists the facility that the Animal Spirits have to flow into the Nerves they have been many times in or at least we easily discover that whilst the Conduits of the Nerves are enlarged and their Fibres recumbent after a certain manner the Spirits can easily insinuate themselves But what can we conceive to be capable of encreasing the facility the Soul has to act or think For my part I confess I am wholly ignorant of it nor can I instruct my self in it although I have a very lively sensation of the facility whereby it excites certain thoughts in me And if I had no particular Reasons which inclined me to believe that I really have such Dispositions although I know them not in me I should conclude that there was neither Habit nor Spiritual Memory in my Soul But in fine since we have any doubt about it it is a certain mark we are not so well acquainted with it as is pretended for Doubts can never attend Evidence and clear Ideas It is certain that the most understanding Man does not evidently know Eccl. 9.1 whether he deserves Love or Hatred as the Wise-man speaks Sed neque meipsum judico Nihil enim mihi conscius sum sed non in hoc justificatus sum qui autem judicat me Dominus est 1 Cor. 4.4 John 13.37 The inward sensation we have of our selves can give us no assurance of it St. Paul says indeed his Conscience reproached him with nothing yet for all that he does not say he is justified On the contrary he affirms that justifies him not and that he durst not judge himself because he who judges is the Lord. But as we have a clear Idea of Order if we had as clear a one of the Soul by the inward sensation we have of our selves we should evidently know if it were conformable to order we should discover whether we were righteous or not and even exactly discern all its inward dispositions to good or evil whenever we had any sensation of them And if we could know our selves as we are we should not be so subject to presumption 'T is also very probable that then St. Peter would not have said to his Master whom he so soon after denied Why can I not follow thee now I will lay down my life for thy sake Animam meam pro te ponam For having an inward sensation of his Power and Good Will he would have been able evidently to have seen whether he had had a sufficient Strength and Courage in himself to have overcome death or rather the insults of a silly Maid and two or three other Servants If the Nature of the Soul is more known than that of any thing else and the Idea we have of it as clear as that we have of the Body I only demand what is the reason that so many Men confound them together Is it possible to confound two clear Ideas which are entirely different Let us do Justice to all the World Those who are not of our Opinion are as rational as we they have the same Idea of things and partake of the same Reason Why therefore do they confound what we distinguish Do they ever on other occasions confound such Things as they have clear Ideas of Have they ever confounded two different Numbers Or ever taken a Square for a Circle And yet the Soul differs more from the Body than a Square does from a Circle for they are two Substances which agree in nothings and still they confound them The reason must be then because there is some difficulty in discovering their difference and which cannot be done by a simple view but some Arguments must be used to prove that the one is not the other Wherefore the
God makes him will and continually inclines him towards Good and gives him all the Ideas and Sensations which determine him I also acknowledge that Man of himself commits sin But I deny that in that he does any thing for Sin Error and even Concupiscence are nothing Which Point I have sufficiently cleared in the First Explanation Man wills but his Determinations are weak in themselves they produce nothing nor hinder God from doing all Things for it is even he who causes our Wills in us by the impression he gives us towards God Man of himself is only capable of Errour and Sin which are nothing There is a great deal of difference between our Minds and the Bodies which are about us Our Mind in one sense wills Nemo habet de suo nisi mendacium peccatum Conc. Araus 2. Can. 22. acts and determines I grant it Of which we are convinced by the inward sensation we have of our selves To deny our Liberty would be to take from us future rewards and punishments for without Liberty there is neither good nor bad Actions So that then Religion would be an Illusion and a Fancy But that Bodies have any power to Act is what we do not clearly see but appears incomprehensible and is also what we deny when we reject Second Causes Even the Mind does not act so much as we imagine I know that I Will and Will freely I have no reason to doubt of it which is stronger than that inward sensation I have of my self I likewise don't deny this But I deny that my Will is the True Cause of the Motion of my Arm the Ideas of my Mind and other Things which attend my Determinations for I see no relation between Things which differ so much On the contrary I clearly discover that there can be no relation between the Will I have to move my Arm According to the sense discussed in the Chapter upon which this Explanation is made and between the Agitation of some little Bodies of which I neither know the Motion nor Figure which make choice of certain Nervous passages amongst a Million of others I know not to cause that Motion in me which I wish by an infinite Number of Motions I wish not I deny that my Will produces my Ideas in me for I do not so much as see how it could produce them For since my Will cannot Act or Will without knowing it supposes my Ideas but does not make them Nay I do not so much as precisely know what an Idea is I cannot tell whether they are produced out of nothing or become nothing again as soon as we cease to behold them I speak according to the Opinion of some persons I produce they will tell me my Ideas by the Faculty God hath given me of Thinking And move my Arm because of the Union God has placed between my Mind and Body But Faculty and Vnion are Logical Terms rambling and indeterminate Words There is no Being whatever nor Manner of Being which is either a Faculty or an Vnion Therefore these Terms must be explained If they will say That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods Willing that when I wish my Arm should be moved the Animal Spirits are then dispersed into the Muscles of it to move it according to my desire I clearly understand this Explanation and receive it But it is the same Thing which I maintain For if my Will determine that of God it is evident my Arm will be moved not by my Will which is impotent in it self but by that of Gods which can never fail of its effect I always mean a true and efficacious power But if it be said That the Union of my Mind with my Body consists in Gods having given me the power to move my Arm as he has given my Body the power of feeling pleasure and pain that I might be assiduous about my Body and interest my self in its preservation Certainly by this we should suppose the Matter in dispute and make a Circle on 't We have no clear Idea of this power that the Soul has over the Body nor of that the Body has over the Soul Nor very well know what we say when we positively affirm it Prejudice first gave rise to this Opinion we believed it from Infants as soon as we were capable of sensation But the Understanding Reason and Reflection have no share in it as sufficiently appears by what I have said in the Search after Truth But they will say I know by the inward sensation of my Action that I truly have this power So that I shall not be deceived in believing it To which I Answer When we move our Arm we have an inward sensation of the Actual Will whereby we move it and are not mistaken when we believe we have this Will And further We have an inward sensation of a certain Effort which accompanies this Will and we ought likewise to believe that we make this Effort In short I mean that we have an inward sensation that the Arm is moved in the very instant of the Effort Which supposed I consent to what is said That the Motion of the Arm is performed in the same instant we feel this Endeavour or that we have a practical Will to move it It appears evident to me that the mind does not so much as know by inward sensation or Conscience the Motion of the Arm which it animates It knowes by Conscience only what it feels or thinks We know the sense we have of the Motion of our Arm by inward Sensation or Conscience But Conscience does not inform us of the Motion of our Arm or the pain we suffer in it any more than the Colours we see upon Objects Or if this will not be granted I say that inward sensation is not infallible for Errour is often found in Complex Sensation as has been shewed in the First Booke of the Search after Truth But I deny that this Effort which is only a Modification or Sensation of the Soul given us to make us apprehend our Weakness and which affords us but an obscure and weak discovery of our power should be capable of moving or determining the Animal Spirits I deny that there is any relation between our Thoughts and the Motions of Matter or that the Soul has the least knowledge of the Animal Spirits it makes use of to move the Body it Animates In fine although the Soul should exactly know the Animal Spirits and should be capable of Moving them or determining their Motion I deny that with all this advantage it could be capable of making choice of those Nervous Canals of which she is wholly ignorant so as to impel the Spirits into them that thereby the Body might be moved with that quickness exactness and strength as we observe in those who are least acquainted with the Structure of their Bodies For even supposing our Wills were truly the Moving power of
Bodies although it appears incomprehensible how could we conceive that the Soul could move the Body The Arm for Instance is only moved by means of the dilatation or contraction of some of the Muscles which compose it And that the Motion which the Soul impresses on the Spirits that are in the Brain may be communicated to those in the Nerves and these to others which are in the Muscles of the Arms it 's requisite that the Determinations of the Soul should be multiplied or changed in proportion to the almost infinite Occurrences or Shocks which would be made by the little Bodies which constitute the Spirits But this cannot be conceived without admitting in the Soul an infinite number of Wills at the least Motion of the Body since to move it an infinite number of communications of Motions are necessary For the Soul being but a particular Cause and which cannot exactly know either the greatness or number of an infinite Variety of little Bodies which mutually strike each other when the Spirits are dispersed into the Muscles it could neither establish a general Law for the communication of the Motions of these Spirits nor exactly follow it if it were established So that it is plain the Soul could not move its Arm although it had the power of determining the Motion of the Animal Spirits These Things are too clear for us to stand any longer upon them It is the same thing with our Faculty of Thinking By inward sensation we know that we would think on something and make some effort to that end and that in the instant of our Desire and Endeavour the Idea of this Thing presents it self to the Mind But we do not discover by inward sensation that our Will or Endeavour produces our Idea nor does Reason tell us it can do it It is through Prejudice that we are perswaded that our Desires cause our Ideas whilst we prove an hundred times a day that the latter follows or attends the former As God and his Operations have nothing sensible in them and as we do not feel any thing else but our Desires which precede the presence of our Ideas we think there can be no other Cause of them But if we observe the Matter more closely we shall discover we have no power in our selves to produce them For neither Reason nor the inward sensation we have of our selves give us any information of it I do not think I am obliged to relate all the other Proofs that are made use of by these Defenders of the Efficacy of Second Causes because they appear so weak that it might be imagined I only intended to render them ridiculous and if I should answer them seriously I should become ridiculous my self An Author for Instance asserts very seriously in favour of his Opinion That Created Beings are True Material Formal Final Causes and why then should they not also be Efficient or Efficacious Causes I believe I should not very well satisfie the World if in Answer to the Demand of this Author I should stay to explain so gross an Equivocation and show the difference between an Efficacious Cause and that which some Philosophers have been pleased to call a Material one So that I shall omit some of the like Proofs to come to those they have taken from the Holy Scripture The Seventh Proof Those who maintain the Efficacy of Second Causes commonly bring the following passages to support their Opinion Let the Earth bring forth Grass Gen. 1. Let the Waters bring forth the moving Creatures that hath life and Fowl that may fly c. Therefore the Earth and the Water have from the Word of God received Power to produce Plants and Animals After which God commands the Fowls and the Fish to multiply Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Waters in the Seas and let Fowl multiply in the Earth Therefore he has given them Power to beget their like JESVS CHRIST in the Fourth Chapter of St. Mark sayes That the Seed which falls on good ground shall bring forth an hundred fold and that the Earth bringeth forth fruits of her self first the blade then the ear and afterwards the full corn Lastly it is also written in the Book of Wisdom That the Fire had as it were forgotten the Power it had of burning in favour of the People of God 'T is therefore confirmed by the Old and New Testament that Second Causes have a Power to act ANSWER I Answer That in the Holy Scripture there is also many passages which attribute to God the pretended Efficacy of Second Causes of which these are some Ego sum Dominus faciens OMNIA extendens Coelos SOLVS stabiliens terram NVLLVS mecum Isa 44.24 Manus tuae fecerunt me plasmaverunt me TOTVM in circuitu Job 10.8 Nescio qualiter in utero meo apparuistis singulorum membra NON EGO IPSA COMPEGI sed enim Mundi Creator qui hominis formavit nativitatem c. Mac. l. 2. c. 7.22 23. Cum ipse DEVS dat omnibus vitam inspirationem omnia Acts 17.25 Producens foenum jumentis herbam servituti hominum ut educas panem de terrâ Psal 103. 48. There is an infinite number of the like passages but these may suffice When an Author seems to contradict himself and Natural Equity or some stronger Reason obliges us to reconcile him to himself It seems to me that we have an infallible Rule to discover his true Opinion since we need but observe when he speaks according to his own Understanding and when in compliance with the common Opinion When a Man speaks like the rest of the World it is not alwayes a certain sign he is of their Opinion But when he speaks positively contrary to what we are accustomed to say although he should say it but once we have a great deal of Reason to believe 't is what he thinks provided we know he speaks seriously and having first well considered it For instance An Author speaking of the Properties of Animals if he should in an hundred places say that Beasts feel that Dogs know their Master love and fear him and should only in two or three places say Beasts are insensible and Dogs uncapable of knowing loving or fearing any thing How shall we reconcile this Author who appears to contradict himself Must we not collect all the passages for and against it and judge of his Opinion by the greatest number If so I don't believe there is any Man to whom for example we may attribute this Opinion that Animals have no Souls For the Cartesians themselves often say that a Dog feels when he is beaten and 't is very rarely that they deny him feeling And although I have incountered an infinite number of prejudices in this Book we may draw many passages from thence whereby if this Rule I have explained be received we may prove that I have established them all and even that I hold the Opinion of the Efficacy of
Wills of Spirits For First According to the General Laws of the Communication of Motions the invisible Bodies which surround the visible ones by their divers Motions produce all these various Effects the Cause of which does not appear to us Secondly According to the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body when Bodies which are about us Act upon ours they produce in our Souls an infinite variety of Sensations Ideas and Passions Thirdly Our Mind produces by its Wills a great many different Ideas in it self For it is our Wills which apply and modifie our Minds as Natural Causes whose Efficacy nevertheless proceeds from the Laws which God has Established Lastly When our Mind Acts upon our Body many Changes are therein produced by vertue of the Laws of its Union with it And by the means of our Body it also produces in those about it a great Number of Changes by vertue of the Laws of the Communication of Motions Thus all Natural Effects have no other Natural or Occasional Cause than the Motions of Bodies and Wills of Spirits which will easily be granted by any who will use but a little application supposing he is not already prepossessed by such as know not what they say who instantly imagine Beings which they have no clear Idea of and pretend to explain Things they understand not by what is absolutely incomprehensible So that God executing by his Concourse or rather by his Efficacious Will whatever the Motions of Bodies or Determinations of Spirits perform as Natural or Occasional Causes it 's plain God does every Thing by the same Action of the Creature Not that Creatures of themselves have any Efficacious Action but because the Power of God is in some sort communicated to them by the Natural Laws which God has Established in their favour This is all that I can say to reconcile my Thoughts with the Opinion of those Divines who maintain the necessity of immediate Concourse and that God does All in all Things by the same Action as that of the Creatures For as to the rest of the Divines I believe their Opinions are indesensible every way and chiefly that of Durandus See Durand in 2. Dist 1. Qu. 5. Dist 37. de Genesi ad Litteram l. 5. c. 20. and some Ancients whom St. Austin refutes who absolutely denyed the necessity of Concourse and would have Second Causes do every Thing by a Power which God had given them at the Creation For although this Opinion be less perplexed than that of the other Divines yet it appears to me so opposite to Scripture and conformable to Prejudices to say no more that I believe it cannot be maintained I confess that the Schoolmen In 4. Sent. Dist 1. q. De aliaco ibid. who say the immediate Concourse of God is the same Action as that of the Creatures do not absolutely understand it according to my Explanation And except Biel and Cardinal D' Ailly all those I have read think that the Efficacy which produces Effects proceeds from the Second Cause as well as the First But as I determined with my self not to say any thing but what I conceive clearly and always take that Side which best agrees with Religion I believe it will not be taken amiss if I forsake an Opinion which to many persons appears so much the more intricate as they endeavour more assiduously to apprehend it And since I have established another which agrees perfectly not only with Reason but also with the Holiness of Religion and Christian Morality 'T is a Truth I have already proved in the Chapter upon which I make these Reflection but it will be very proper for me to offer yet something more fully to Justifie what I have already said upon the present Question Reason and Religion convinces us than God would be loved and rever'd by his Creatures Loved as good and Rever'd as powerful Which is a Truth we cannot doubt of without impiety and folly To love God as he requires and deserves to be loved we must according to the First Command both of the Law and Gospel and even of Reason as I have elsewhere shown do it with all our strength or according to the utmost Capacity we have of Loving It is not enough to prefer him to all Things but we must also love him in all Things Else is not our Love so perfect as it ought to be l. 4. ch 1. nor do we give to God all the Love he has impressed upon us and that only for himself since all his Actions center in himself Likewise to render to God all the Reverence due to him it is not enough to adore him as the Soveraign Power and fear him more than any of his Creatures We must also fear and adore him in all his Creatures and all our Actions must tend towards him for Honour and Glory are due only to him Which is what God has commanded us in these Words Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo ex tota anima tua Deut. 6. ex tota fortitudine tua And in these Dominum Deum tuum timebis illi soli servies Thus the Philosophy which teaches us That the Efficacy of Second Causes is a Fiction of the Mind that the Nature of Aristotle and some other Philosophers is a Chimera that God only is strong and powerful enough not only to Act in our Souls but also to give the least Motion to Matter This Philosophy I say agrees perfectly with Religion the design of which is to unite us to God after the strictest manner We commonly love such Things only as are capable of doing us some good This Philosophy therefore only Authorises the Love of God and absolutely condemns the Love of every Thing else We ought to fear Nothing but what is able to do us some Evil This Philosophy therefore only permits us to fear God and positively forbids our fearing any Thing else So that it Justifies all the Motions of the Soul which are Just and Reasonable and condemns all those that are contrary to Reason and Religion For this Philosophy will never Justifie the Love of Riches the Desire of Greatness nor the Extravagance of Debauchery since the Love of the Body appears mad and ridiculous to the Principles established by this Philosophy 'T is an Undoubted Truth a Natural Opinion and even a common Notion that we ought to love the Cause of our Pleasure and love it in proportion to the Felicity it does or can make us enjoy It is not only Just but it is also very Necessary that the Cause of our Happiness should be the Object of our Love Thus following the Principles of this Philosophy we ought only to love God for it tells us that He alone is the True Cause of our Happiness that the Bodies which are about us cannot Act upon that which we Animate consequently much less upon our Minds 'T is not the Sun which enlightens us
air of my Face and firm posture of all the rest of my Body that my Philosophy makes me invulnerable Their Pride maintains their Courage but it does not hinder them from effectively suffering Pain with some inquietude nor prevent them from being Miserable Thus the union they have with their Body is not destroyed nor their pain dissipated but the union they have with other Men fortified by the desire of their esteem in some measure resists this other union they have with their own Bodies The sensible sight of those who look upon them and to whom they are united stays the course of the spirits which accompany pain and effaces the air that would be imprinted on their Countenance for if no body looked upon them this air of Constancy and freedom of Mind would immediately vanish Thus the Stoics only in some measure resist the union that they have with their Bodies by becoming greater Slaves to other Men to whom they are united by the passion of glory 'T is then a certain truth that all Men are united to all sensible things both by Nature and Concupiscence we sufficiently discover it by Experience although Reason seems to oppose it and almost all the actions of Men are sensible and demonstrative proofs of it Though this union is common to all Men yet it is not of an equal extension and power in all for it follows the knowledge of the Mind we may say we are not actually united to unknown Objects a Countryman in his Cottage does not interest himself in the glory of his Prince or Country but only in that of his own or Neighbouring Villages because his knowledge extends no farther The union we have to such sensible Objects as we have seen is stronger than that we have to those we have imagined and which we have only heard of 'T is by Sensation that we unite our selves more strictly to sensible things for Sensation produces much greater Traces in the Brain and excites a much more violent motion in the Spirits than the Imagination only This union is not so strong in those who continually oppose it that they may adhere to the goods of the Mind as in others who follow the motions of their Passions and permit themselves to be subjected to them for desire augments and fortifies this union In fine different Employs different Conditions as well as different Dispositions of Mind make a considerable difference in the sensible Union that Men have with Earthly Goods The great are united to many more things than others their slavery is farther extended A General of an Army is united to all his Soldiers because they all reverence him This slavery often creates valour and the desire of being esteemed of all those who look upon him often obliges him to sacrifice other more sensible and more reasonable desires to it It is the same with those that are in power or that are popular 'T is vanity often which animates their vertue because the love of glory is commonly stronger than the love of truth I speak here of the love of glory not as a simple inclination but as a passion because indeed this love may be sensible and it is often accompanied with very lively and violent emotions of the spirits Different Ages and Sexes are also the chief causes of the Passions of Men. Children do not love the same things as the adult and aged do or at least not with so much force and constancy Women are united only to their Family and Neighbourhood but Men to their whole Country 'T is their part to defend it they choose great Places Honours and Commands There is so great a variety in the Employments and Affairs of Men that it is impossible to express it The disposition of the Mind of a Married Man is not the same with one that is a Batchelor the care of his Family does often wholly take up his thoughts Monks have neither a Mind nor a Heart inclined like other Men nor even like other Ecclesiasticks they are united to fewer things but they are more strongly united to them We may thus speak in general of the different Conditions of Men but we cannot explain the little sensible engagements which are almost all of them different in each particular Person for it often enough happens that Men have particular engagements entirely opposite to those they ought to have in reference to their Condition But although we may in general terms express the different Characters of the Mind the different Inclinations of Men and Women old and young rich and poor learned and ignorant and in short of the different Sexes Ages and Employment Yet these things are too well known to those who live in the World and who reflect upon what they see to swell this Volume with them We need but open our Eyes to be agreeably and solidly instructed in these things For those who choose rather to read them in Greek than to learn them by any reflexion upon what passes before their Eyes I refer them to the Second Book of Aristotles Rhetorick which I believe is the best Piece of that Philosopher's because few things are there said that can deceive us thô he seldom proves what he advances It is then evident that this sensible Union of the Mind of Men with whatever has any relation to the preservation of their lives or the Society whereof they consider themselves as Members is different in different Persons since it is most extensive in those that have most knowledge are most noble have the highest Employments and greatest Imaginations and and that it is more strict and stronger in those who are most Sensible have the most lively Imagination and who most blindly follow the motions of their Passions It is very useful often to reflect upon the almost infinite Manners whereby Men are tied to sensible Objects and one of the best ways to become very knowing in these things is to study and observe our selves 'T is by the experience of what we feel in our selves that we are instructed in the knowledge of all the inclinations of other Men and of the Passions they are subject to But if to these Experiments we add the knowledge of their particular Engagements and that of the Judgments proper to each of the Passions of which we shall afterwards speak it may be we shall not have so much difficulty to guess at the greatest part of their Actions as Astronomers have to predict Eclipses For although Men are free it is very rare that they make a good use of their liberty against their natural inclinations and violent passions Before we end this Chapter we must farther remark that it is one of the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body that all the Inclinations of the Soul even of those it has for the goods that have no relation to the Body are accompanied with the emotions of the Animal Spirits which make these Inclinations sensible because Man not being a pure Spirit it
is impossible that he should have any inclination so pure as to have no mixture of any passion Thus the love of Truth Justice and of God himself is always accompanied with some Traces of the Brain which renders this knowledge more lively but commonly more confused It is true that very often we do not discover that our Imagination is a little employed at the same time we conceive an Abstracted Truth The reason is because these Truths have no Images or Traces instituted by Nature to represent them and all Traces which stir them up have no other relation to them but that of Mans Will or chance which has so placed them For Arithmeticians and even Algebraists who only consider Abstracted Things often make use of their Imaginations to keep their Minds fixt upon these Idea's Cyphers Alphabetical Letters and other Figures which they see or imagine are always joined to these Ideas although the Traces which are formed by these Characters have no relation to them and so can make them neither false nor confused And thus by a regulated use of Figures and Letters they discover the most difficult Truths which otherwise it would be impossible to find out The Idea's of things which can only be perceived by the pure Understanding may then be connected to the Traces of the Brain and the fight of Objects that we love hate and fear by a Natural Inclination may be accompanied with the motion of the Spirits It is plain that the thought of Eternity the fear of Hell the hopes or an Eternal Happiness although they be Objects that strike not the Senses yet may excite violent Passions in us So that we may say we are united after a sensible manner not only to all things that relate to the preservation of Life but also to Spiritual things to which the Mind is immediately united by it self It even happens very often that Faith Charity and Self-love make this union to Spiritual things stronger than that whereby we are joined to all sensible things The Souls of true Martyrs are more united to God than to their Bodies and those who die to maintain the truth of a false Religion sufficiently shew that the fear of Hell has more power over them than the fear of death has There is often so much heat and prejudice on both sides in Religious Wars and in the defence of Superstitions that we cannot doubt but there is some Passions in them and such a one as is stronger and much more constant than any other because it is built upon an appearance of Reason as well in those that are deceived as in others We are then by our Passions united to what ever appears to us to be a good or evil to the Mind as well as to what ever seems to be so to the Body There is nothing which we can discover to have any relation to us which is not capable of affecting us and amongst all the things that we know there is none that has not some relation to us We have always some interest even in the most abstracted Truths when we know them because at least there is that relation of knowledge between them and our Minds They are ours if I may so say by our knowledge We feel that they hurt us when we dispute them and if they hurt us it is certain that they agitate and disquiet us Thus the Passions have so vast a dominion and extension that it is impossible to conceive any thing in respect to them whereof we could be certain although all Men were exempt from their empire But let us now see what their Nature is and endeavour to discover all things they comprehend CHAP. III. A particular Explanation of all the changes that happen to the Body and Soul by means of the Passions WE may distinguish seven things in each of our Passions except in Admiration which also is but an imperfect Passion The first is the Judgment the Mind makes of an Object or rather the confused and distinct view of the relation this Object has to us The second is a new determination of the motion of the Will towards this Object supposing it be or appears to be a good Before this view the Natural Motion of the Soul either was intermixed viz. carried towards good in general or it was otherwise determined by the knowledge of some other particular Object But in that moment the Mind perceived the relation this new Object had to it this general Motion of the Will is forthwith determined conformably to what the Mind perceives The Soul draws near to this Object by its love that it may taste it and discover its good by the sensation of sweetness which the Author of Nature gives it as a Natural Recompence for its inclining to good It judged that this Object was a good by an abstracted Reason which affected it not but it remains convinced by the efficacy of Sensation and the more lively this Sensation is the stronger it unites to the good it seems to produce But if this particular Object be considered as evil or as capable of depriving us of any good no new determination happens to the Motion of our Will but only an augmentation of Motion towards the good opposite to this Object which appears an evil which augmentation is so much the greater as the appearing Evil is more to be feared For indeed we hate only because we love and an External Evil is judged as such only because it deprives us of some good Thus Evil being considered as the privation of Good to fly Evil is but to fly the privation of Good which is the same thing as to incline towards good There happens no new determination then in the natural motion of the Will at the meeting with an Object which displeases us but only a sensation of pain disgust or bitterness that the Author of Nature has imprinted in the Soul as a natural pain because it is deprived of good Reason alone would not be sufficient to carry us to it there must also be stir it up Before Sin sensation was no pain but only a warning because as I have already said Adam might when he would stop the motion of the Animal Spirits which would cause pain so that if he felt pain 't was because he willed it as a good or rather he felt it not because he would not feel it So that in all the Passions all the motions of the Soul towards good are only motions of love But because we are touched by divers Sensations according to the different circumstances which accompany the prospect of the good and motion of the Soul towards it we confound the Sensations with the emotions of the Soul and we imagine as many different motions in the Passions as there are different Sensations Now we must here observe that Pain is a real and true Evil and that it is no more the privation of Pleasure than Pleasure is the privation of Pain for there is a
only true amongst Christians and was absolutely false in the Mouth of Seneca and Epicurus and in short of all the Philosophers who appeared the most reasonable because the Yoke of JESVS CHRIST is only sweet to those that belong to him and his Burthen only seems light to us when his Grace supports us under it CHAP. IV. That the Pleasures and Motions of the Passions engage us in Errors at the sight of Good and therefore we ought continually to resist them With the manner how to oppose Libertinism WHatsoever we have already in general explained about the qualities and effect of the Passions shews them not to be free they take up their residence in our Breasts without our leave and there is nothing but the consent of our Will which absolutely depends upon us The prospect of Good is naturally followed with a Motion and Sensation of Love a Shaking of the Brain and Motion of the Spirits a new Emotion of the Soul which increases the first Motion of Love and a new Sensation of the Soul which augments the first Sensation of Love and in fine a Sensation of Complacency which recompences the Soul for the Bodies being in a state convenient for it All these things pass in the Soul and Body Naturally and Mechanically that is without their having any part in it since our consent only truly depends upon us This Consent must also be regulated preserved and kept free notwithstanding all the endeavours of our Passions to the contrary 'T is to God alone that it must submit its liberty yielding only to the Voice of the Author of Nature Internal Evidence and to the secret reproaches of Reason We should never consent but when we clearly see we should make an ill use of our liberty if we refused it And this is the chief Rule that must be observed to avoid Error 'T is God only who evidently shews us that we must submit to what ever he requires to him alone therefore we must wholly devote our selves There is no Evidence in the Alurements and Caresses the Frights and Menaces we receive from our Passions They are only confused and obscure Sensations to which we must never give ear We must stay till these false lights of the Passions are dissipated and wait for a purer light to guide us till God himself speaks to us We must enter into our selves and there enquire for him that never leaves us but continually instructs us He speaks low but his Voice is distinct he illuminates but little yet his light is pure Rather his Voice is as strong as 't is distinct and his Light as bright and active as 't is pure But our Passions keep us always out of our selves and by their noise and darkness hinder us from being instructed by his Voice and illuminated by his Light He even speaks to those who ask nothing of him and those whose Passions have put them at the greatest distance from him do nevertheless now and then hear some of his Words But they are such Words as are strong threatning and terrible and pierce more than a two edged Sword which penetrates the most secret Recesses of the Soul and discerns the thoughts and motions of the Heart Heb. 4.12 13. For all things are open before his Eyes and he cannot behold the irregularity of Sinners without making them inwardly to feel his severe Reproaches We ought therefore to enter into our selves to approach near him to desire him to inform us of what we would know to hearken to and obey him For if we always give ear to him we should never be deceiv'd and by continually Obeying him we should free our selves from the miseries and inconstancies of our Passions to which Sin has subjected us We must not think with some pretended Wits whom the pride of their Passions have reduced to the condition of Beasts and who having so long contemned the Law of God seem at last to know no other than that of their infamous Passions We ought not I say like those Men that are guided merely by Flesh and Blood to imagine that in following the motions of our Passions and secret desires of our own Hearts we shou'd follow God and obey the voice of the Author of Nature for this would be the utmost blindness and according to St. Paul Rom. 1. the temporal punishment for Impiety and Idolatry that is the punishment of the greatest Crimes Indeed this punishment is so much the greater as that instead of appeasing the wrath of God as all other temporal ones do it continually exasperates and encreases it until the terrible day wherein his just anger shall triumph over all Sinners Their Arguments however want not probability and seeming very agreeable to common Sense they are favoured by the Passions and could never be destroy'd by all the Philosophy of Zeno. We must love good say they and pleasure is the character that Nature has united to it and by this character we can never be deceived since it proceeds from God who has affixed it thereto that we might distinguish it from evil We must also fly evil continue they and pain is the character that Nature has united to that nor can we be deceiv'd by it since God has instituted it that thereby we might discern it from good We taste Pleasure when we abandon our selves to our Passions and feel Pain and Bitterness in resisting them Therefore the Author of Nature would have us give up our selves to our Passions and never resist them since the Pleasure and Pain he makes us feel in these occurrences are certain proofs of his Will in respect to them To follow God therefore is to persue the desires of our own Hearts and to obey him is to conform our selves to the instinct of Nature which enclines us to satisfie our Senses and Passions After this manner they confirm themselves in their impious Opinions and by this means endeavour to stifle the secret reproaches of their Reason and for the punishment of their Crimes God permits them to be dazled with these false lights which blind instead of enlightning them but with such a blindness as they are insensible of and wish not to be delivered from God gives them over to a reprobate Sense abandons them to the desires of their Hearts to shameful Passions and Actions unworthy of Man as the Scripture tells us that after being as it were fatned by their Debauches they may to all Eternity become the victims of his Wrath. But we will solve the difficulty they propose which the Sect of Zeno not being able to do have denied that Pleasure was good or Pain an evil But this was too rash an attempt and unbecoming Philosophers and I dont believe it ever made those change their Opinion who experimentally found that a great Pain was a great Misery Since therefore Zeno and all the Heathen Philosophy could not resolve this difficulty offered by the Epicureans therefore we must have recourse to a more solid and
enjoy any corporeal thing and that it can unite it self to no object but by its knowledge and love God only being above us can recompence or punish us with Sensations of Pleasure or Pain which can instruct more and in short act in us These truths altho' very evident to attentive Minds are not so powerful to convince us as the deceitful Experience of a sensible impression When we consider any thing as part of our selves or look upon our selves as part of this thing which we judge is good for us to be united to we have a love for it and this love is so much the greater as the thing which we take to be united to us appears a more considerable part of the whole which we compose with it Now there are two sorts of Proofs which perswade us that a thing is part of our selves the instinct of Sensation and evidence of Reason By the instinct of Sensation I am perswaded that my Soul is united to my Body or that my Body makes up part of my Being yet I have no full evidence of it since 't is not by the light of Reason that I conclude it but by the Pain or Pleasure I feel when Objects strike my Senses If I prick my hand I suffer pain therefore I conclude my hand to be a part of my Self but if my Cloaths are torn I suffer nothing therefore determine they do not belong to my Being My Hair is cut without pain but cannot be pluck'd off without it This perplexes the Philosophers and they know not how to decide it but their indetermination shews the wisest Judge rather by the instinct of Sensation than light of Reason that such things are or are not a part of themselves For if they concluded from Evidence and Reason they wou'd soon discover that the Mind and Body are Beings of different Species and that the Mind cannot be united to the Body of it self that 't is only through the union we have with God that the Soul is wounded when the Body is struck Therefore 't is only by the instinct of Sensation that we look upon our Bodies and all the sensible things we are united to as parts of our selves I mean as part of what thinks and feels within us because what is not cannot be discover'd by the evidence of Reason since evidence discovers nothing but Truth And on the contrary 't is by the light of Reason that we discover the relation we have with intellectual things By a clear view of the Mind we discover that we are united to God after a more strict and essential manner than we are to our Bodies That without him we are nothing can neither do nor know will nor feel any thing That he is our All and if we may so speak that we make but one whole with him whereof we are an infinitely small part The light of Reason discovers a thousand Motives to us that wou'd induce us to love God only and contemn the Body as unworthy of our love but we are hot naturally sensible of our union with God nor by the instinct of Sensation but only through the Grace of our SAVIOVR perswaded that he is our All which Grace causes such a Spiritual Sensation in some Persons as it assists them in conquering that contrary Sensation which unites them to the Body For God as he is the Author of Nature inclines our Minds to love him by an enlightened knowledge and not one of instinct And very probable 't is since the Fall that he as Author of Grace has added Instinct to Illumination because our light is now so much diminished that it is incapable of carrying us to God besides its being continually weakened and made ineffectual by contrary Pleasure and Instinct We by the light of the Mind then discover that we are united both to God and the Intellectual World he includes and by Sensation are convinced that we are united to our Bodies and by them to the Material and Sensible World which God has created But as our Sensations are more lively moving frequent and even more lasting than our Illuminations so we cannot think it strange that our Sensations shou'd agitate us and stir up our love to all Sensible Things and that our light dissipates and vanishes without producing in us any Zeal for the Truth It is true there are many Men who are perswaded that God is their true Good love him as their All and who ardently desire to encrease and strengthen the union they have with him but few evidently perceive that to know and consider the Truth is to unite themselves to God with all their Natural power that 't is a kind of enjoying of him to meditate on the true Idea's of things and that this abstracted view of certain general and immutable Truths which determine all particular ones are the flights of a Mind which quits the Body to be united to God Metaphysics Speculative Mathematics and all Universal Sciences which regulate and include particular ones as the Universal Being comprehends all particular Beings seem Chimerical to most Men even to the Religious as well as to those who do not love God So that I dare hardly say that by enquiring into these Sciences the Mind applies it self to God after the most pure and perfect manner it is naturally capable of and that 't is by a prospect of the Intellectual World which is the Object of these Sciences that God has created and still knows this Sensible World from whence Bodies receive their life as Spirits live from the other Those who only follow the impression of their Senses and Motions of their Passions are incapable of relishing truth because it does not flatter them And good Men who continually oppose their Passions when they present false goods to them do not always resist them when they obscure the truth or make it contemptible to them because Persons may be Pious without extraordinary Judgments To make us acceptable to God 't is not requisite for us exactly to know that our Senses Imaginations and Passions always represent things otherwise to us than they are for indeed it does not appear that JESVS CHRIST or his Apostles designed to undeceive us of several Errors that D'cartes has since discovered to us upon this matter There is a great deal of difference between Faith and Knowledge the Gospel and Philosophy The most ignorant are capable of Faith but few are able to understand Evident Truths Faith represents God as the Creator of Heaven and Earth to the most Simple which is enough to induce them to love and serve him but Reason considers God not only in his Works because she knows he existed before he was a Creator and therefore endeavours to Contemplate him in himself or in the great and vast Idea of an infinitely perfect Being which is included in him The Son of God who is the Wisdom of the Father or the Eternal Truth was made Man and became sensible to discover himself
to the carnal and most ignorant That he might instruct them by that which caused their blindness and encline them to love him and loose them from sensible Objects by the same things that had captivated them For when he had to do with Fools he made use of a kind of simplicity to make them wise so that the most Religious and Faithful have not always the greatest Understanding They may know God by Faith and love him through the assistance of his Grace without discerning him to be their All after the same manner as Philosophers do and without reflecting that the abstracted knowledge of Truth is a kind of union with him We must not therefore be surprized if there are but few Persons who endeavour to strengthen their Natural Union they have with God by seeking after the Truth since to this end it would be necessary constantly to oppose the impression of the Senses and Passions after a very different manner from that which is familiar to the most Virtuous Persons for most good Men are not always perswaded that the Senses and Passions deceive us after the manner we have explained in the precedent Books Those Sensations and Thoughts wherein the Body has any share are the true and immediate cause of our Passions because 't is only the shaking of the Fibres of the Brain that excites any particular emotion in the Animal Spirits so that only our Sensations can sensibly convince us that we depend on certain things which they excite us to love But we feel not the Natural Union we have with God when we discover the Truth nor so much as think upon him for he is within us and operates after such a secret and insensible manner that we perceive him not Our Natural Union with him therefore does not excite us to love him But our Union with Sensible Things is quite different All our Sensations declare this Union and Bodies present themselves to our Eyes when they act in us nor is any thing they do concealed Even our own Body is more present to us than our Mind and we consider it as the best part of our selves Thus the Union we have with our Body and through that with all sensible Objects excites a violent love in us which increases this Union and makes us depend upon things that are infinitely below us CHAP. VI. Of the most general Errors of the Passions Some particular Examples of them IT 's the part of Moral Philosophy to enquire into all the particular Errors wherein our Passions engage us concerning good to oppose the irregularities of Love to establish the sincerity of the Heart and regulate the Manners But our chief intent here is to give Rules for the Mind and to discover the causes of our Errors in respect of Truth so that we shall pursue no further those things already mentioned which relate only to the love of the true Good We will then proceed to the Mind but shall not pass by tne Heart because it has the greatest influence over the Mind We will enquire after the Truth in it self and without thinking on the relation it has to us only so far as this relation is the occasion that Self-love disguises and conceals it from us for we judging of all things according to our Passions deceive our selves in all things the Judgments of the Passions never agreeing with the Judgments of the Truth 'T is what we may learn from these admirable words of St. Bernard * Amor sicut nec odium veritatis judicium nescit Vis judicium veritatis audire Joan 5.30 Sicut audio sic judico Non sicut odi non sicut amo non sicut timeo Est judicium odii ut illud Nos legem habemus secundum legem Nostram debet mori Joan 19.7 Est timoris ut illud si dimittimus eum sic venient Romani tollent Nostrum locum gentem Joan 11.48 Judicium vero amoris ut David de filiô parricidâ Parcite inquit puero Absalom 2 Reg. 18.5 St. Bern. de grad humilitatis Neither love nor hatred says he know how to judge according to truth But if you will hear a true Judgment I judge according to what I hear not as I hate love or fear This is a Judgment of hatred We have a law and according to our law he ought to die This is a Judgment of fear If we let him alone the Romans will come and take away our Place and Nation This is a Judgment of love as David speaks of his parricide son Spare the young Man Absalom Our Love Hatred and Fear cause us to make false Judgments only and nothing but the pure Light of Truth can enlighten our Mind 'T is only the distinct Voice of our common Master that instructs us to make solid Judgments and he will infallibly do it provided we only judge of what he says and according to what he says Sicut audio sic judico As I hear I judge But let us see after what manner our Passions seduce us that we may the more easily resist them The Passions have so great a relation to the Senses that 't will not be difficult to discover after what manner they engage us in Error if we but remember what has been said in the First Book For the general Causes of the Errors of our Passions are entirely like those of the Errors of our Senses The most general cause of the Errors of our Senses is as we have shewn in the First Book our attributing to our Body or to External Objects those Sensations which belong to our Soul affixing Colours to the Surfaces of Bodies diffusing of Light Sounds Odours in the Air and assigning Pain and Pleasure to those parts of our Body which receive any change by the motion of other Bodies which meet them The same thing may be said of our Passions we imprudently attribute to those Objects which cause or seem to cause them all the dispositions of our Heart Goodness Meekness Malice Ill-nature and all the other Qualities of our Mind Whatever Object produces any Passion in us in some manner seems to include in it self what it stirs up in us when we think upon it Even as sensible Objects appear to us to include the Sensations their presence excites When we love any Person we are naturally inclined to believe they love us and 't would be difficult for us to imagine that they had either any design to hurt us or to oppose our desires But if hatred succeeds love we cannot believe that they design us any good we interpret all their actions in the worst sense and are always suspicious and upon our guard although perhaps they think not of us or else intend to do us some service In short we unjustly attribute all the dispositions of our Heart to those Persons who excite any Passion in us even as we imprudently ascribe all the qualities of our Mind to sensible Objects Moreover by the same
Prophets of Old affirm the Truth has spoken to them tho' it has not than to give Ear to the Truth it self For above this four thousand years the Pride of Man has without opposition put off lies and falshoods which have been respectfully received and even preserved as Holy and Divine Traditions It seems as if the God of Truth was no longer with them they neither consult nor meditate on him any longer but cover their idleness and neglect with the deceitful appearance of an holy Humility Indeed of our selves we cannot discover the Truth but we may all times do it by the assistance of him who enlightens us altho' we never can do it by the help of all the Men in the World Those even who are best acquainted with it cannot discover it to us if we do not our selves inquire of him who has inform'd them and if he answer not our attention as he has answered theirs We must not therefore receive any thing upon the credit of Man for they are all Liers but because he who cannot deceive us has spoken to us we ought continually to beg his Instruction We must not believe those who speaking to the Ear instruct only the Body or at most act upon the Imagination but we must attentively hearken and faithfully believe him who speaks to the Mind instructs the Reason and who penetrating into the most secret recesses of the inward Man is capable of enlightening and fortifying it against the outward and sensible Man which continually endeavours to seduce and abuse us I so often repeat these things because I think them most worthy of a serious reflexion 'T is God alone that we must Honour since there is none but ha who is able to give us knowledge or make us capable of Pleasure There is sometimes to be observed in the Animal Spirits and the rest of the Body a certain disposition which inclines us to Hunting Dancing Running and to all Exercises in general wherein the strength and agility of the Body are most conspicuous This disposition is commonly in Young men and chiefly in those whose Bodies are not perfectly form'd Children cannot stay long in one place but are always in action when they follow their humour For as their Muscles are not yet strong nor perfectly finish'd God the Author of Nature regulates the pleasures of the Soul in relation to the good of the Body so as to make them find pleasure in these Exercises which help to fortify and confirm the strength of their Bodies Thus whilst the Flesh and Fibres of the Nerves are still soft the little passages through which the Animal Spirits must necessarily flow to produce all sorts of motions are kept open and preserv'd the humours have no time to settle and all Obstructions and causes of Putrefaction are prevented The confused Sensation which Young men have of the disposition of their Bodies make them please themselves in the thoughts of their strength and activity They admire themselves when they know how to measure their motions or are able to make any uncommon ones and even wish to be in company of such persons as may behold and admire them Thus by little and little they strengthen their inclination for all bodily Exercises which is one of the chief causes of the Ignorance and Brutality of Men For besides the time that is lost in these Exercises the little use Men make of their Minds is the cause that the chief part of the Brain whose flexibility produces a strength and vivacity of Mind becomes wholly untractable and the Animal Spirits are not easily dispersed through the Brain after such a manner as to make them capable of thinking of whatever they please This is the reason that most part of the Nobility and such as are trained up to the War are incapable of applying themselves to any thing they argue upon things according to the Proverb A Word and a Blow And if we say any thing to them they have not a mind to hear instead of thinking what answer ought to be made their Animal Spirits insensibly flow into the Muscles by whose assistance they lift up their Arms and answer without any reflexion by a blow or some threatning gesture because their Spirits being agitated by the words they hear they are carried to those places which are most open through habit and exercise and the knowledge they have of the strength of their Bodies confirms them in these insolent behaviours And observing the respectful Air of those who hear them they are puft up with a foolish confidence which makes them utter many fierce and brutish impertinencies believing at the same time that they have spoke many fine things because the fear and prudence of others was favourable to them It is not possible to apply our selves to any Study or actually to make a profession of any Science without it we can be neither Authors nor Doctors without remembring what we are But this alone often naturally produces in the Mind of good men so many Defects that 't would be very advantageous for them if they were without those honourable Titles As they imagine them to be their chief Perfections they always think on them with Pleasure discover them to others with all possible Artifice and even pretend they have given them a right to judge of all things without examination If any Person has Courage enough to oppose them they soon Craftily and with a sweet and obliging Air insinuate what they are and the right they have to decide all things But if afterwards any is so bold as to resist them and they want an answer they will then openly say what they think of themselves and those who oppose them All inward Sensation of any advantage that we possess naturally encreases our Courage A Soldier well Armed and Mounted who wants neither Blood nor Spirits is ready to undertake any thing The disposition he finds himself in makes him bold and daring It is the same with a Learned Man when he believes himself so and when the vanity of his Heart has corrupted his Mind he becomes if we may say so bold and confident against the Truth Sometimes he rashly opposes it without knowing it and sometimes betrays it after he has discovered it and confiding in his false Learning he is always ready to maintain the Negative or Affirmative according as the Spirit of Contradiction possesses him It is very different with those who boast not of their Learning they are not decisive It is rare that they speak if they have not something to say Nay it often happens that they are silent when they ought to speak they have not that reputation nor those external marks of Learning which perswade them to speak they know not what These may safely hold their Tongues but Pretenders to Sciences are affraid to continue silent for they know well they shall be despised if they hold their Tongues although they have nothing material to say and on the contrary they
will not always be condemned although they say only impertinent things provided they speak them after a Scientific manner What makes men capable of thinking makes them fit to discover Truth but 't is neither Honour Riches nor Dignities nor false Learning that can give them this capacity it proceeds from their Nature They are made to think because they are made for Truth Even Health it self is not sufficient to make them think well all that it can do is not to be so great an impediment as Sickness is Our Body in some manner assists us by Sense and Imagination but it does not help our Conception For although without help of the Body we might by meditation oppose out Idea's to the continual Efforts of the Senses and Passions which perplex and efface them because we can only at present overcome the Body by the Body Yet it is plain that the Body cannot illuminate the Mind nor produce the Light of Understanding in it for every Idea which discovers the Truth comes from Truth it self What the Soul receives by the Body is only for the Body it self and when it persues those Phantoms it discovers nothing but Illusions and Chimera's I mean it does not see things as they are in themselves but only as they relate to the Body If the Idea of our own greatness or littleness is often an occasion of our Error the Idea we have of external things and what has any relation to us causes not a lest dangerous impression We have just said that the Idea of greatness is always attended with a great Motion of Spirits and that a great Motion of Spirits is always accompanied with an Idea of greatness and that on the contray the Idea of littleness is always attended with a weak motion of Spirits and that a weak Motion of the Spirits is always accompanied with an Idea of littleness From this Principle 't is easie to conclude that such things as produce a great Motion of to the Spirits in us must naturally appear to us to have more Greatness that is more Power more Reality and more Perfection than others for by Greatness I mean all these things and many such like So that Sensible Things must appear to us greater and more solid than those which cannot be felt if we judge of them by the Motion of the Spirits and not by the pure Idea of Truth A great House a magnificent Train fine Furniture Offices Honours Riches c. appear to have more greatness and reality in them than Virtue and Justice do When we compare Virtue with Riches by a clear view of the Mind then Virtue gains the preference but when we make use of our Eyes and Imaginations and judge of these things only by the emotion of the Spirits that they excite in us we undoubtedly prefer Riches to Virtue 'T is from this Principle that we have so mean an Opinion of Spiritual things which do not affect the Senses That the Idea's of our Minds are less Noble than the Objects they represent That there is less reality and substance in Air than in Metals in Water than in Ice That the spaces betwixt Earth and Heaven are avoid or else that the Bodies which fill it have not so much reality and solidity as the Sun and Stars have In fine if we fall into an infinite number of Errors about the Nature and Perfection of every thing 't is because we argue upon this false Principle A great motion of Spirits and consequently a strong Passion always accompanies a sensible Idea of greatness and a small motion of Spirits and a weak Passion likewise attends a sensible Idea of littleness We apply our selves much and bestow a great deal of our time in the Study of whatever may excite a sensible Idea of greatness and neglect what gives us a sensible Idea of littleness Those great Bodies for instance which move about us have always made an impression upon us we at first adored them because of the sensible Idea we had of their greatness and brightness Some bolder Genii have examined their Motions and in all Ages the Stars have been the Object either of the Study or Veneration of many Men. We may even say that the fear of these imaginary influences which at this day terrify Astrologers and some weak Persons is a kind of adoration that a depraved Imagination pays to the Idea of greatness which represents these Coelestial Bodies The Body of Man on the contrary tho' infinitely more admirable and worthy our application than whatever can be known of Jupiter and Saturn with all the rest of the Planets is almost unknown to us The sensible Idea of the dissected parts of the flesh hath nothing great in it and even causes disgust and horror so that 't is but a few years since Ingenious persons look'd upon Anatomy as a Science which merited their application Kings and Princes have been Astronomers and proud of that Title The grandeur of the Stars seemed to agree well with the greatness of their Dignities but I don't believe they thought it any honour to understand Anatomy and to be able to dissect a Heart or a Brain well It is the same with many other Sciences Rare and extraordinary things produce greater and more sensible Motions in the Spirits than those which we see every day we admire them and consequently affix some Idea of greatness to them and thus they excite in the Spirits Passions of esteem and veneration 'T is this which overturns the Reason of many Men for some are so curious and respectful for every thing of Antiquity what comes from far or is rare and extraordinary that their Minds become Slaves to it because the Mind dares make no Judgment upon what it respects Truth I grant is in no great danger because some Men wholly employ themselves about Medals Arms the Dress of the Ancients the Chinese or Barbarians It is not absolutely useless to know the Map of Old Rome or the Roads from Tomquin to Nanquin altho' it be more useful to know those we shall have more occasion to Travel In fine we have nothing to object against the knowledge of the true History of the War of the Greeks with the Persians or of the Tartars with the Chinese or that persons shou'd have an extraordinary inclination for Thucidides and Xenophon or for any other that pleases them But we cannot suffer that Reason shou'd be so subjected to the admiration of Antiquity that we must be forbidden to make use of our Understanding to examine the Opinions of the Ancients and that those who discover and show the falseness of them shou'd pass for presumptious and rash Persons There has been Truths in all Ages if Aristotle has discovered some of them further discoveries may be also made to this day The Opinions of this Author must be proved by good Reasons for if Aristotle's Sentiments were solid in his time they will be so now 'T is a pure illusion to pretend to
prove Natural Truths by Humane Authority perhaps we may prove that Aristotle had such and such thoughts upon certain Subjects but 't wou'd not be very reasonable to read Aristotle or any other Author whatever with much assiduity and pains only to learn his Opinions Historically and to instruct others after the same manner We cannot without some dislike consider certain Universities which were Established only for an Enquiry into and Defence of the Truth that have now Espoused a particular Sect and Glory in studying and defending the Opinions of some Men Nor can we without some regret read those Philosophers and Physicians who fill their Books with lo many Citations that one wou'd rather take them for Commentaries upon Divinity and Civil Law than Treatises of Physicks or Medicine For who can be content to quit Reason and Experience blindly to follow the Imaginations of Aristotle Plato Epicurus or any other Philosopher whatever However we might perhaps continue unmoved and without reply at the sight of so strange a Conduct if we did not feel our selves offended by it I mean if those Gentlemen did not oppose themselves to the Truth to which only they ought to be united But their Admiration for the Visions of the Ancients inspires them with a blind Zeal against any new discoveries of the Truth they decry them without knowing them oppose them without apprehending them and by the power of their Imaginations infuse into the Mind and Heart of those who hear and admire them the same Sensations wherewith they are affected As they judge of these new Discoveries only by the esteem they have of their Authors and since those they have seen and with whom they converse have not this great and extraordinary Air that the Imagination attributes to Ancient Authors they cannot esteem them For the Idea of the Men of our own Age not being attended with these extraordinary motions which strike the Mind it naturally excites nothing but Contempt Limners and Statuaries never represent the Ancient Philosophers like other Men They make them great Heads large and high Foreheads long and magnificent Beards This is a good proof that the generality of Men naturally form a like Idea of them for Painters draw things as they appear to them they follow the natural motions of their Imaginations Thus we generally look upon the Ancients as extraordinary Men but on the contrary the Imagination represents the Men of our time like those we see every day and that producing no extraordinary motion in the Spirits it only excites in the Soul a contempt and indifferency for them I have seen D'Cartes says one of these Learned Men who only admire Antiquity I have known and discoursed with him many times he was an honest Man nor did he want Wit yet he had nothing extraordinary Thus he has a mean Idea of D'Cartes Philosophy because he had discoursed some moments with him and discovered nothing of this great and extraordinary Air in him which heats the Imagination He even thinks it a sufficient answer to any difficult Arguments of this Philosopher which perplex'd him a little to say considently that he had formerly known him It were to be wished that these sort of Men cou'd see Aristotle otherwise than in Painting and have an hours Conversation with him provided he spoke not to them in Greek but in their own Tongue without knowing who he was till after they had made a Judgment of him Whatever bears the Character of Novelty whether because it is new in it self or that it appear in a new order or situation it agitates us much for it affects the Brain in places which are so much the more sensible as they are less exposed to the course of the Spirits and such things as have a sensible mark of greatness also affects us much because they excite a great Motion of Spirits in us But what at the same time bears the Character of Greatness and Novelty too does not only agitate us it confounds elevates and astonisheth us by its violent agitations Those for Instance who speak Paradoxes make themselves admired for they say only such things as have the Character of Novelty Such as speak in Sentences and only use choice and proper Words cause themselves to be respected for they seem to say something great But those who join Eloquence to Novelty the Great to the Extraordinary seldom ever fail of ravishing and astonishing the vulgar sort altho' they speak nothing but impertinencies This pompous and magnificent Jargon insano fulgoret these false Lights of Orators commonly dazle weak Minds they make so lively and surprizing an impression upon their Imagination that they remain confounded and respect this power which abases and blinds them and admire as the brightest Truths such confused Sentiments as cannot be expressed CHAP. VIII A Continuation of the same Subject of the good Vse that may be made of Admiration and the rest of the Passions All the Passions have two very considerable Effects they apply the Mind and gain the Heart By the former they may be very useful to the discovery of Truth provided we know how to make use of them for application produces knowledge and knowledge discovers the Truth But in respect to their gaining the Heart they always produce an ill Effect because they only win it by corrupting the Reason and representing things to it not as they are in themselves or according to truth but according to the relation they bear to us Of all Passions that which least affects the Heart is Admiration For 't is the prospect of things that are either good or evil which agitates us for the sight of things as they are great or small without any other relation to us affects us very little or not at all Thus Admiration which accompanies the knowledge of the greatness or smallness of new things which we would consider corrupt the Reason much less than any other Passion and. it may even be of great use in the knowledge of the Truth provided we take care to hinder its being followed by any of the other Passions as it commonly happens In Admiration the Animal Spirits are forcibly impelled towards those places in the Brain which represent the new Object as it is in it self They make distinct Traces there and deep enough to continue a long time consequently the Mind has a clear Idea of them and can easily resolve them Thus we cannot deny but Admiration may be very useful in the Sciences since it applies and instructs the Mind It is not so with the rest of the Passions they apply the Mind but instruct it not They apply it because they stir up the Animal Spirits but they instruct it not or else do it by a false and deceitful light since after such a manner they impel these same Spirits as they represent Objects only according to the relation they have to us and not as they are in themselves There is nothing so difficult as to apply our selves long to
the greatness and perfection of my Being and therefore I have reason to admire it Others also ought to admire me if they would do me justice since I am something great through the relation I have to great things I in some measure possess them by the admiration I have for them and I feel the good by a foretaste that a kind of hope makes me enjoy Other Men would be happy as well as I if knowing my greatness they like me applied themselves to the Cause which produced it but they are blind and have no knowledge of either great or fine things and know not how either to raise or make themselves become consider able We may say the Mind naturally reasons after this manner without making any reflexion when it permits it self to be guided by the deceitful lights of its Passions These Arguments have some probability bus 'tis plain they have no solidity in them And this appearance or rather confused Sensation of it which attends these Natural Reasonings made without reflexion have so much power that if we don't take great care they will never fail of seducing us For instance when Poetry History Chimistry or any other Humane Science has struck the Imagination of a young Man with any Motions of Admiration if he don't carefully watch the efforts these Motions make upon his Mind If he does not throughly examine what the advantages of these Sciences are and compare the troubles he shall have in the learning with the profit he shall afterwards receive from them and in short if he is not as curious as is requisite to judge well there is a great deal of danger that his Admiration will not only shew him these Sciences with the fairest side outwards but seduce him also It is likewise very much to be feared that it will corrupt his Heart after such a manner that he shall not be able to destroy the illusion tho' he afterwards come to know it to be such because 't is impossible to efface such deep Traces out of his Brain as a continual Admiration shall have wrought there For that reason he must continually stir up the purity of his Imagination he must hinder these dangerous Traces from being formed which will corrupt the Mind and Heart I shall here prescribe a very useful way to prevent not only the excess of Admiration but also of all other Passions in general When the Motion of the Animal Spirits is violent enough to make such deep Traces in the Brain as corrupt the Imagination it is always attended with some emotion of the Soul Thus the Soul cannot be moved without being sensible of it it is sufficiently advertised to take care or it self and to examine whether it is advantageous that these Traces should be strengthned and made compleat But in the time of the emotion the Mind not being free enough to judge of the usefulness of these Traces because this emotion deceives and inclines it to favour them it must make its utmost endeavour to stop this emotion or else divert the motion of the Spirits which cause it and in the mean time it is absolutely necessary for it to suspend its Judgment Now it must not be imagined that the Soul can always barely by its own Will stop this course of Spirits which hinder it from making use of its Reason It s common powers are not sufficient to make such Motions cease which it has not excited So that it must make use of artifices to endeavour to deceive an Enemy that attacks it only by surprize As the motion of the Spirits stir up certain thoughts in the Soul so these Thoughts also excite certain motions in our Brain Thus when we would stop any motion of the Spirits which is stirred up in us it is not sufficient to will that it should cease for that is not always capable of stoping it We must make use of some Artifices and represent things contrary to those which excite and maintain this motion and this would cause a Revulsion But if we would only determine a motion of Spirits already excited to some other place we must not think of contrary things but only on such things as differ from those which produce it and this will undoubtedly divert them But because a Diversion and Revulsion will be great or little in proportion as our new thoughts shall be attended with a great or less motion of Spirits we must be very careful in observing well what those Thoughts are which agitate as most that in pressing occasions we may be able to represent them to our Imagination which seduces us and we must endeavour to form so strong an habit of resistance by this method that the motion which surprizes us may be no more excited in our Souls If we take care to make an intent application of the Idea of Eternity or any other serious Thoughts to these extraordinary motions which are excited in us those violent and great motions will never happen again without stirring up in us at the same time this Idea and which will consequently furnish us with the means to resist them Those things are proved both by Experience and the Reasons brought in the Chapter Of the Connection of Idea's So that we ought not to think it absolutely impossible by any Artifice to conquer the efforts of our Passions when our Wills are firmly determined to do it However we must not pretend that we can become Impeccable or shun all error by this manner of Resistance For first 't is difficult to acquire and preserve such an habit as that our extraordinary Motions shall stir up in us such Ideas as are proper to oppose them Secondly supposing we have acquired it these motions of the Spirits would directly excite those Ideas which we must oppose and but indirectly those which we must oppose to them So that the ill Idea's being the principal they will always have more power than those which are only accessary and it will be always necessary for the Will to assist the latter In the third place these motions of the Spirits may be so violent that they may fill the whole capacity of the Soul so that there remains no more room if we may be permitted so to speak to receive the accessary Idea that is fit to make a Revulsion in the Spirits or to receive it after such a manner as we may consider it with any attention In fine there are so many particulas circumstances which may make this remedy useless that we must not too much confide in it although on the other side we ought not to neglect it We must continually have recourse to Prayer that we may receive from Heaven those assistances as are necessary in the time of Temptations and also endeavour to present to the Mind some Truth that is so solid and strong that by this means we may conquer the most violent Passions For I must needs advertize by the way that several pious Persons often fall again
loves We Naturally love our Prince our Country our Relations and those that we find conformable to our Humours Designs Employments but all these loves are very weak as well as the love of Truth and Justice and Self-Love being the most violent of all loves it always overcomes them without finding any other resistance than what it makes it self Bodies which strike one another lose their motion in proportion as they communicate it to those they meet and they may at last lose it all if they shock many other Bodies But 't is not so with Self-Love it determines all other loves by the impression it gives them yet its motion diminishes not On the contrary it acquires new Powers by its new Victories and as its motion goes not out of the Heart it is not lost although it is continually communicated Self-Love is then the commanding and universal Love since it is found every where and reigns where-ever it is found So that all the Passions have no other motion than that of Self-Love we may also say that Self-Love is the most extensive and strongest of all Passions or that 't is the commanding and universal Passion For even as all Virtues are only kinds of the first Virtue that we call Charity as St. Augustine has shown so all Vices and even all Passions are likewise only consequences or kinds of Self-Love or proceed from this general Vice we call Concupiscence We often distinguish in Morality the Virtues or Kinds of Charity by the difference of its Objects but that sometimes confounds the true Idea we ought to have of Virtue which rather depends upon its own motive than on any thing else and therefore we shan't follow this method in treating of the Passions We will not here distinguish them by their objects because one object alone may excite them all and yet ten thousand objects must excite but one For altho' objects differ amongst themselves they are not always different in relation to us and they excite not different Passions in us A promised Marshal's Staff differs from a promised Bishop's Crosier yet these two marks of Honour excite very near the same Passion in Ambitious Persons because they stir up a like Idea of Good in the Mind But the same Mareschal's Staff when promised granted enjoyed or taken away excites very different Passions since it raises in the Mind different Ideas of Good We must not therefore multiply the Passions according to the different Objects which cause them but only admit so many of 'em as there are accessary Ideas which attend the principal Idea of Good or Evil and considerably change it in relation to us For the general Idea of Good or the Sensation of Pleasure which is a good to him who tastes it agitating the Soul and Animal Spirits it produces the general Passion of Love And the accessory Ideas of this Good determine the general agitation of the Soul and the course of the Animal Spirits after a particular manner which puts the Mind and Body into the disposition it ought to be in relation to the Good we perceive and thus they produce all particular Passions Thus the general Idea of Good produces an indeterminate Love which is only an extension of Self-Love The Idea of the Good which we possess producs a a love of Joy The Idea of a Good that we do not yet but hope hereafter to possess that is which we judge we may be able to possess produces a love of Desire In fine the Idea of a Good which we possess not nor have any hopes of possessing or which is the same the Idea of a Good that we have no hopes of possessing without the loss of some other or such an one as we cannot preserve when we possess it produces a love of Sorrow These are the three simple or primitive Passions which have Good for their object for the hope which produces Joy is not an emotion of the Soul but a simple Judgment But we must observe that Men limit not their being in themselves but extend it to ail things and Persons to whom it may appear advantagious to be united So that we must conceive that they in some manner possess a good when their Friends enjoy it although they do not immediately possess it themselves Thus when I say that the possession of Good produces Joy I mean not only of the immediate union or possession but of all others for we naturally feel Joy when any good fortune happens to those we love Evil as I have before said may be taken in three different ways either for the privation of Good or for Pain or in fine for the thing which causes the privation of Good or produces Pain In the first Sense the Idea of Evil being the same with the Idea of a Good that we possess not it is plain this Idea produces Sorrow or Desire or even Joy For Joy is always excited when we feel our selves deprived of the privation of Good that is when we possess Good So that the Passions which regard evil taken in this Sense are the same with those which regard Good because in effect they have Good likewise for their object But if by Evil we mean Pain which only is always a real Evil to him who suffers it whilst he suffers it then the sensation of this Evil produces the Passions of Sorrow Desire and Joy which are kinds of Hatred and not Love for their motion is absolutely opposite to that which accompanies the sight of Good this motion being only the opposition of the Soul which resists the natural impression The actual Sensation of Pain produces ah aversion of Sorrow Pain which we do not actually suffer but are afraid of suffering produces an aversion of Desire In fine the Pain that we do not suffer nor are apprehensive of suffering or which is the same the Pain that we do not foresee we shall suffer without some great Recompence or the Pain which we feel our selves delivered from produces an aversion of Joy These are the three primitive or simple Passions which have Evil for their object for fear which produces Sorrow is not an emotion of the Soul but a simple Judgment Lastly if by Evil we mean the Person or thing which deprives us of Good or makes us suffer Pain the Idea of Evil produces a motion of Love and Aversion together or simply a motion of Aversion The Idea of Evil produces a motion of Love and Aversion together when the Evil is what deprives us of a Good For 't is by the same motion that we encline towards Good and remove our selves from what hinders our possession of it But this Idea only produces a motion of Aversion when 't is the Idea of an Evil which makes us suffer Pain for 't is by the same motion of Aversion that we hate Pain and whatever produces it Thus there are three simple or primitive Passions which respect Good and as many others which regard Pain or which causes it
viz. Joy Desire and Sorrow For we have Joy when a Good is present or an Evil past We feel Sorrow when Good is past and Evil present and are agitated with Desire when Good and Evil are to come The Passions which regard Good are particular determinations of the motion which God gives us towards Good in general and therefore their object is real But others who have not God for the cause of their motion terminate only in nothingness CHAP. X. Of the Passions in particular the manner of explaining them in general and of discovering the Errors of which they are the cause IF we consider how compound the Passions are we shall plainly discover that their number cannot be determined and that there are many more of them than we have terms to express The Passions do not only draw their differences from the various Combinations of the three first for then there wou'd be but a few of them but their difference proceeds likewise from the different Perceptions and different Judgments which cause or accompany them The different Judgments which the Soul makes of Good and Evil cause different Motions in the Animal Spirits to dispose the Body in relation to the Object and consequently create such Sensations in the Soul as are not absolutely alike Thus they are the cause as we have observed of the difference between certain Passions whose emotions resemble each other However the emotion of the Soul being the chief thing which occurs in each of our Passions it is much better to refer them all to the three Original ones in which these emotions are very different than to treat of them confusedly and without order in relation to the different perceptions that we may have of the Good and Evil which causes them for we may have so many different perceptions of Objects in relation to time to our selves to what belongs to us in relation to Persons or Things to which we are united either by Nature or the choice of our Will that it is absolutely impossible to make an exact enumeration of them When the Soul perceives a Good which she may enjoy we may perhaps say she hopes for it altho' she desires it not But it is plain this Hope is not a Passion but a simple Judgment So that 't is the emotion which accompanies the Idea of Good the possession of which we judge to be possible which makes this Hope to be a true Passion When Hope is changed into Security 't is still the same thing it is not a Passion only because of the emotion of Joy which is then mixt with that of Desire for the Judgment of the Soul which considers a Good as not being likely to fail of it is a Passion only because the foresight of Good agitates us In short when Hope diminishes and Despair succeeds it it is also plain that this Despair is a Passion only because of the emotion of Sorrow which is then mixt with this Desire for the Judgment of the Soul which considers a Good as not being able to happen is not a Passion except this Judgment agitates us But because the Soul never considers Good or Evil without some emotion and even without some change happen in the Body we often give the Name of Passion to the Judgment which produces this Passion because we confound whatsoever passes in the Soul and Body at the sight of any Good or Evil for the words Hope Fear Rashness Shame Impudence Anger Pity Derision Regret in short the Names we commonly give to all the other Passions are short expressions whereby we can expalain in particular whatever the Passions include By the word Passion we understand the view of the relation that any thing has with us the emotion and sensation of the Soul the shaking of the Brain and motion of the Spirits a new emotion and new sensation of the Soul and in fine a sensation of Complacency which always attends the Passions and makes them agreeable All these things we mean by it But sometimes by the Name of Passion we only understand either the Judgment that excites it or the emotion of the Soul or the motion of the Spirits and Blood or something else which attends the emotion of the Soul To abridge Idea's and their expressions is a very useful thing in the knowledge of Truth yet it is often the cause of some great Error when these Idea's are abridged through Popular Custom for we must never abridge our Idea's but when we have made them clear and distinct by a great application of Mind and not as we commonly do by the Passions and all sensible Things when once we have made them famillar by Sensations and the meer action of the Imagination which deceives the Mind There is a great deal of difference between the pure Idea's of the Mind and the sensations or emotions of the Soul The pure Idea's of the Mind are clear and distinct but difficultly made familiar whereas on the contrary the sensations and emotions of the Soul are very famillar but impossible to be discern'd clearly and distinctly Numbers extension and their Properties we clearly know but before we have made them sensible by some Characters which express them 't is difficult to present them for whatever is abstracted affects us not Sensations and the emotions of the Soul on the contrary are easily represented to the Mind altho' we only know them after a very confused and imperfect manner and all the terms which excite them strongly agitate the Soul and render it attentive From whence it happens that we often imagine we very well apprehend such Discourses as are absolutely incomprehensible and when we read certain descriptions of the Sensations and Passions of the Soul we perswade our selves that we understand them perfectly because we are livelily touched with them for all the words we read agitate the Soul We have no sooner pronounced the words Shame Despair Impudence but it as soon stirs up in our Minds a certain confused Idea and obscure Sensation which strongly applies us and because this Sensation is very familiar and represented to us without any trouble or effort of the Mind we perswade our selves that it is clear and distinct Yet these words are the Names of compounded Passions and consequently the abridged expressions that vulgar Custom has made of many confused and obscure Idea's As we are obliged to make use of such terms as are approved by Custom so we must not be surprised to find obscurity and sometimes a kind of contradiction in our words And if we reflected that the sensations and emotions of the Soul which answered to the terms we make use of in the like Discourses are not perfectly the same in all Men because of their difference dispositions of Mind we shou'd not so easily condemn others when they are not of our Opinions I don't say this so much to prevent the Objections which may be made against me as to make the Nature of the Passions be
well apprehended and to teach us what we ought to think of Treatises which are written upon this Subject After all these precautions I believe I may say that all the Passions may be referr'd to the three Primitive ones Desire Joy and Sorrow and that 't is chiefly through the different Judgments the Soul makes of Good and Evil that those which relate to one and the same Primitive Passion differ amongst themselves I may say that Hope Fear and Irresolution which keep the Mean between these two are kinds of desire that Boldness Courage Emulation c. relate more to Hope than to the other two and that Fearfulness Cowardise and Jealousie c. are kinds of Fear I may further say that Cheerfulness and Glory Favour and Acknowledgment are kinds of Joy caused by the sight of the good we discover in our selves or in those to whom we are united as Laughing and Rallery is a sort of Joy which is commonly excited in us at the sight of the Evil which happens to our Enemies Lastly disgust tediousness regret pity and indignation are kinds of sorrow caused at the sight of something which displeases us But besides these Passions and many others which I mention not and which particularly relate to some one of the Primitive Passions The number of the Passions is greater than the number of terms we express 'em by there are also many others whose emotion is almost equally compound either of Desire and Joy as Impudence Anger Revenge or of Desire and Sorrow as Shame Regret and Despight or of all three when we meet with Motives of Joy and Sorrow joined together But altho' these last Passions have not as I know of any particular Name they are nevertheless the most common because in this Life we hardly ever enjoy any Good without the mixture of some Evil and that we scarcely ever suffer any Evil without some hopes of being delivered from it and of possessing some Good And altho' Joy be quite contrary to Sorrow it nevertheless admits it and even with his Passion shares the Souls capacity of Willing as he prospect of Good and Evil divides the Souls capacity of perceiving All the Passions therefore are kinds of Desire Joy and Sorrow and the chief difference to be observed between the Passions of the same kind proceeds from the different Perceptions or different Judgments which cause or accompany them so that it is necessary to enquire into the different Judgments that we make of Good and Evil. But as our chief design here is to search after the cause of our Error we ought not so much to stop at the examining the Judgments which follow them and which the Soul makes of Objects when it is agitated by any Passion for 't is these last Judgments which are the most liable to Error Those Judgments which precede and cause the Passions are commonly false in something for they are generally upheld upon the perceptions of the Soul in as much as it considers things in relation to it self and not according as they are in themselves But those Judgments which follow the Passions are false in every respect for the Judgments which form the Passions are upheld only upon the perceptions the Soul has of Objects in relation to it self or rather in relation to its emotion In those Judgments which precede the Passions both the true and the false are joined together but when the Soul is agitated and Judges of every thing according to the inspiration of the Passion the true is dissipated and the false preserved from whence are drawn so many more false conclusions as the Passion is greater Every Passion justifies it self they continually represent to the Soul that Object which affects it after such a manner as is most proper to preserve and encrease its agitation The Judgment or Perception which causes it is fortified in proportion as the Passion encreases and the Passion encreases ini proportion as the Judgment which produces it is in its turn fortified False Judgments and Passions continually contribute to their mutual preservation So that if the Heart ceased not sometimes to supply such Spirits as are proper to maintain the traces of the Brain and the distributions of the same Spirits which are necessary to preserve the sensation and emotion of the Soul which accompanies the Passions they wou'd continually encrease and we shou'd never discover our Errors But as all our Passions depend upon the fermentation and circulation of the Blood and as the Heart cannot always furnish such Spirits as are requisite for their preservation they must necessarily cease when the Spirits diminish and the Blood cools If it is so very easie to discover the common Judgments of the Passions we ought not to neglect it There are few Subjectys more worthy the application of those who enquire into the Truth and endeavor to deliver themselves from the dominion of their Bodies and who wou'd judge of all things according to the true Idea's of them We may instruct our selves upon this Subject two different ways either by reason only or by the internal sensation that we have of our selves when we are agitated with any Passion For instance we know by our own Experience that we are inclined to judge disadvantageously of those we love not and to discover all the malignity of our hatred by that means to the Object of our Passion We may also by pure Reason discover that hating only what is Evil it is necessary for the preservation of hatred that the Mind shou'd represent its Object on the worst side for indeed it is sufficient to suppose all the Passions justify themselves and that they divert the Imagination and afterwards the Mind in such a manner as is fit to preserve their own emotion that we conclude what those Judgments are which all the Passions cause us to make Those who have a strong and lively Imagination are extreamly sensible and very subject to the Motions of the Passions may perfectly instruct themselves in these things by the sensation they have of what passes within them and even speak of them after a more agreeable manner and sometimes more instructive than those who have more Reason than Imagination For we must not think that such as best discover the Springs of Self-love that penetrate farthest and after a more sensible manner unfold the secrets of Man's heart are always the most Learned 'T is indeed often a mark that they are more lively more imaginative and sometimes more malicious than others But those who without consulting their internal Sensation only make use of their Reason to discover the Nature of their Passions and what they are capable of producing if they are not always as penetrating as others they are always more reasonable and less subject to Error for they judge of things as they are in themselves They see very near what the Passions can perform according as they suppose them more or less moved and they do not judge rashly of
fortifie its emotions that the least suspicion frightens and disturbs the Reason False Zealors think they do God service when they submit to their Passions they blindly follow the secret motions of their Hatred as proceeding from the Internal Truth and stopping with satisfaction at such sensible proofs as justifie their excess they confirm themselves in their errors with an unconquerable obstinacy As for Ignorant and Weak Persons they create to themselves ridiculous and imaginary subjects of fear and like Children who walk in the dark without a guide they imagine frightful Bugbears are disturb'd and cry out as if they were undone light re-assures them if they are ignorant but if Men have weak Minds their imagination is always disturbed The least thing which relates to that frightful Object renews the traces and course of the Spirits which causes the symtom of their fear so that 't is absolutely impossible to cure or appease them for ever But when false Zeal meets with Hatred and Fear in a weak Mind it continually produces such unjust and violent Judgments in it that we cannot think on 'em without horror To change the Mind possessed with these Passions requires a greater Miracle than that which converted St. Paul and to cure it would be absolute impossible if we could set bounds to the Mercy and Power of God Those who walk in the dark rejoyce at the appearance of light but this Man cannot endure it since it hurts him because it resists his Passion His fear being in some manner voluntary because 't is produced by his hatred he loves to be affected by it since we love to be agitated by those Passions which have Evil for their Object when the Evil is imaginary or rather when we know as in Tragedies that the Evil can't hurt us The Phantoms that these form to themselves who walk in the dark vanish at the approach of light But this Man's Phantoms cannot be dissipated by the light of the truth for instead of dissipating the darkness of his Mind it only incenses his imagination so that whilst he applies himself to the Object of his Passion the light reflects and it seems to him as if these Phantoms had real Bodies since they reflect some weak rays of light which strike upon them But if we should suppose in these Persons a sufficient docility and reflection to make 'em listen to and apprehend such Reasons as are capable of dissipating their Errors yet their imagination being disordered through fear and their Hearts corrupted through hatred and false zeal these Reasons how solid soever they might be in themselves would not be able long to stop the impetuous motions of these violent Passions nor hinder them from speedily justifying themselves by sensible and convincing proofs For we must observe that there are some Passions which never return again whereas there are others that are constant and durable Those which are not maintained by the sight of the Mind but only produced and fortified by the sensible view of some Object and the fermentation of the Blood continue not but commonly die immediately after they are produced But those which are attended with the contemplation of the Mind are lasting for the Principle which causes them is not subject to change like the Blood and Humours So that Hatred Fear and all the rest of the Passions which are stirr'd up or preserved by the knowledge of the Mind and not by the sensible sight of some Evil must necessarily subsist long These Passions are therefore more durable violent and unjust but not more lively and sensible as has already been shown The perception of Good and Evil which excite the Passions is produced three several ways by the Senses Imagination and the Mind The perception of Good and Evil by the Senses or Sensation of Good and Evil produces the quickest and most sensible Passions Good and Evil perceived by the Imagination only excites them after a much weaker manner and the perception of Good and Evil by the Mind purely never produces true ones because it is always attended with some motion of the Animal Spirits The Passions are given us only for the good of the Body and by that to unite us to all sensible things for although sensible things can be neither good or bad in respect to the Mind they are so however in relation to the Body to which they are united Thus the Senses discovering much better the relation that sensible Objects have to the Body than the Mind it self can They must excite much more lively Passions than a clear and evident knowledge is able to do But because all our discoveries are attended with some motion of the Spirits a clear and evident knowledge of a great Good and great Evil which is not perceived by the Senses always excites some secret Passion Yet all our clear and evident discoveries of Good and Evil are not followed by some sensible Passion which we perceive and so on the other side all our Passions are not attended with some knowledge of the Mind For if we sometimes think of Good and Evil without feeling our selves moved we often find our selves moved with some Passions without knowing what they are nay sometimes without perceiving the cause of ' em One who breaths in a good Air feels a motion of Joy without knowing from whence it proceeds or what good 't is he possesses which causes this Joy And if there is any invisible Body which mingles with the Blood and hinders its fermentation it will produce sorrow and perhaps he will attribute the cause of his sorrow to any visible thing which occurs in that moment of his Passion Of all the Passions none are more sensible or more quick and consequently less attended with the knowledge of the Mind than horrour and antipathy agreeableness and sympathy It sometimes happens that a Man sleeping under a shady Tree would of a suddain and unexpectedly be waked at the sting of a Gnat or tickling of a Leaf even as if he were bitten with a Serpent The confused Sensation of something as terrible as death frights him without perceiving that he is agitated with a most powerful and violent Passion which is an aversion of desire On the contrary a Man in some necessity by chance discovers a small good the satisfaction of which surprizes him and he applies himself to this trifle as to the greatest good imaginable without making the least reflexion upon it The like also happens in the motions of sympathy and antipathy We sometimes see a certain Person whose habit and external appearance has some secret alliance with the present disposition of our Body we are forthwith touched with a vehement inclination for him and without any reflexion are induced to love and wish him well 'T is this I know not what which agitates us since Reason has no share in it And the contrary happens in respect to those whose Air and Manners excite disgust and horrour in us They have I know not
such whose Brain is not filled with deep Traces which unite them to sensible things may easily be united to God and be made attentive to the Truth which speaks to them The most just and most reasonable Passions will be sufficient to determine such Persons But those that live in the World who are united to too many things and whose Imagination is spoiled by false and obscure Idea's which sensible Objects have excited in them cannot apply themselves to the Truth if they are not born up by some Passion that is strong enough to counterballance the violent Inclination of the Body which draws them aside and to form such Traces in their Brain as may be capable of making a Revulsion in the Animal Spirits But as all Passion of it self can only confound Idea's they ought to make no more use of them than Necessity requires and all Men ought so to study themselves as may enable them to proportion their Passions to their own Weaknesses It is not difficult to find some means of exciting such Passions in our selves as we wish The Knowledge we have given of the Union of the Soul and Body in the preceding Books affords a sufficient means to accomplish it For in a Word 't is enough to think attentively upon such Objects which according to the Institution or Natture are capable of exciting the Passions Thus we may almost always raise such Passions in our Hearts as we have Occasion for But though we can so easily cause them we cannot always so easily extirpate them nor remedy the Disorders that they cause in the Imagination and therefore we ought to use them with great Moderation Above all things we must be cautious that we do not Judge of things by our Passion but only by a clear Sight of Truth which it is almost impossible to observe when the Passions are a little vigorous Passion ought only to serve us to stir up our Attentions but it always produces its own Idea's and it presently obliges the Will to judge of things by these Idea's that affect it rather than by the pure and abstracted Idea's of the Truth which affect it not So that such Judgments are often formed which last no longer than the Passion it self because it is not a clear Sight of the immutable Truth but the Circulation of the Blood which produces them It is certain that Men are strangely obstinate in their Errors and that they generally maintain them all their Lives But either these Errors have often other Causes than the Passions or else they depend upon certain durable Passions which proceed from the Conformation of the Body Interest or some other Cause which continues a long Time Interest for instance indures always it creates a Passion which never dies and the Judgment that these Passions form are very lasting But all other Sentiments of Men which depend upon particular Passions are as inconstant as the Fermentation of their Humours are They speak sometimes after one manner and sometimes after another and What they say is generally conformable to what they think They run from one false Good to another as false by the Motion of their Passion which they again dislike as soon as this Passion ceases So also they run from one false System to another They ardently embrace a false Notion when their Passion renders it probable but this Passion being once extinguisht they abandon it They taste of every Good by their Passions without finding any thing that is really so And by the same Passions they see all Trtuths without discovering any Although whilst the Passion continues what they taste appears to them to be the Sovereign Good and what they see seems to them to be an indisputable Truth The Second Source from whence we may draw any Helps to render the Mind attentive is the Senses Sensations are the proper Modifications of the Soul pure Idea's of the Mind are something different Sensations then stir up our Attention in a much more lively manner than pure Idea's do so that it is plain we may remedy this Defect of the Application of the Mind to Truths that do not affect us in expressing them by sensible things which do Ths is the Reason that Geometers express the Proportions between those Magnitudes they wou'd consider by sensible Lines By drawing Lines upon Paper they trace if I may so say the Idea's upon their Minds which answer them They make them more familiar to them because they see them in the same Time they wou'd conceive them After this manner many things that are difficult enough in themselves might be taught to Children who are not capable of abstracted Truths because of the Tenderness of the Fibres of their Brain They see only with their Eyes Colours Pictures Images but with the Mind they consider not the Idea's which answer to these Sensible Objects A particular Care must be taken not to obscure Objects that we wou'd consider our selves or discover to others with so much Sensibility lest the Mind shou'd be more taken up with it than with the Truth it self which is a very considerable and common Fault We every Day see Orators who apply themselves only to that which affects the Senses and who express themselves after so sensible a manner that the Truth is almost stifled under the Weight of their vain Ornaments and false Eloquence So that those who hear them being much more touched with the Measure of their Periods and Motions of their Figures than by their Arguments suffer themselves to be overcome without either knowing what perswades them or of what they are perswaded Much Care therefore ought to be taken so to moderate the Sensibility of our Expressions that they may only render the Mind more attentive There is nothing so beautiful as the Truth we cannot pretend to render it finer by painting it with some Sensible Colours which have nothing solid in them and can only charm for a little Time Perhaps we might give it some pretty Strokes but we shou'd diminish its Strength we ought not to cloath it so bright and sparkling as to make the Mind more attentive to its Ornaments than to the Truth it self It wou'd be to treat it like certain Persons who load themselves with so much Gold and precious Stones that at last they appear the least considerable thing in the Figure they make Truth ought to be cloathed like the Magistrates of Venice who are obliged to wear such a simple Robe and a Cap as may only distinguish them from other Men that they may look upon them with Attention and Respect rather than their Apparel And indeed Care must be taken not to give it too great a Train of agreeable things that will only serve to dissipate the Mind and hinder it from discovering it lest we shou'd give to something else the Honours that are only due to that As sometimes happens to Princes that we see amongst a great Number of Courtiers which are about them and who partake too
sensible It would be unnecessary here to give he Reasons that I had for it Since they would only serve to justifie the order that I have kept in what I have said which is not essential I have neither spoke of Arithmetick nor Algebra since the Numeral Figures and Letters of the Alphabet which are used in these Sciences are not so useful to increase the Attention as the Capacity of the Mind as shall be explained in the following Chapter These are the General Helps which may make the Mind more attentive I know no other except it be the will of being so which I do not treat of because it is supposed that all those who Study are willing to give Attention to what they Study Nevertheless there are many others which are peculiar to certain persons as some sort of Drinks certain Meats certain Places and certain Dispositions of Body with some other helps of which every one ought to be instructnd by his own Experience The Condition of our Imagination ought to be observed after Eating and we must consider what things they are that maintain or dissipate the Attention of the Mind What more general might be said is That the moderate use of such Food as creates many Animal Spirits is very fit to increase the Attention of th Mind and Strength of the Imagination in those who have them Weak and Languishing CHAP. V. Of the Means to increase the Extension and Capacity of the Mind That Arithmetick and Algebra are absolutely necessary to this end IT ought not immediately to be imagined that we can truly increase the Extension and Capacity of the Mind The Soul of Man is if we may so say a determined Quantity or Portion of Thought which hath limits that cannot be exceeded The Soul cannot become more Extensive or Capacious than it is It is not swelled nor enlarged after the same manner as we see Liquors and Metals are In fine It never Perceives more in one time than in another It is true this seems contrary to Experience for often we think upon many Objects and as oft but upon one only and we often say likewise that we think upon nothing at all Yet if we consider that Thought is to the Soul what Extension is to the Body we shall plainly discover that as a Body cannot be truly more extended at one time than another so if we conceive aright neither can the Soul think more at one time than another Whether it perceives many Objects or but one or even in the time that we say we think on nothing at all But the reason why we imagine we think more at one time than another is because we do not sufficiently distinguish between confused and distinct Perceptions without doubt there is more Thought required or the Capacity of Thinking is more fitted to perceive many things distinctly at once than to perceive but one only But there is not more Thought requisite to perceive many things confusedly than to perceive one distinctly So there is no more Thought in the Soul when it thinks of many things than when it thinks of but one since when it thinks of but one only it always perceives it much more clearly than when it applies it self to many For it must be observed that a pure simple Perception sometimes includes as much Thought or fills as much the Capacity that the Mind hath of Thinking as a Judgment nay even a compounded reasoning Since Experience teaches us That a lively clear and evident Perception but of one thing only imploys and takes up the Mind as much as a compounded Reasoning or an obscure and confused Perception of several Relations between many things For even as there is as much or more Sensation in the sensible view of an Object that I hold near my Eyes and carefully examine as in the prospect of a whole Field that I look upon negligently and without Attention so that the clearness o the Sensation that I have of the Object which is near my Eyes recompences the Extension of the confused Sensation I have of many things that I see without Attention in a Field Thus the Prospect the Mind has of one Object only is sometimes so lively and distinct that it includes as much or even more Thought than a Prospect of the Relations which are between many things It is true at certain times it seems to us that we think of but one thing and nevertheless we have some difficulty to comprehend it well and at other times we comprehend both this thing and many others with great Facility From thence we imagine that the Soul hath more Extension or a greater Capability of Thinking at one time than another but it is plain we deceive our selves The Reason why at certain times we have some Difficulty to conceive the most easie things is not because the Thought of the Soul or its Capacity of Thinking is diminished but because this Capacity is filled either by some lively Sensation of Pain or Pleasure or by a great number of weak and obscure Sensations which cause a kind of Vapor and which for the most part proceeds from a confused Sensation of a great number of Things A piece of Wax is capable of a very distinct Figure yet it cannot receive two but then one will confound the other for it cannot be entirely round and square at the same time indeed if it received a Million none of them would be distinct Now if this piece of Wax was capable of knowing its Figures it could not know by what Figure it must be determined if the number of them were too great It is the same with our Soul when a great number of Modifications fill its Capacity it cannot perceive them distinctly because it sees them not separately this makes it think it perceives nothing at all It cannot say that it is sensible Pain Pleasure Light Sound Taste it is none of all these and yet it is all these that it perceives But although we should suppose the Soul not to be subjected to the confused and irregular Motions of the Animal Spirits or so disingaged from the Body that its Thoughts should not depend upon whatsoever passed in it it might then happen that we should more easily comprehend certain things in one time than in another and yet the Capacity of the Soul be neither diminished nor increased The general Idea of Infinity is inseparable from the Mind and it wholly takes up its Capacity when it thinks not of some particular thing For when we say we think of nothing it does not follow that we do not think of this general Idea but simply that we do not think of any thing in particular Certainly if our Mind was not filled with this Idea we could not think of all sorts of things as we do for indeed we cannot think of those things that we have no knowledge of And if this Idea was no more present to the Mind when it seems to us that we think
of sensible Idea's there is hardly any body who discovers that they are equivocal Aristotle and the ancient Philosophers have not so much as thought of it as will easily be granted if we read any thing of their Works and distinctly know the Cause why these Terms are equivocal For there is nothing more evident than that the Philosophers have received the contrary to what ought to be believed upon this Subject For instance when they say Fire is hot Grass green Sugar sweet c. they think with Children and the Vulgar that the Fire contains what they feel when they Warm themselves that Herbs have the same Colours upon them as they believe they see and that Sugar includes the Sweetness in it that we taste in eating and so of all things which we see or feel It is impossible to doubt of this if we read their Writings They speak of sensible Qualities as of Sensations They take Heat for Motion and thus because of the Equivocation of Terms they confound the Modifications of Bodies with the Modifications of Spirits 'T is only since Descartes that these confused and indetermined Questions whether Fire is hot Herbs green Sugar sweet c. have been answered by distinguishing the Equivocations of sensible Terms which express them If by Heat Colour Taste you mean such or such a Motion of insensible Parts Fire is hot Herbs green Sugar sweet c. But if by Heat and the other Qualities you mean what I feel near the Fire what I see when I look upon Herbs c. Fire is not hot nor Herbs green c. for the Heat that we feel and Colours which we see are only in the Soul as I have proved in the first Part of this Book Now as Men think what they feel is the same thing as what is really in the Object They think they have a Right to judge of the Qualities of Objects by the Sensations they have of them So they speak not two Words without saying something false nor ever speak any thing upon this matter which is not obscure and confused as many following Reasons will evince The first because all Men have not the same Sensations nor one Man at different Times or when he feels the same Objects by different Parts of his Body What seems sweet to this Man is bitter to another what is cold to this the same is hot to another what seems hot to one that is cold seems cold to the same Person when he has warmed himself or if he feels it in different Parts of his Body If Water seems hot to one Hand it often seems cold to the other or to some Part near the Heat if washed therewith Salt seems savoury to the Tongue and sharp to a Wound Sugar seems sweet to the Mouth and Aloes extreamly bitter but nothing is either sweet or bitter to the rest of the of the Senses So that when we say such a thing is cold sweet bitter it determines nothing certainly The second because different Objects may produce the same Sensation Plaister Bread Snow Sugar Salt c. produce the same Sensation of Colour Yet their Whiteness is different if we judge otherwise of them than by the Senses So when we say Flower is white we say nothing distinctly The third because the Qualities of Bodies which cause in us Sensations perfectly different are almost the same and on the contrary those of which we have almost the same Sensations are often very different There is scarcely any Difference in the Qualities of Sweetness and Bitterness that is in Objects and yet the Sensations of them are essentially different The Motions which cause Pain or Titilation differ only as to the more or less and yet the Sensations of Titilation and Pain are essentially different On the contrary the Sharpness of Fruit differs not so much from Bitterness as Sweetness does and yet this Quality is the most distant from Bitterness that can be Since it is requisite that a Fruit which is sharp because it is too green must receive a great Number of Changes before it grows bitter for being too much ripe or rotten When Fruits are too ripe they seem sweet and when they are a little too ripe they seem Bitter Bitterness and Sweetness in Fruits differ then only as to the more or less and that is the reason that some Persons think them sweet when others think them bitter For some there are who think Aloes as sweet as Honey It is the same with all Sensible Idea's The Terms of sweet bitter salt sharp sower c. of red green yellow c. of such and such Smells Tasts Colours c. are therefore all equivocal and stir up no clear and distinct Idea in the Mind Yet School Philosophers and the vulgar judge of all the Sensible Qualities of bodies only by the Sensations they receive from them These Philosophers not only judge of Sensible Qualities by the Sensations they receive of them but of things by a Consequence of the Judgments they have made concerning Sensible Qualities For what Sensations they have essentially different from certain Qualities they believe is owing to a Generation of new Forms which produce these Imaginary Differences of Qualities Corn appears yellow hard c. Flower white soft c. And from thence they conclude from the Relation of their Eyes and Hands that these are Bodies essentially different not considering of the manner whereby Corn is changed into Flower yet Flower is only Corn broken and ground as Fire is only Wood divided and agitated and Ashes the grossest Part of the Wood separated without Agitation and Glass only Ashes whereof each Part is polished and made a little round by the Attrition caused by Fire and so of other Transmutations of Bodies It is then evident that Sensible Terms and Idea's are wholly useless for a just proposing and clear resolving of Questions or the Discovery of Truth Yet is there no Question however perplexed by the Equivocal Terms of the Senses but Aristotle and the greatest Part of the Philosophers pretend in their Books to resolve it without these Distinctions that we have given not considering they are Equivocal through Ignorance and Error For instance if we demand of those who have passed their whole Lives in reading the ancient Philosophers or Physicians and who have intirely espoused their Sentiments whether Water is moist Fire dry Wine hot the Blood of Fishes cold if Water is more crude than Wine Gold more perfect than Quicksilver whether Plants and Beasts have Souls and a thousand other undetermined Questions They will easily answer without consulting any thing but the Impression these Objects have made upon their Senses or what their Memories have retained of their reading They do not perceive that these Terms are equivocal They think it strange that they must define them and are impatient if we endeavour to discover to them that they go a little too fast and that their Senses are deceived They 'll make Distinctions
But when we come to consider attentively the Idea we have of Cause or Power of acting we cannot doubt but that it represents something Divine For the Idea of a Sovereign Power is the Idea of Sovereign Divinity and the Idea of a Subordinate Power is the Idea of an inferiour but a true Divinity at least according to the Opinion of the Heathens if it be the Idea of a Power or true Cause We admit therefore something Divine in all Bodies which encompass us when we admit Forms Faculties Qualities Vertues and real Beings capable of producing certain Effects by the Power of their own Nature And thus they insensibly enter into the Opinions of the Heathens by the Respect they have for their Philosophy Faith indeed works it but it may perhaps be said that if we are Christians in our Hearts we are Heathens in our Minds Moreover it is difficult to perswade our selves that we ought neither to love or fear true Powers and Beings who can act upon us punish us with Pain or recompense us with Pleasure And as Love and Fear are a true Adoration 't is also difficult to perswade our selves that we ought not to adore them For whatever can act upon us as a real and true Cause is necessarily above us according to St. Austin and right Reason The same Father and the same Reason tells us 't is an immutable Law that Inferiour things should submit to superiour And from hence Ego enim ab animâ hoc corpus animari non puto nifi intentione facientis Nec ab isto quicquam illam pati Arbitror sed facere de illo in illo tanquam subjecto divinitus dominationi suae l. 6. mus c. 5. * this great Father concludes that the Body cannot act upon the Soul and that nothing can be above the Soul but God In the Holy Scriptures when God proves to the Israelites that they ought to adore him that is that they ought to fear and love him the chief Reasons he brings are taken from his Power to recompence and punish them He represents to them the Benefits they have received from him the Evils wherewith he hath chastised them and that he has still the same Power He forbids them to adore the Gods of the Heathens because they have no Power over them and can do them neither Good nor Hurt He requires them to honour him only because he only is the true Cause of Good and Evil and that there happens none in their City according to the Prophet which he has not done for Natural Causes are not the true Causes of the Evil that appears to be done to us 'T is God alone that acts in them and 't is he only that we must fear and love Soli Deo Honor Gloria In short this Opinion that we ought to fear and love whatsoever is the true Cause of Good and Evil appears so natural and just that it is impossible to destroy it so that if we suppose this false Opinion of the Philosophers which we endeavour here to confute that Bodies which encompass us are the true Causes of the Pleasures and Evils which we feel Reason seems to justifie a Religion like to that of the Heathens and approves of the universal Irregularity of Manners It is true that Reason does not tell us that we must adore Onyons and Leeks as the Sovereign Divinity because they cannot make us intirely happy when we have of them or intirely unhappy when we want them Nor have the Heathens ever done to them so much Honour as to the great Jupiter upon whom all their Divinities depend or as to the Sun which our Senses represent to us as the universal Cause which gives Life and Motion to all things and which we cannot hinder our selves from regarding as a Sovereign Divinity if with the Heathen Philosophers we suppose it includes in its being the true Causes of whatever it seems to produce not only in our Bodies and Minds but likewise in all Beings which encompass us But if we must not pay a Sovereign Honour to Leeks and Onyons yet we may always render them some particular Adoration I mean we may think of and love them in some manner if it is true that in some sort they can make us happy we must honour them in Proportion to the Good they can do us And certainly Men who give Ear to the Reports of their Senses think that Pulse is capable of doing them good for else the Israelites for instance would not have regretted their Absence in the Defect nor considered it as a Misfortune to be deprived of them if they did not in some manner look upon themselves happy in the Enjoyment of them These are the Irregularities which our Reason engages us in when it is joyned to the Principles of the Heathen Philosophy and follows the Impressons of the Senses That we may longer doubt of the Falseness of this Miserable Philosphy and the Certainty of our Principles and Clearness of the Idea's we make use of It is necessary clearly to establish those Truths which are opposite to the Errors of the ancient Philosophy and to prove in short that there is only one true Cause because there is only one true God That Nature or the Power of every thing proceeds only from the Will of God That all Natural things are not true Causes but only occasional ones and some other Truths which will be the Consequences of these It is evident that all Bodies both great and small have no power of removing themselves A Mountain an House a Stone a grain of Sand and in short the least or biggest Bodies we can conceive have no power of removing themselves We have only two sorts of Idea's that of Bodies and that of Spirits whereas we ought to speak only of those things which we conceive we should reason according to these two Idea's Since therefore the Idea we have of all Bodies shows us that they cannot move themselves it must be concluded that they are moved by Spirits only But when we examine the Idea we have of all finite Minds we do not see the necessary Connexion between their Wills and the Motion of any Body whatsoever it be On the contrary we see that there is none nor can be any whence we ought to conclude if we will argue according to our Knowledge that as no body can be able to move it self so there is no created Spirit can be the true or principal cause of the Motion of any body whatever But when we think of the Idea of God viz. of a Being infinitely Perfect and consequently Almighty we know that there is such a Connexion between his Will and the Motion of all Bodies that 't is impossible to conceive he should Will the Motion of a Body that should not be moved We must then say that his Will only can move Bodies if we will speak things as we conceive them and not as we feel them The moving
force of Bodies therefore is not in the Bodies which move since this power of Motion is nothing else but the Will of God Thus Bodies have no Action and when a Bowl which is moved by meeting it moves another yet it communicates nothing of its own for in it self it hath not the Impression that it communicates to the other Yet a Bowl is the Natural Cause of the motion which it communicates A Natural Cause then is not a real and true Cause but only an occasional one and which determined the Author of Nature to act after such and such a manner in such and such an Occurrence It is certain that 't is by the Motion of visible or invisible Bodies that all things are produced For Experience teaches us that Bodies whose parts are in greatest Motion always act more than others and produce the greatest Change in the World All the Powers of Nature then proceed from the Will of God He has created the World because he willed it Dixit facta sunt He moves all things and so produces all the Effects that we see happen because he has also willed certain Laws according to which Bodies communicate their Motions in their Rencounter and because these Laws are Efficacious they act and Bodies cannot act There is therefore no Force Power or true Cause in the Material and Sensible World nor must we admit of Forms Facilities and real Qualities to produce Effects that Bodies cannot and to divide with God the Force and Power which is Essential to him Not only Bodies cannot be the true Causes of any thing the most noble Spirits also are under a like Impotence They can know nothing it God does not enlighten them nor can they have any Sensation if he does not modifie them They are capable of willing nothing if God moves them not towards him I confess they can determine the Impression that God gives them towards him to other Objects but I know not whether that can called a Power If the Capability of Sinning is a Power it would be a Power which the Almighty has not St. Austin says in some of his Works It Men had in themselves the Power of loving Good we might say they had some Power But can only Love because God Wills they should Love and because his Will is Efficacious They Love only because God continually inclines them to Good in General that is towards himself For God has created them only for himself he never preserves them without turning them towards and inclining them to himself They have no Motion towards Good in general 't is God who moves them they only follow by an entire free Choice this Impression according to the Law of God or determine it towards a false Good after the Law of the Flesh They can only be determined by a Prospect of Good For being able to do only what God makes them they can love nothing but Good But if we should suppose what is true in one Sense that Spirits have in themselves the Power of knowing Truth and loving Good if their Thoughts and Wills produced nothing External we might always say they were able to do nothing Now it appears most certain to me that the Will of Spirits is not capable of moving the least Body in the World For 't is evident there is no necessary Connexion between the Will we have of moving our Arms and the Motion of them It is true they are moved when we please and by that means we are the Natural Cause of their Motion But Natural Causes are not true Causes they are only Occasional ones which act meerly through the Power and Efficacy of God as I have already explained For how can we move our Arms To move them we must have Animal Spirits and convey them by certain Nerves into such and such Muscles to swell and contract them For by this means the Arms move or according to the Opinion of some we know not yet how 't is performed And we see that Men who do not so much as know they have Spirits Nerves and Muscles to move their Arms yet move them with as much Art and Facility as those that understand Anatomy best 'T is then granted that Men Will the Motion of their Arms but 't is only God that can and knows how to remove them If a Man cannot throw down a Tower at least he knows well what must be done in order to it But there is no Man that knows so much as what he must do to move one of his Fingers by the help of his Animal Spirits How then can Men move their Arms These things appear evident to me and to all those that will think of them though perhaps they may be incomprehensible to such as will not consider them But Men only are not the True Causes of the Motions produced in their Bodies it seems even a Contradiction that they should be so A True Cause is such an one as the Mind perceives a necessary Connexion between it and its Effect 't is that I mean Now there is only the Infinitely Perfect Being whose Mind can perceive a necessary Connexion between his Will and the Effects of it 'T is only God then who is the True Cause and who has really the Power of moving Bodies I say moreover 't is not probable that God should communicate either to Men or Angels this Power he has of moving Bodies and those who pretend the Power we have of moving our Arms is a true Power must confess that God can also give to Spirits the Power of creating annihilating and performing all possible things In a word That he can make them Almighty as I shall further shew God has no need of any Instrument to act it is sufficient if he Wills a thing for it to be because it is a Contradiction to suppose he Wills it and that it should not be His Power then is his Will and the communicating of his Power is a Communication of his Will But to communicate his Will to a Man or an Angel can signifie nothing else but Willing some body for instance should be effectively moved when 't is Will'd by a Man or an Angel Now in this case I see two Wills which concur when an Angel would move a Body that of God and that of the Angel and to know which of the two will be the true Cause of the Motion of this Body we must know which it is that is Efficacious There is a necessary Connexion between the Will of God and what he Wills God Wills in this case that a Body should move when it is willed by an Angel There is a necessary Connexion therefore between the. Will of God and the Motion of this Body and consequently 't is God who is the true cause of the Motion of the Body and the Will of the Angel only an occasional one But to shew it yet more clearly let us suppose that God Wills it should happen quite contrary to what some
Spirits desire as we may think of Devils or some other Spirits who merit this Punishment we cannot say in this case that God communicates his Power to them since they can do nothing that they would do Yet the Wills of these Spirits would be the Natural Causes of whatever Effects should be produced as such Bodies should be moved to the Right Hand because these Spirits would have them moved to the Left and the desire of these Spirits would determine the Will of God to act as our Wills to move the parts of our Bodies determine the first Cause to move them So that the Wills of Spirits are only occasional Causes Yet if after all these Reasons we will still maintain that the Will of an Angel which moves any body should be a true Cause and not an occasional one it is plain that this same Angel might be the true Cause of the Creation and Annihilation of all things For God could as well communicate to him his Prower of Creating and Destroying Bodies as that of moving them if he will'd that things should be created and annihilated In a word If he will'd that all things should happen as the Angel wishes them even as he Wills Bodies should move as the Angel pleases If it be said that an Angel or a Man would be the true movers because God moves Bodies when they wish it it may also be said that a Man and an Angel may be true Creators since God can create Beings when they will it Nay perhaps it might be said that the molt Vile Animals or Matter of it self should be the effective Cause of the Creation of any Substance if we supposed as the Philosophers do that God produces substantial Forms whenever the Disposition of Matter requires it In fine Because God has resolved from all Eternity in certain times to create such or such things we might also say that these times should be the Causes of the Creation of these Beings as reasonably as to pretend that a Bowl which meets another is the true cause of the motion it communicates to it Because God has determined by his general Will which constituted the Order of Nature that when two Bodies should meet there should be such and such a Communication of Motion There is then but one only true God and he the one only true Cause And we must not imagine that which precedes an Effect to be the true Cause of it God cannot even communicate his Power to the Creatures if we follow the Light of Reason he cannot make them true Causes because he cannot make them Gods Bodies Spirits pure Intelligences can all do nothing 'T is he who hath made these Spirits that illuminates and acts them 'T is he who has created the Heavens and the Earth which regulates the Motions thereof In short 't is the Author of our Being that executes our Wills semel jussit semper paret He even moves our Arms when we make use of them against his Orders for he complains by his Prophets that we make him serve our unjust and criminal Desires All these little Heathen Divinities and all these particular Causes of the Philosophers are only Chymera's that the wicked Spirit endeavours to establish to ruin the Worship of the true God It is not the Philosophy they have received from Adam which teaches these things 't is that they have received from the Serpent for since the Fall the Mind of Man is perfectly Heathenish 'T is this Philosophy which joyned to the Errors of the Senses has made them adore the Sun and which is fall at this Day the universal Cause of the Irregularity of the Mind and Corruption of the Heart of Man By their Actions and sometimes by their Words why say they should we not love the Body since the Body is capable of affording us all Pleasures And why do we laugh at the Israelites which regretted the Loss of the Garlick and Onyons of Egypt since in Effect they were unhappy by being deprived of what in some Measure could make them happy But the new Philosophy which they represent as a dismal thing to affrighten weak Minds that is despised and condemned without being understood The new Philosophy I say since they are pleased to call it so destroys all the Arguments of the Libertines by the Establishment of the chiefest of its Principles which perfectly agrees with the * Haec est Religio Christiana fratres mei quae praedicatur per universum mundum horrentibus inimieis ubi vincuntur murmurantibus ubi praevalent saevientibus haec est Religie Christiana ut Colatur unus Deus non Dii qui facit Animam Beatum nisi unus Deus Aug. tr 23. in Joan. first Principle of the Christian Religion that we must love and fear but one God since there is only one God who can make us happy For if Religion teaches us that there is but one true God this Philosophy shews us there is but one true Cause If Religion informs us that all the Divinities of the Heathens are only Stones and Metals without Life and Motion This Philosophy discovers to us also that all second Causes or all the Divinities of their Philosophy are only Matter and inefficacious Wills In short if Religion teaches us that we must not bow our Knees to false Gods This Philosophy also tells us that our Imaginations and Minds ought not to be prostituted to the Imaginary Greatness and Power of Causes which are not true Causes That we must neither love nor fear them nor busie our selves about them but think upon God only see him adore him fear and love him in all things But this agrees not with the Inclination of some Philosophers They will neither see nor think upon God For since the Fall there is a secret Opposition between God and Man Men take Pleasure in erecting Gods after their own Fancy they voluntarily love and fear the Fictions of their own Imagination as they Heathens did the Works of their own Hands They are like Children who tremble at their Companions after they have daubed their Faces Or if they will have a more Noble Comparison although perhaps it be not so just they resemble those famous Romans who had some Fear and Respect for the Fictions of their own Minds and foolishly adored their Emperors after they had let loose the Eagle when they deified them CHAP. IV. An Explanation of the Second Part of the general Rule That Philosophers neglect it but Mr. Descartes has very exactly observed it WE have already shewed unto what Errors we are subject when we reason upon the false and confused Idea's of the Senses and upon the rambling and indeterminate Idea's of pure Logick We have sufficiently discovered that to preserve Evidence in our Perceptions it is absolutely necessary exactly to observe the Rule that we have prescribed if our Idea's are clear and distinct and then to reason according to these Idea's In this same general Rule which respects the Subject
Fermentation or Dilatation of the Liquors probably is not enough known to all that shall read this Book to pretend to have shewn an Effect when we have in general discovered that its Cause is Fermentation but we must not resolve all particular Questions by going back unto the first Causes It is not because we cannot by this demonstrate and discover the true System upon which all particular Effects depend provided we stop only at clear Idea's But that this manner of Philosophizing is neither the most exact nor shortest To explain what I mean we must know there are Questions of two Sorts In the first we try to discover the Nature and Properties of something In the others we only desire to know if such a thing hath or hath not such a Propriety or if we know it has such a Propriety we would only know the Cause of it To resolve Questions of the first Kind we must consider things in their Original and always conceive them produced by the most Simple and most Natural Ways To resolve the rest a very different manner must be taken They must be done by Suppositions and we must examine whether these Suppositions make us guilty of any Absurdity or if they conduce to any Truth clearly known For Instance we would discover what are the Properties of the Cycloid or of some of the Conick Sections These Lines must be considered in their Generation and formed according to the most Simple and least perplext Ways for 't is the best and shortest Method to discover the Nature and Properties of them We easily see that the Subtense of the Cycloid is equal to the Circle which forms it and if we do not easily discover many Properties by this means 't is because the Circular Line which serves to form it is not sufficiently known But for these Lines purely Mathematical or such whose Relations we can know more exactly as Conick Sections we may discover a great Number of their Properties by considering them in their Generation We must only observe that as they may be generated by a Regular Motion several Ways so all Sorts of Generations are not equally proper to enlighten the Mind but the most Simple are the best and that it often happens that certain particular Methods are more proper than others to demonstrate some particular Properties But if the Question is not in general to discover the Properties of a thing but to know if a thing has such a Property Then it must be supposed that it hath it effectively and examine attentively what must follow this Supposition whether it leads to a manifest Absurdity or else to some undoubted Truth which may serve as a means to discover what we enquire after And 't is that Method Geometricians make use of to resolve their Problems They suppose as done what they seek for and examine what must happen from thence and attentively consider the Relations which result from their Suppositions They represent all these Relations which include the Condition of the Problem by Equations and afterwards reduce these Equations according to their Rules so that what is unknown they find equal to one or many things perfectly known If the Question then is in general to discover the Nature of Fire and the different Fermentations which are the most universal Causes of Natural Effects I say that the shortest and most secure Way is to examine it in its Original We must consider the Formation of the most agitated Body the Motion of which is dispersed into those that ferment By clear Idea's and the most Simple Way we must examine what Motion is capable of producing in Matter And because Fire and different Fermentations are very general things and which consequently depend upon few Causes it will not be requisite long to consider what Matter is capable of when it is animated by Motion to discover the Nature of Fermentation is its Principle and at the same time we shall learn many other things absolutely necessary to the Knowledge of Physicks Whereas if in this Question we would reason by Suppositions we should go back to the first Causes to the Laws of Nature according to which all things are formed and suppose many false things which would be of no Use We might soon discover that the Cause of Fermentation is the Motion of an Invisible Matter which communicates its self to the Parts of that which acts it for we know plain enought that Fire and the different Fermentation of Bodies consist in their Agitation and that by the Laws of Nature Bodies immediately receive their Motion only by their meeting with some others more agitated Thus we may discover that there is an Invisible Matter whose Agitation is communicated to Visible Bodies But it would be Morally impossible by way of Supposition to discover how it is done And it is not near so difficult to discover when we examine the Formation of the Elements or some Bodies whereof there 's a great Number of the same Nature as is evident by Mr. Descartes's System The third Part of the Question which is of Convulsive Motions will not be very difficult to resolve provided we suppose in Bodies Animal Spirits capable of some Fermentation and of Humours sufficiently penetrating to insinuate themselves into the Pores of the Nerves by which the Spirits disperse themselves through the Muscles provided also we do not pretend to determine what the true Disposition of the Invisible Parts is which contribute to these Convulsive Motions When we have separated a Muscle from the rest of the Body and hold it by the Extremities we Sensibly perceive that it makes all its Effort to contract it self when we prick it in the Middle It is very probable that this depends upon the Construction of the Imperceptible Parts that compose it which like so many Springs are determined to certain Motions by this Pricking But who can affirm they have found the true Disposition of the Parts which serve to produce this Motion or who can give an undoubted Demonstration of it Certainly it would appear impossible although it may be through the Power of Thought we can imagine a Construction of the Muscles fit to perform all the Motions we see them capable of Yet must we not think to determine what is the true Construction of the Muscles But because we cannot reasonably doubt that there are Spirits Susceptible of some Fermentation by the Mixture of some Subtle Matter and that the sharp and pungent Humours may insinuate themselves into the Nerves we may suppose it To resolve the Question proposed we must first examine how many Sorts of Convulsive Motions there are and because the Number of them appears indetermined we may keep to the chief whose Causes seem to be different We must consider the Parts wherein they are performed the Diseases which precede and follow them If they are produced with or without Pain and particularly how quick and violent they are for some of them are performed very quick
and violent others with Quickness without Violence and some again without Quickness or Violence There are some of them which continually end and being again some which keep the Parts stiff and without Motion for some Time and some again which entirely take away Persons Senses and disâ—igure them All these things considered 't is not difficult in general to explain how the Convulsive Motions may be produced after what we have already said of Natural and Voluntary Motions For if we conceive that there is some Matter capable of fermenting the Spirits mixed with those that are contained in a Muscle this Muscle will be swelled up and shall in this part produce a Convulsive Motion If we can easily resist this Motion it will be a sign that the Nerves are not stopt by any Humour since we can empty the Muscle of the Spirits which are entred there and determine them to swell up the opposite Muscle But if we cannot we must conclude that the sharp and penetrating Humours have at least some share in this Motion It may even sometimes happen that these Humours are the sole Cause of these Convulsive Motions So they may determine the Course of the Spirits to certain Museles by opening the Passages which carry them thither and shutting up some others Besides they may contract the Tendons and Fibers by penetrating their Pores When a very heavy Weight hangs at the bottom of a Cord we can raise it much if we only wet the Cord because the Particles of Water insinuate themselves like so many little Wedges between the Threads that the Cord is composed of and shorten it by making it thicker So the penetrating and sharp Humours insinuate themselves into the Pores of the Nerves contract them stretch the parts which are united to them and produce Convulsive Motions in the Body which are extream slow violent and painful and often for some considerable time leave a very great Distortion in the Part. For the Convulsive Motions which are speedily performed they are caused by the Spirits but 't is not necessary that these Spirits should receive any Fermentation it is enough if the Conduits they pass through are more open on one side than the other When all the parts of the Body are in their Natural Situation the Animal Spirits equally and swiftly disperse themselves every where in respect to the Exigency of the Machine and Faithfully execute the Orders of the Will But when the Humours trouble the Disposition of the Brain and change or diversly move the Openings of the Nerves or by penetrating into the Muscles agitate their Springs the Spirits disperse themselves through the Parts after new manner and produce extraordinary Motions there without the consent of the Will Yet may we sometimes by a powerful Resistance prevent any of these Motions and even by degrees diminish the Traces which produced them when the Habit is perfectly formed Those who take care of them may very easily hinder themselves from making distorted Faces or from assuming an unpleasant Air or indecent Posture if the Body be indisposed These things may be overcome although they are confirmed by a long habit but with much difficulty for they should alwayes be resisted in their original before the course of the Spirits has made a way too difficult to be stopt The Cause of these Motions lies sometimes in the agitated Muscle and is some Humour that pricks or some Spirits which ferment there But we must judge it to be in the Brain chiefly when the Convulsions agitate not only one or two parts of the Body in particular but almost all of it and that in many Distempers which change the Natural Constitution of the Blood and Spirits It is true that one Nerve only having sometimes different Branches which are sufficiently dispersed through the remote parts of the Body as through the Face and Bowels it often happens that the Convulsion having its Cause in one part in which some of these Branches insinuate themselves can communicate it self to them or the other correspondent Branches without the Brains being any cause of it or the Spirits corrupted But when the Convulsive Motions are common to most parts of the Body we must needs say that either the Spirits ferment after an extraordinary manner or that the Order and Disposition of the parts of the Brain is troubled or else that both these things happen together I will stay no longer upon this Question for it becomes so compounded and depends upon so many things when we desecend to Particulars that it cannot easily ferve to explain those Rules we have given There is no Science which furnishes us with more Examples fit to shew the Usefulness of these Rules than Geometry and chiefly Algebra for in these two Sciences they are continually used Geometry clearly shews the necessity there always is of beginning with the most simple things which include the feweset Relations If always examines these Relations by Measures evidently known It takes away whatever is useless in the discovery of them divides the Questions into parts ranks these parts and examines them in order In short The only Defect in this Science is as I have before observed that it has not a very proper Method to abridge the Idea's and Relations we have discovered So that although it regulates the Imagination and makes the Mind become exact it does not much increase its Extension nor render it capable of discovering very compound Truths But Algebra continually teaches us to abridge Idea's and their Relations after the shortest Method in the World and extreamly augments the Capacity of the Mind for we can conceive nothing how Compound soever in the Relations of Magnitude that the Mind cannot in times discover by its assistance when we once know the way we must take The fifth and following Rules which concern the way of abridging Idea's only respect this Science for in other Sciences we have no commodious way of abridging them so that I shall not stay to explain them Those that have a great Inclination for the Mathematicks and will give to their Mind all the Force and Extension it is capable of and thus put themselves into a Condition of discovering without a Tutor an infinite number of known Truths will if they seriously apply themselves to Algebra discover that this Science is so useful in an Enquiry after Truth because it observes the Rules we have prescribed But by Algebra I mean chiefly that which Descartes and some others have made use of Before I conclude I will give an Example on which I shall insist a little longer that we may be the better able to see what use may be drawn from it In this Example I will represent the Advances of a Mind which would examine a very important Question and endeavour to deliver it self from its Prejudices I shall at first make it fall into some Error that it may recollect what I have said elsewhere now its Attention at last conducting it to the
Princip Article 43. of the second Part. that each Body has truly a Power to continue in the State 't is in and that this Power is equal either in respect to Motion or Rest But that which makes the Parts of hard Bodies continue in Rest by one anotherd so that we are troubled to separate and move them is because we employ not Motion enough to conquer their Rest This is probable it is true but I seek a Certainty if it can be found and not only a Probability Articl 63. And how can I certainly and evidently know that each Body has this Power to continue in the Condition it is in and that this Power is equal in respect to Motion and Rest since on the contrary Matter appears indifferent to Motion and Rest and absolutely without any Power Let us have Recourse then with Mr. Descartes to the Will of the Creator which is it may be the Power that Bodies seem to have in themselves 't is the second thing that we before supposed was able to preserve the Parts of this little Link we speak of so strongly united Certainly 't is impossible that God may will each Body to continue in the Condition it is in and that his Will is the Power which unites the Parts one to another after the same manner as I have elsewhere considered his Will to be the moving Power which puts Bodies in Motion For since Matter cannot move of it self it seems to me that I must judge it to be a Spirit and even that 't is the Author of Nature who maintains it and puts it in Motion by successively preserving it in many Places by his Simple Will since a Being infinitely powerful acts not by Instruments and the Effects necessarily follow his Will I perceive then Descartes Art 33. of the 2d Part. Art 45. and in those which follow 't is possible that God should keep every thing in the Condition it is in whether it be in Rest or in Motion and that his Will is the Natural Power that Bodies have to continue in the State in which they have once been placed If it is so we must as Descartes has done measure this Power conclude what ought to be the Natural Effects of it and thus give Rules for the Power and Communication of Motions at the Concourse of different Bodies by the Proportion of Magnitude that is found between these Bodies since we have no other Way to discover this general and immurable Will of God who causes the different Powers that Bodies have to act upon and resist one another besides their different Magnitudes and Celerities Yet I have no certain Proof that by a positive Will God keeps Bodies in a State of Rest and it seems sufficient for him to will the Existence of Matter not only to cause it to exist but to remain in Rest It is not the same in respect to Motion because the Idea of Matter moved certainly includes two Powers to which it relates viz. That which created it and that which moves it But the Idea of Matter in Rest only includes the Idea of a Creating Power without a Necessity of one to keep it in Rest since if we simply conceive Matter without thinking of any Power we shall necessarily conceive it in Rest Thus 't is I determine things for I must judge of them according to my Idea's and according to them Rest is but a Privation of Motion For 't is sufficient for God to cease to will that a Body should he moved for its Motion to cease and cause it to remain in Rest But I remember I have heard many Ingenious Persons say that it appeared to them that Motion was as well the Privation of Rest as that Rest was a Privation of Motion Some even have assured me by Reasons I could not apprehend that it was more probable that Motion was rather a Privation than Rest I do not distinctly remember the Arguments they brought but it ought to make me suspect my Idea's to be false For although most Men speak what pleases them upon Matters that do not appear very Important Yet I have Reason to believe that the Persons I speak of took Pleasure in speaking what they conceived I must therefore still examine my Idea's very carefully 'T is a thing which appears undoubted to me and these Gentlemen I speak of grant it viz. That it is the Will of God which moves Bodies The Power then that a Bowl has which I see in Motion is the Will of God which causes it to move And what must God now do to cause it to stop Must he by a positive Will determine it to be in Rest I imagine here that there is only God my self and a Bowl or else is it sufficient that he ceases to will it should be moved It is evident that if God only ceases to will that this Bowl should be moved the Cessation of this Will of God will be the Cessation of the Motion of the Bowl for the Will of God which was the Power that moved the Bowl being no more this Power will continue no longer nor the Bowl therefore any more moved Thus a Cessation of the Power of Motion causes Rest Rest has therefore no Power which produces it 'T is then only a pure Privation which supposes not a positive Will in God so that it would be unreasonable and unnecessary to admit a positive Will in God to give Bodies any Power to continue in Rest But let us if possible overthrow this Argument suppose now a Bowl in Rest whereas we supposed it before in Motion what must God do to actuate it Will it be enough for him to cease to will it should be in Rest If it is so I have yet advanced nothing for Motion would as well be the Privation of Rest as Rest the Privation of Motion I suppose then that God ceases to will it should continue in Rest but if this be granted I do not see that the Bowl moves and if any one sees it moved I desire them to tell me after what Degree of Motion it is moved Certainly 't is impossible that it should move and not have some Degree of Motion and from our conceiving only that God ceases to will it should be in Rest it is impossible to conceive it to go with any Degree of Motion because it is not the same with Motion as Rest Motions are infinitely various they are capable of More or Less But Rest being nothing one cannot differ from another A Bowl even which goes twice as fast in one Time as in another has twice as much Power or Motion in one Time as in another but we cannot say that the same Bowl has twice as much Rest in one Time as in another Thefore it must be a positive Will from God to put a Bowl in Motion or to give a Bowl such a Power as to move it self and it is enough for him to cease willing its Motion for it to
upon their External and Convex Surface by the Air which environs them whilst there was no Counterpressure in their Internal and Concave Surface So that the Action of the Horses that drew the two Hemispheres on both sides could not overcome the Efforts of an infinite Number of little Particles of the Air that resisted them by pressing these two Hemispheres together But the least Force is capable of separating them when the Air being entred again within the Sphere pushes the Concave and Internal Surfaces as much as the Air without presses the External and Convex ones But if on the contrary we take a Carps Bladder and put it in a Vessel from whence all the Air has been exhausted this Bladder being full of Air will crack and break because then there is no Air without the Bladder to resist that which is within 'T is likewise the same Reason that I have given for the first Experiment that two Planes of Glass or Marble having been used to be joyned one upon another so that in one Sense we find some resistance in the separating of them because these two parts of Marble are pressed and constring'd by the External Air which encompasses them and are not so strongly pushed by it within I might bring an infinite Number of other Experiments to prove that the gross Air which environs Bodies strongly unites their Parts but what I have said may suffice clearly to explain my Thoughts upon the present Question I say then that which so strongly unites the Parts of hard Bodies and these little Links I have before spoke on is other little external Bodies infinitely more agitated than the Air we breath in and these push and compress them and that which gives us some Trouble to separate them is not their Rest but the Agitation of these little Bodies which surround them So that what resists Motion is not Rest which is only a Privation and has no Power of it self but some contrary Motion This bare Exposition of my Opinion perhaps seems reasonable yet I well foresaw that many Persons would have some Difficulty to receive it Hard Bodies make so great an Impression upon our Senses when they strike us or when we make any Effort to break them that we are inclined to believe their Parts are united much more strictly than indeed they are And on the contrary the little Bodies which I have said encompasses them and to which I have given the Power of causing this Union makes no Impression upon our Senses seeming to be too weak to produce so Sensible an Effect But to destroy this Prejudice which is founded only upon the Impressions of our Senses and the Difficulty we have to imagine Bodies smaller and more agitated than those we see every Day we must consider that the Hardness of Bodies must not be judged of in Relation to our Hands or to the Efforts we are capable of making which vary at different Times For indeed if the greatest Force of Man is almost nothing in Comparison of that of the Subtle Matter we should be very much in the wrong to believe that Diamonds and the hardest Stones might not have for the Cause of their Hardness the Compression of little rapid Bodies which encompass them Now we may plainly discover that the Force of Man is very small if we consider that the Power he has of moving his Body into many different Ways proceeds only from a little Fermentation of his Blood which by agitating some few little Parts so produces the Animal Spirits For 't is the Agitation of these Spirits which gives Force to our Bodies and gives it a Power to make these Efforts that we unreasonably look upon as something very great and powerful But it must be well observed that this Fermentation of our Blood is only a very little Communication of the Motion of this subtle Matter we speak of for all the Fermentations of Visible Bodies are only Communications of the Motion of Invisible Bodies since every Body receives its Agitation from some other We must not therefore wonder if our Power is not so great as that of this Subtle Matter which we receive it from But if our Blood fermented as much in our Hearts as Gunpowder does when we put Fire to it that is if our Blood received as great a Communication of the Motion of this Subtle Matter as that of Gunpowder receives We might do extraordinary things very easily as break Iron throw down a House c. provided we suppose there was an agreeable Proportion between our Members and the Blood thus agitated We ought then to destroy our Prejudices and not to imagine according to the Impression of our Senses that the Parts of hard Bodies are so strongly united together because we have so much Trouble to break them But if we should consider the Effects of Fire in Mines in heavy Bodies and in many other Effects of Nature which have no other Cause than the Agitation of these Invisible Bodies as Descartes has proved in many Places we should manifestly discover that 't is not above their Power to unite and compress togeâ—her the Parts of hard Bodies as strongly as we see they are united For in fine I am not afraid to affirm that a Cannon-Bullet whose Motion appears so extraordinary does not even receive the Thousandth Part of the Motin of the Subtle Matter that is about it We should not doubt of what I advance if we first considered that Gunpowder is not all enkindled in the same Instant Secondly that although it should all take Fire at the same Instant it swims but a very little while in the Subtle Matter and Bodies which swim but a little while in others cannot receive much Motion from them as we may see in Boats that we abandon to the Course of the Water which receive their Motion but by little and little In the third Place and chiefly because each Particle of Powder can receive only the Motion which the Subtle Matter impresses for the Water communicates to the Vessel only the direct Motion which is common to all the Parts thereof which is generally very small in Relation to other Motions I could further show the Greatness of the Motion of the Subtle Matter to those that receive Descartes's Principles by the Motion of the Earth and Gravity of Bodie and could even from thence bring Proofs that are certain and exact enough but it is not necessary to my Subiect It 's enough without having read the Works of Descartes or having a sufficient Proof of the Agitation of this Subtle Matter which I ascribe as the Cause of the Inflexibility of Bodies to read with some Application what I have said of it in the 2d Chap. of the 4th Book Being then now delivered from the Prejudices which incline us to believe that our Efforts were very powerful and that that of the Subtle Matter which environs and compresses hard Bodies is very weak and being otherwise perswaded of the violent
the Father begot his Son and that the Father and the Son produced the Holy Ghost for these Emanations are necessary But the World not being a necessary Emanation of God those who see his Being the most clearly do not see evidently which are his external productions Nevertheless I do believe that the Blessed are certain that there is a World but it is because God assures them of it in making his Will known to them after a manner which is unknown to us And even we here below are certain of it because Faith teaches us that God has Created this World and that this Faith is Consonant to our Natural Judgments or to our compound Sensations when they are confirm'd by all our Senses corrected by our Memory and rectified by our Reason It is true it seems at first that the Proof or Principle of our Faith supposes there are Bodies Fides ex auditu It seems to suppose Prophets Apostles Holy Writ and Miracles But if we observe it strictly we shall find that though we only suppose appearances of Men of Prophets of Apostles of Holy Writ of Miracles c. What we have learn'd by those pretended appearances is absolutely undeniable since as I have prov'd it in divers parts of this Work God alone can represent those pretended appearances to the Mind and God is no deceiver for Faith it self supposes all this Now in the appearance of Holy Scripture and Miracles we learn that God has Created an Heaven and an Earth that the Word was made Flesh and other Truths of this kind which suppose the existence of a Created World So that it is certain by Faith that there are Bodies and thereby all those appearances become Realities I need not inlarge any farther to answer an Objection which appears too abstruse to the common sort of Men and I am of Opinion that this will suffice to satisfie all those who are not too difficult Therefore we must conclude from all this that we can and even that we ought to correct the Natural Judgments or compound perceptions which have a relation to sensible Qualities which we attribute to external Bodies or to that which we animate But as to the Natural Judgments that have a relation to the actual Existence of Bodies though we might absolutely forbear forming free Judgments agreeable to them we ought not to do it because those Natural Judgments agree perfectly with Faith Besides I have particularly made this Remark that Men should seriously reflect upon this Truth That nothing but Eternal Wisdom can inlighten us and that all the sensible knowledge in which our Body has any share is deceitful or at least is attended with that Light to which we feel our selves oblig'd to submit I am sensible that the common sort of Men will not approve these Thoughts and that according to the abundance or defect of their Animal Spirits they will either laugh or be frightned at these Arguments For the Imagination cannot indure abstract and extraordinary Truths It either looks upon them as frightful Spectres or ridiculous Phantasms But I had rather be expos'd to the raillery of strong and bold Imaginations and to the Indignation and Fear of the weak and timorous than to be wanting in what I owe to Truth and to those generous defenders of the Mind against the efforts of the Body who know how to distinguish the answers of illuminating Wisdom from the confused noise of a perplexing and seducing Imagination AN EXPLANATION OF THE Fifth Chapter of the Second Book Of Memory and Spiritual Habits I Forbear speaking of Memory and Spiritual Habits in this Chapter for several Reasons the chief of which is that we have no clear Idea of our Soul For what means have we clearly to explain the dispositions which the Operations of the Soul leave in it which dispositions are its Habits since we do hot even clearly know the Nature of the Soul It is evident that we cannot distinctly know the alterations a Being is capable of when we do not distinctly know the Nature of that Being For if for instance Men had no clear Idea of extension they would in vain endeavour to discover the Figures of it However since some are desirous I should speak upon a matter which in it self is not known to me this is the method I will observe to follow none but clear Idea's in it I suppose that God only acts in the Mind and represents the Idea's of all things to it and that when the Mind perceives any Object by a very clear and lively Idea it is because God represents that Idea to it after a very perfect manner I suppose moreover that the Will of God being absolutely consonant to Order and Justice it is sufficient to have a right to a thing to obtain it These Suppositions which are distinctly conceiv'd being made the Spiritual Memory explains it self easily for Order requiring that Persons who have often thought on some Object should the easier think on it again and have a clearer and more lively Idea of it than those who have thought but little on it the Will of God which operates continually according to Order represents to their Mind as soon as they desire it the clear and lively Idea of that Object So that according to that Explanation the Memory and other Habits of pure Intelligences consist not in a facility of operation which results from certain Modifications of their Being but from an immutable Order of God and in a Right which the Mind acquires over those things Which have already been submitted to it and the sole power of the Mind depends immediately arid only on God the force or facility which all Creatures find in their Operations being in that sense only the Efficacious Will of the Creator And I do not think we are obliged to abandon this Explanation upon the account of the ill habits of Sinners and of the Damn'd for tho' God does whatever is real and positive in the Actions of Sinners it is evident by what I have said in the first Explanation that God is not the Author of Sin However I do believe and think my self oblig'd to believe that after the action of the Soul there still remains some alterations which do dispose it to that same Action But as I know them not I cannot explain them for I have no clear Idea of my Mind in which I can discover all the Modifications it is capable of I believe by Theological Proofs and not by clear and evident ones See the Explanation on the 7th Chap. of the 2d part of the third Book that the Reason for which pure Intelligences see Objects which they have already consider'd more clearly than others is not meerly because God represents those Objects to them in a more lively and more perfect manner but because they are really better dispos'd to receive the same Action from God in them Just as the facility which some persons have acquir'd to play upon some Instruments does
the condemning of secret Intentions we may perhaps judge that what I say is improbable But I do not think that any one can be offended at it since I endeavour thus to satisfie Mens minds even those who are the most troublesome in the difficulties they propose about Original Sin AN EXPLANATION OF THE Third Chapter of the Third Part of the Second Book In which I speak Of the Power of the Imagination of some Authors and particularly of Tertullian AS I am convinced that the most general and most exuberant Principle of the Errors we meet with in Sciences and particularly in Morality is the Impression which lively Imaginations make upon Mens Minds who are guided more by Mechanism than by Reason I thought my self obliged to make the World so sensible of this Truth as to awaken Men out of their Lethargy in relation to it And whereas Examples are most powerful over us especially when there is something great and extraordinary in them I have thought that the celebrated Names of Tertullian Seneca and of Montagne would be capable of exciting their Attention and convince them sensibly of the contagious power of the Imagination over Reason For in fine if dead Words which are not animated by the Air and sensible Behaviour of those famous Authors have still more force than the Reason of certain Persons If the turn of Expression which gives but a weak Idea of the sensible Action which the Imagination diffuses livelily upon the Face and the rest of their Body who are perswaded of what they say is capable of agitating penetrating and convincing many certainly it must be granted that nothing can be more dangerous than a respectful attention to Persons whose Imagination is strong and lively For their Air and manner of speaking is a Natural Language so strong and convincing they know how to draw things so much to the Life that they commonly make the Passions and the Senses rise against Reason that they infuse as it were conviction and certainty into all those who look upon them I was very sensible that in producing these great Examples I should not cure all those who had been struck with astonishment and admiration at the reading of these three famous Authors For there is no need to very well acquainted with the Nature of Man to know that the Wounds which the Brain has received are harder to be cured than those of the other parts of the Body and that it is easier to close a Wound which is not exposed to the Action of some Body that may renew it than perfectly to cure certain Prejudices which are justified every moment by very probable Reasons It is very difficult to close up the Traces of the Brain exactly because they are exposed to the course of the Spirits and may be continually renewed by a vast number of Traces which may be called accessories Those kind of Wounds cannot commonly be cured or closed up unless it be when the Brain having received others that are deeper and opposite to them a strong and continual revulsion is made in the Spirits For we must not imagine that a Prejudice is absolutely cured as soon as we fancy it is because we are not actually affected with it A Prejudice is only absolutely cured when the Trace is perfectly closed up and not so soon as the Spirits begin no longer to take their course that way for some particular Reason Therefore I was very sensible that those who had been overcome by the Force and Motions of Tertullian say'd and dazzled by the Greatness and Beauties of Seneca charm'd and corrupted by the free and natural Expressions of Montaigne would not change their Sentiments after the reading of a few Pages of my Book I judg'd on the contrary that they would be displeased at my Endeavours to dissipate the Spell which charms them But whereas I was in hopes that these Examples would prove of use to my Design for the Reasons I have alledged I thought my self obliged to have more regard to the Advantage many persons may derive by it who are unprejudiced than to the Uneasiness of some others whom I thought would criticize upon the Liberty I have taken I considered also that there are few Men so much prejudiced in favour of their Authors as to despair of prevailing with them to side with Reason again Lastly I thought that as there are perhaps no Men prejudiced in favour of all three of them by reason of the diversity of the Character of their Imaginations the most obstinate might think that I am in the right in many things I know the respect I owe to the Works of Tertullian as well upon the account of the Subjects he treat of as the approbation they have had from several persons who ought to be Judges of them And I have sufficiently discovered this disposition of my Mind by what I have said concerning them and by the quality of the Book de Pallio the only one I have freely spoken of though there are others which perhaps would have been fitter for my Design But after all I do not think that Time ought either to magnifie or alter the Ideas of things that all Antiquities are Venerable and that false Reasons and extravagant Expressions deserve Respect because they have been introduced into the World long before us I do not think we are obliged to receive Affected Obscurities like Sacred Mysteries Sallies of Imagination like evident Truths The Hearts of Africk which Labour in a Mind naturally full of Fire like the Motions of the Prophetical Spirit which can only teach Sublime Truths I am sensible that even those who have most respect for Tertullian's Works allow all this and that they are too Equitable to Justifie the irregularities of Imagination against Reason But perhaps they are like those Judicious Persons who are great Lovers of Truth and yet are taken with the Stile For I have often met with some of them who were so much inchanted by some strong lively great and magnificent Expressions of Tertullian that after having proved to them that the Author was neither Judicious not very Reasonable they did nothing but repeat them to me to surprize and perswade me I own that Tertullian has very bold and strong Expressions and that they produce very Lively and Sprightly Images in the Mind And 't is for that Reason I take him for an Example that strong Imaginations have much power to act and convince by Impression Therefore those who make those kind of Objections to me confirm my Opinion while they oppose it The Prepossession or Esteem they have for Tertullian justifies my Conduct The frequent Quotations and the Pompous Words they alledge from him prove what I say For men seldom quote in Discourse intire Arguments But they often quote strong and lively Expressions to dazzle and to convince by sensible Impression I suppose no body will imagine that I pretend to censure so many Great Men who daily quote Tertullian in their
Men But was not that Reason present to those who look within themselves and had not the very Heathens naturally had some union with the Order we are speaking of What Sin or what Disobedience could they have been guilty of and according to what Justice could God punish them I say this the rather because a Prophet tells me That God himself is willing to make Men Judges of the Difference he has with his People provided they pass their Judgment according to the immutable and necessary Order of Justice Nunc ergo habit atores Jerusalem viri Juda Judicate inter me vidram meam Esa. 5.3 Nero kill'd his Mother 't is true But wherein has he done ill He followed the Natural motion of his Hatred God gave him no Precept to the contrary The Jewish Law was not made for him Perhaps it may be urged that the Law of Nature forbids the like Action and that the said Law was known to him But what proof have we of it For my part I grant it because that really and invincibly proves there is an immutable and necessary Order and that every Mind or Spirit has a knowledge of this Order which is the more clear in that it is more united to the universal Reason and because it is less sensible of the Impressions of Sense and of the Passions in a word because it is more reasonable But I must endeavour to explain my Sentiment concerning Order and the Divine or Natural Law as clearly as possible I can For the Reason why Men are so backward to subscribe to what I say is perhaps because they do not distinctly perceive what I think It is certain that God contains within himself after an intelligible manner the perfections of all Beings he has created or can create and that it is by these intelligible perfections he knows the Essence of all things as by his own Will he knows their Existence Those perfections are likewise the immediate Object of the Mind of Man for the Reasons above-said Therefore the intelligible Ideas or the perfections Which are in God and which represent unto us that which is out of God are absolutely necessary and immutable Now those Truths are only the relations of equality or inequality which are among those intelligible Beings since it is only true that 2 times 2 make 4 or that 2 times 2 are not 5 because there is a relation of equality between 2 times 2 and 4 and one of inequality between 2 times 2 and 5. Therefore Truths are immutable and necessary as well as their Ideas It has always been true that 2 and 2 make 4 and it is impossible it should become false This is evident without the least necessity of God's having Established those Truths as Supream Law-giver as Monsieur Des Cartes says in his Answer to the Sixth Objection It is easie enough to apprehend what Truth is but Men have much ado to conceive what the immutable and necessary Order is what Natural and Divine Law is what God necessarily Wills as also what the Righteous Will For that which makes a Man Just is that he loves Order and conforms his Will to it in all things As the Sinner is only so because he does not approve of Order in all things and that he would fain have it to be conformable to what he wishes Nevertheless there is not so great a Mystery in those things in my opinion as Men imagine And I fancy that the reason why they find so many difficulties in it proceeds from the difficulty the Mind finds to raise it self to Abstracted and Metaphisical Thoughts This is partly what I think of Order It is evident that the Perfections that are in God which represent created or possible Beings are not all alike That those for Instance which represent Bodies are not so Noble as those which represent Spirits And that even among those which only represent Bodies or Spirits some are more perfect than others ad Infinitum This is clearly and without difficulty conceived though it is not easie to reconcile the simplicity of the Divine Being with that variety of intelligible Ideas which it includes in its Wisdom For it is evident that if all the Ideas of God were alike he could see no difference among his Works since he can only see his Creatures by that which is in him which represents them and if the Idea of a Watch which besides the Hours shows all the different Motions of the Planets were not more perfect than that of a Watch which only points out the Hours or than that of a Circle or a Square a Watch would not be more perfect than a Circle For we can only judge of the perfection of Works by the perfection of the Ideas we have of them And if there were no more wisdom or sign of understanding in a Watch than in a Circle it would not be more difficult to conceive the most compounded Machines than to conceive a Square or a Circle If it be true then that God who is the Universal Being includes within himself all Beings after an intelligible manner and that all these intelligible Beings which have a necessary Existence in God are not equally perfect it is evident that there must be an immutable and necessary Order among them And that in the same manner as there are Eternal and necessary Truths because there are relations of Magnitude amongst intelligible Beings there must also be an immutable and necessary Order by reason of the relations of Perfection which are among the same Beings 'T is then an immutable Order that Spirits should be Nobler than Bodies as it is a necessary Truth that 2 times 2 are 4 or that 2 times 2 are not 5. Hitherto the immutable Order seems rather to be a speculative Truth than a necessary Law For if Order be only considered as we have now done it it is plain for Instance that 't is a Truth that Spirits are Nobler than Bodies But we do not see that this Truth is at the same time an Order bearing the force of a Law and that we are obliged to prefer Spirits before Bodies Therefore we must consider that God loves himself by a necessary Love and for that Reason loves that better in himself that includes and represents more Perfection than that which includes less So that if we would suppose that an intelligible Spirit was a thousand times more perfect than an intelligible Body the Love by Which God loves himself would of necessity be a thousand times greater for that Spirit than for this intelligible Body For the Love of God is necessarily proportioned to the Order which is between the intelligible Being he includes So that Order which is purely speculative has the force of a Law in relation to God himself supposing as it is certain that God necessarily loves himself and cannot love intelligible Bodies more than intelligible Spirits though he may love created Bodies more than created Spirits as I shall
show hereafter Now this immutable Order which has the force of a Law in respect to God himself has visibly the force of a Law in relation to us For this Order is known to us and our natural Love suits it self to it when we look into our selves and when our Senses and Passions leave us free In a word when our Self-love does not corrupt our natural Love Being made for God from whom we can never be absolutely separated we see this Order in him and are naturally inclined to love him For it is his Light which lightens us and his Love which animates us though our Senses and Passions obscure that Light and determine against Order the impression which we receive to love according to Order But though Concupiscence conceals Order from us and hinders us from following it yet it is still an Essential and Indispensible Law in respect to us And not only in respect of us but to all created Intelligences and even in respect of the Damned For I do not think they are so far remov'd from God but that they still preserve some small Idea of Order still find some Beauty in it nay more are still ready to conform to it in some particular occasions which do not oppose their Self-love The Corruption of the Heart consists in an opposition to Order Therefor the Malice or Corruption of the Will not being equal even among the Damned it is evident that they are not equally opposed to Order nor hate it in all things unless in Consequence of the hatred they bear to God For as no Man can hate Good considered barely as such so none can hate Order unless it proves contrary to their Inclinations But though it seems contrary to their Inclinations nevertheless it is a Law which condemns them and which even punishes them everlastingly We now see what Order is and how it has the force of a Law by the necessary Love God has for himself We conceive how this Law is General for all Spirits and even for God himself How it is necessary and absolutely indispensible In fine We either do or may easily conceive in general how it is the principle of all Divine and Humane Laws and that it is according to this Law all Intelligences are Judged and all Creatures disposed in their respective Classes that are proper for them I own it is no easie Task to explain all this in particular neither will I venture to undertake it For should I attempt to show the relation particular Laws have to the General Law and the Connection between certain Proceedings and Order I should be obliged to enter into such difficulties as perhaps I should not be able to solve and which would also lead me far from my Subject Nevertheless if we consider that God neither has nor can have any Law but his Wisdom and the necessary Love he has for it we shall easily conclude that all Divine Laws must be grounded on it And if we observe that he has only made the World in relation to that Wisdom and Love since he only Acts for himself we shall no longer doubt but that all Natural Laws must tend to the preservation and perfection of this World according to indispensable Order and by their dependance on necessary Love For all things are governed by the Wisdom and Will of God There is no necessity for me to inlarge any further on this Principle at this time What I have said is sufficient to draw this Consequence That in the first Institution of Nature it was impossible that Spirits should have been subjected to Bodies For as God can never Act without Knowledge and involuntarily so he has made the World according to his Wisdom and by the Morion of his Love He has made all things by his Son and in the Holy Ghost as the Scripture teaches us Now in the Wisdom of God Spirits are more perfect than Bodies and by the necessary Love which God has for himself he prefers the most perfect to the least perfect Therefore it is impossible that Spirits should have been subjected to Bodies in the first Institution of Nature Otherwise we should be obliged to say That when God made the World he followed not the Rules of his Eternal Wisdom nor the Motions of his natural and necessary Love Which is not to be conceived but rather implies a direct Contradiction It is true at present a created Mind is subject to a material and sensible Body but it is because Order considered as a necessary Law requires it It is because God loving himself by a necessary Love which is alwayes his inviolable Law cannot love Spirits which are contrary to him nor consequently prefer them to Bodies in which there is no ill nor any thing that God hates See the fifth Dialogue of The Christian Conversations For God loves not Sinners in themselves they only subsist in the Universe by Jesus Christ God only preserves and loves them that they may cease to be Sinners by Grace in Jesus Christ Or that if they remain Sinners eternally they may eternally be condemned by the immutable and necessary Order and by the Judgment of Jesus Christ through whose Power they subsist for the Glory of Divine Justice for were it not for Jesus Christ they would be annihilated I say this by the by to remove some difficulties which may remain about what I have said elsewhere concerning Original Sin or the general Corruption of Nature It is in my Opinion very useful to consider that the Mind only knows External Objects after two manners By Knowledge and by Sensations It sees things by Knowledge when it has a clear Idea of them and consulting this Idea can discover all the properties they are capable of It sees things by Sensation when it cannot thus discover the properties of them clearly When it only knows them by a confused Sensation without Light and Evidence It is by Knowledge and ' a clear Idea the Mind sees the Essences of Things Numbers and Extension It is by a confuted Idea or by Sensation it judges of the existence of Creatures and that it knows its own The Mind perceives those things perfectly which it perceives by Knowledge and a clear Idea and moreover it sees clearly that if there be any obscurity or imperfection in its Knowledge it proceeds from its weakness and limitation or from want of application on its part and not for want of perfection in the Idea which it perceives But what the Mind perceives by Sensation is never clearly known to it Not for want of application on its part for we alwayes apply our selves carefully to what we feel but by the defect of the Idea which is very obscure and confused From hence we may judge that it is in God or in an immutable Nature that we see whatever we know by Light and a clear Idea not only because by Knowledge we see Number Extension and the Essence of Beings which depend not on a first
act of God as I have already show'd but also because we know those things after a very perfect manner and also we should know them after an infinitely perfect manner were the capacity we have of thinking infinite since nothing is wanting in the Idea which represents them We ought also to conclude that it is in our selves we see whatever we know by Sensation Not that we can produce any new Modification in our selves or that the Sensations or Modifications of our Soul can represent objects by whose means God excites them in us but because our Sensations which are not distinct from us and consequently can never represent any thing that is distinct from us may nevertheless represent the existence of Beings or make us judge that they do exist For God exciting our Sensation in us at the presence of Objects by an action which is no wise sensible we fancy we receive from the Object not only the Idea which represents its Essence but also the Sensation which makes us judge of its Existence for there is alwayes a pure Idea and a confused Sensation in the knowledge we have of the Existence of Beings if we except that of God and our Soul I except the Existence of God for that is known by a pure Idea without Sensation his Existence not depending on a Cause and being included in the Idea of the necessary Being as the equality of Diameters is included in the Idea of the Circle I also except the Existence of our own Soul because we know by an Internal Sensation that we think will and feel and that we have no clear Idea of our Soul as I have sufficiently explained in the Seventh Chapter of the Second Part of the Third Book and elsewhere These are part of the Reasons that may be added to those I had already given to prove that God only inlightens us and that the immediate and direct object of our clear and evident Knowledge is an immutable and necessary Nature Men commonly make some Objections against this Opinion I shall now indeavour to resolve them Against what has been said That God only Inlightens us and that we see all things in Him FIRST OBJECTION Our Soul thinks because it is its Nature God in Creating it has given it the Faculty of Thinking there needs no more Or if there is any thing more required let us rely on what Experience teaches us about our Senses We find enough by Experience that they occasion our Ideas 'T is ill Philosophizing against Experience ANSWER I wonder that the Cartesians who have so much and yet so reasonable an aversion against the general Expressions of Nature and Faculty so freely use them on this occasion They will not allow Men to say that Fire burns by its Nature and that it turns certain Bodies into Glass by a Natural Faculty And yet some of them are not afraid of saying that the Mind of Man produces in it self the Ideas of all things by its Nature and because it has the Faculty of Thinking But yet they must give me liberty to say that these Expressions are no more significant in their Mouths than in those of the Peripatetics I am sensible the Soul is capable of Thinking but I know also that Extension is capable of Figures The Soul is capable of volition as well as Matter is of motion But as it is false that Matter though capable of Figure and Motion has in it self a Power a Faculty a Nature by which it can move it self or assume sometimes a round Figure and sometimes a square one so that the Soul is Naturally and Essentially capable of Knowledge and of Volition yet it is false that it has Faculties by which it can produce its Ideas in its self or its tendency towards good There is a great difference between being Movable and Moving Matter of its Nature is moveable and capable of Figures Besides it cannot subsist without Figure But it moves not it self it gives not it self a Figure it has no Faculty for all that The Mind by its Nature is capable of Motion and Ideas I grant it But it moves not it self it inlightens not it self God does all in Spirits as well as in Bodies Can we say that God makes all the alterations which happen in Matter See the first Illustration and that he makes not those which happen in the Mind Do we give that unto God which belongs to him in abandoning the last of all Beings to his Disposition Is he not equally the Master of all things Is he not the Creator the Preserver the only true Mover of Spirits as well as Bodies Certainly he makes all things Substances Accidents Beings manners of Beings We take away his Knowledge by putting bounds to his Action But if Men will needs have it that Creatures have such Faculties is are commonly conceived that we must say that Natural Bodies have a Nature which is the Author of their Motion and Rest as Aristotle and his followers say This overthrows all my Ideas But yet I would rather allow it than say that the Mind inlightens it self Let Men say the Soul has that power of differently moving the Members of their Body and to communicate Sensation and Life to them Let them say if they please that it gives Heat to the Blood Motion to the Spirits and to the rest of the Body its Magnitude Disposition and Figure But let them never say that the Mind gives it self its Motion and Light If God does not all at least let us allow him to do that which is greatest and most perfect in the World And if Creatures do something let them move their Bodies and let them order them as they please but let them not act upon Minds Let us say that Bodies move one another after having moved themselves Or rather let us not pretend to understand the different dispositions of Matter that little concerns us But we ought not to suffer our Minds to be ignorant from whom they receive the Light which lightens them Let them know from whom they receive that which can make them happier and more perfect Let them know their dependance according to its utmost extent and that whatever they have actually they receive it from God every moment For as a great Saint sayes upon another Subject It is a very criminal Pride to make use of those things which God gives us as if they were Naturally ours Above all things let us not imagine that the Senses instruct our Reason that the Body directs the Mind and that the Soul receives that from the Body which it has not it self It were better to fancy our selves independant than to think we have a real dependance on the Body It is better to be our own Master than to seek out a Master among the Creatures that is less valuable than we But it is much better yet to submit to the Eternal Truth which assures us in the Gospel that he is our only Master than to give
are in themselves or the Body which speaks only out of interest and in relation either to the preservation or conveniency of Life For in fine What Prejudices will not be justified if we take the Senses for Judges to whom almost all Prejudices owe their birth As I have already shewn in the Search after Truth When I see one Bowle hit another my Eyes tell me or seem to tell me that it is truly the Cause of the Motion it impresses For the true Cause which moves Bodies does not appear to my Eyes Bur when I ask my Reason I see evidently that Bodies cannot move themselves and their Moving power depending only upon the Will of God which successively preserves them in different places they cannot communicate a power which they have not nor could communicate if they had it For 't is plain there is a Wisdom requisite and one that is infinite too to regulate the Communication of Motions with the exactness proportion and uniformity that we see A Body moved cannot know the infinite number of Bodies it meets at every moment It is farther clear That although we should even suppose knowledge in it it could not have enough to regulate in the instant of the Shock the distribution of the Moving power it self is carried with If I open but my Eyes it appears plain to me that the Sun is very gloriously bright and seems not only to be visible it self but makes all the World so too 'T is that which covers the Earth with Flowers and Fruits which gives Life to Animals and which by its Heat penetrates into the very Bowels of the Earth and produces Stones Marbles and Metals there But when I consult Reason I see nothing of all this and if I consult it faithfully I clearly discover that my Senses seduce me and that it is God who performs all in all Things For knowing that whatever changes happen in the Body they have no other principle but the different communication of Motion which occur in visible or invisible Bodies I see that it is God who does all Things since it is his Will which Causes and his Wisdom which Regulates all these Communications I suppose that Local Motion is the principle of Generations Corruptions Alterations and generally of all the Changes which happen in the Body which is an Opinion that is now sufficiently received amongst the Learned But whatever Opinion they have about it signifies little for it seems much more easie to conceive that a Body drives another when it meets it than to apprehend how Fire produces Heat and Light and draw from the power of Matter a Substance which was not there before And if it be necessary to acknowledge That God is the True Cause of the different Communications of Motions by a much stronger Reason we ought to conclude That none but he can Create and Annihilate Real Qualities and Substantial Forms I say Create and Annihilate because at least it seems as difficult to me to draw from Matter a Substance which was not in it or to cause it to re-enter again as to Create or Annihilate it But I shall not stand upon Terms I only make use of them because there is no other which I know of that clearly and without Equivocation express the Changes which the Philosophers suppose every Moment to happen through the power of Second Causes I had some difficulty here to relate the other Proofs which they commonly give for the Power and Efficacy of Natural Causes for they appear so weak to those who are able to resist Prejudices and prefer their Reason to their Senses that it does not seem likely that reasonable Men should be perswaded by them Yet I will produce and Answer them since there are many Philosophers who make use of them The first Proof If Second Causes do effect nothing we could not says Suarez In his Metaph. Disp 18. Sect. 1. Assert 1. In Metaph. Arist qu. 7. Sect. 2. Fonseca and some others distinguish Animate from Inanimate Things for neither of them would have an inward principle of their Actions ANSWER I Answer That Men would have the same Sensible Proofs that have convinced them of the distinction they put between Animate and Inanimate Things They would alwayes see Animals perform Certain Actions as Eating Growing Crying Running Leaping c. Nor would they observe any thing like this in Stones And it is this only which makes the common Philosophers believe that Beasts live and Stones do not for it must not be imagined that they know by a clear and distinct View of the Mind what the Life of a Dog is It is their Senses which regulate their Decisions upon this Question If it were necessary I could here prove That the Principal of a Dog's Life differs very little if at all from that of the Motion of a Watch. For the Life of Bodies whatever they be can only consist in the motion of their parts and it is not difficult to judge that the same Subtil Matter which in a Dog causes the Fermentation of the Blood and Animal Spirits and is the principle of his Life is not more perfect than that which gives Motion to the Springs of a Watch or causes Gravitation in the Weights of a Clock which is the principle of their Life or to speak as others do of their Motion The Peripatetics ought to give to those whom they stile Cartesians a clear Idea of what they call The Life of Beasts Corporeal Soul Body which perceives desires sees feels wills and afterwards we will clearly resolve their difficulties if they continue to propose them The Second Proof We could not discover the Differences nor Powers of the Elements So that Fire might cool as Water does and the Nature of nothing would be settled and fixed ANSWER I Answer That Nature continuing as it is that is whilst the Laws of the communication of Motions remain constantly the same it is a contradiction that Fire should not burn or not separate the parts of certain Bodies Fire cannot cool like Water except it becomes Water For Fire being only fewel whose parts have been agitated with a violent Motion by an invisible Matter which incompasses them as is easie to be demonstrated it is impossible these parts should not communicate some of their Motion to the Bodies which they meet Now as these Laws are constant the Nature of Fire its vertues and qualities cannot change But this Nature and these Vertues are only consequences of the general and efficacious Will of God who does all in all things as we learn from the Scripture So that the study of Nature is false and vain in every respect when we seek for any other true Causes than the Will of the ALMIGHTY I own we must not have recourse to God or the Universal Cause when we inquire into the reason of particular Effects For we should make our selves ridiculous if for instance we said that 't was God who dryes the wayes or
wrote about Idolatry In the Days of Enos Men fell into strange Delusions R. Moses Maimonides and the Wise Men of that Time perfectly lost their Sense and Reason Enos himself was in the Number of those deceived Persons These were their Errours Since God said they has created the Stars and the Heavens to govern the World has placed them on high surrounded them with brightness and glory and employes them to exexecute his Orders it is just that we should honour them and pay reverence and homage to them 'T is the Will of our God that we should honour those whom he has raised and exalted in Glory even as a Prince requires we should honour his Ministers in his presence because the Honour we give to them redounds to himself After they had once received this Notion they began to build Temples in honour of the Stars to offer Sacrifices and Praises to them and even prostrate themselves before them thinking thereby to gain the favour of him who created them And this was the original of Idolatry It is so Natural and Just to have Sentiments of Acknowledgment in proportion to the Benefits we receive See Vossius l. 2. de Idolatria that almost all the World have adored the Sun Ipsi qui irridentur Aegyptii nullam belluam nisi ob aliquam utilitatem quam ex ea caperent consecraverant Cic. l. 1. de Natura Deorum because they all thought he was the cause of the Happiness they injoyed And if the Egyptians have adored not only the Sun the Moon and the River Nilus because its overflowings caused the fruitfulness of their Country but also the vilest Animals 't was as Cicero relates because of some benefit they received from them So that as we cannot and indeed ought not to banish out of Mens Minds the inclination they Naturally have for the true Causes of their Happiness it is evident that there is at least some danger in maintaining the Efficacy of Second Causes although we joyn thereto the necessity of an immediate concourse which has I know not what of incomprehensible in it and which comes in as an after-game to justifie our Prejudices and Aristotles Philosophy But there is no danger in speaking only what we know and atributing Power and Efficacy to God alone since we see nothing but his Wills which have an absolute necessary and indispensable connection with Natural Effects I confess that Men are now knowing enough to avoid the gross Errors of the Heathens and Idolaters But I am not afraid to say that our Mind is disposed or rather that our Heart is often inclined like that of the Heathens and that there will alwayes be some kind of Idolatry in the World until the day that Jesus Christ shall again deliver up his Kingdom to God his Father having first destroyed all Empire Power and Dominion that God may be all in all Quorum Deus venter est Phil. 13.9 Omnis fornicator aut immundus aut avarus quod est idolorum servitus Eph. 5.5 In spiritu veritate oportet adorare John 4.24 For is it not a kind of Idolatry to make a God of our Belly as St. Paul speaks Is it not to idolize the God of Riches continually to labour after Worldly Possessions Is this to render to God the Worship due to him to adore him in Spirit and Truth to have our Hearts filled with some sensible Beauty and our Minds dazled with the brightness of some imaginary Grandeur Men believing they receive from the Bodies which are about them the Pleasures they injoy by their use they unite themselves to them with all the Powers of their Soul And thus the principal of their disorder proceeds from the sensible conviction they have of the Efficacy of Second Causes 'T is Reason only that tells them there is none but God acts in them But besides that Reason speaks so low that they can scarcely hear it and the Senses which oppose it cry so loud that it stupifies them they are still confirmed in their Prejudices by Arguments which are so much the more dangerous as they bear external Characters and sensible Marks of Truth The Philosophers and chiefly the Christian Philophers ought continually to oppose Prejudices or the Judgments of the Senses and especially such dangerous ones as that of the Efficacy of Second Causes And yet I know not from what Principle there are some Persons whom I extreamly honour and that with reason who endeavour to confirm this Prejudice and even to make this Doctrine pass for superstitious and extravagant which is so holy pure and solid and maintains that God alone is the true cause of every thing They will not have us love and fear God in all things but love and fear all things in relation to God We ought say they to love the Creatures because they are good to love and respect our Father render honour to our Prince and Superiour since God commands it I don't deny it but I deny that we must love the Creatures as our goods although they be good or perfect in themselves I deny that we are to pay service and respect to Men as to our Masters For we must neither serve our Master obey our Father or Prince with any other design but to serve God and obey him This is what St. Paul sayes who became all things to all Men and complyed in all things for the Salvation of those to whom he Preached Servi obedite Dominis carnalibus cum timore tremore in simplicitate cordis vestri SICVT CHRISTO Non ad oculum servientes quasi omnibus placentes sed ut servi Christi facientes voluntatem Dei ex animo cum bona voluntate servientes SICVT DOMINI ET NON HOMINIBVS And in another Epistle Non ad oculum servientes quasi hominibus placentes sed in simplicitate cordis DEVM TIMENTES Quodcumque facitis ex animo operamini SICVT DOMINO ET NON HOMINIBVS We must therefore obey our Father serve our Prince and render honour to our Superiours AS VNTO GOD AND NOT VNTO MAN Sicut Domini non Hominibus This is clear and can never have any bad consequences Superiours would alwayes be more honoured and better served But I believe I may say that a Master who would be honoured and served as having in himself another Power than that of God must be a Devil and that those who served him under that Notion would be Idolaters for I can't but believe that all Honour and Love that tend not towards God are kinds of Idolatry SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA AN EXPLANATION Of what I have said in the Fourth Chapter of the Second Part Of Method and elsewhere That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most Simple Wayes IT seems to some Persons to be too rash a Conjecture or an abusing of indeterminate and general Terms to say That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most simple wayes in
he should have known exactly the disposition of all the parts of the Body and of those he made use of I have given Reasons for it in this Article and elsewhere A giving of Names is rather a sign of Authority in the Scripture than of a perfect Knowledge As the Lord of Heaven had made Adam Lord of the Earth he was willing Adam should give the Animals Names as he himself had done to the Stars Omnibus eis nomina vocat Ps 47. It is evident that Sounds or Words neither have nor naturally can have a Relation to the things they signifie whatever the Divine Plato and mysterious Pythagoras say about it One might perhaps explain the Nature of a Horse or of an Ox in a whole Book but a Word is not a Book And it is ridiculous to imagine that Monosyllables as Sus which in Hebrew signifies a Horse and Schor which signifies an Ox should represent the Nature of those Animals Nevertheless it is very likely that those are the Names which Adam has given them for we find them in the Book of Genesis Cap. 49.17 32.5 And the Author of Genesis assures us moreover That the Names which Adam gave to the Animals are the very same which were used in his time for I do not see that he could mean any thing else by these words Omne quod vocavit Adam animae viventis ipsum est nomen ejus But I grant that Adam gave Names to Animals which had some Relation to their Nature and submit to the learned Etymologies which an Author of this Age gives us about them I grant that Adam might call Domestick Animals Behemoth because they keep silence the Ram Ajil because he is strong the Goat Sair because he is hairy the Hog Chazir because he has little eyes and the Ass Chamor because there are many red ones in the East But I think it enough only to open ones eyes to know whether the Goat is hairy the Ass red and whether the Hog has little eyes Adam calls Beir and Behemah what we call a Brute or a great Domestick Animal because those Beasts are mute and stupid What is to be concluded from thence that he perfectly understood their Nature That is not evident I should rather fear that Men would conclude from thence That Adam being simple enough to interrogate an Ox as the largest of all Domestick Animals and being surpris'd at his not being able to answer him he despis'd him and in contempt called him by the name of Beir and of Behemah Second Objection against the Fourth Article THere are pre-engaging Sensations which are troublesome and uneasie Adam was just and innocent therefore he could not be affected with them He must needs be guided on all occasions by Reason and Knowledge and not by pre-engaging Sensations like to those we have at present Answer I own that there are Pre-engaging Sensations which are disagreeable and painful But they were never uneasy to the first Man because that as soon as ever they began to assault he would no longer be affected by them and as soon as ever he had that he was no longer affected by them Those Sensations only respectively gave him notice of what he was to do or not to do They did not disturb his Felicity they only made him sensible that God could punish him and make him miserable if he should prove unfaithful to him To persuade our selves that the first Man was never surpris'd by any sensible Grief we need only consider two things First that Grief is very inconsiderable when the Motions to which it is annext are very weak since it is always proportion'd to the strength of the Motions which are communicated to the principal part of the Brain Secondly that it is the nature of Motion always to include a succession of time and that it cannot be violent at the first instant it is communicated This being suppos'd it is plain that the first Man was never surpris'd by any violent Grief that was capable of making him unhappy For it was in his power to stop the Motions which occasion'd it Therefore if it was in his power to stop them at the very instant they began their Action certainly he did not fail to do it since he desir'd to be happy and that Aversion is naturally joyn'd with the sense of Pain Thus Adam never felt any violent Pain But I think we are not oblig'd to say that he never felt any inconsiderable uneasiness like unto that which we feel when we taste green Fruit which we thought to be ripe His Felicity would have been very tender if it could have been disturb'd by so small a matter For Delicacy is a sign of Weakness and Pleasure and Joy have but little Solidity in them when the least thing dissipates and annihilates them Pain or Grief never disturb Happiness effectually unless it is involuntary and when it subsists in us against our Wills Jesus Christ was happy even upon the Cross though he felt great Pains because he suffer'd nothing but what he was willing to suffer Therefore as Adam suffer'd nothing against his Will no body can say that we make him unhappy before his Fall because we suppose here that he was warned by pre-engaging Sensations but such as were respectful and submissive of what it was fit for him to avoid for the preservation of his Life Objection against the Fifth Article ADam felt pre-engaging Pleasures which are involuntary Motions Therefore Adam was agitated by involuntary Motions Answer I answer That Adam's Sensations did precede his Reason I have prov'd it in the Fourth Article But I deny that they did pre-engage his Will or that they excited any involuntary Motions in the same For Adam was willingly warn'd by his Sensations of what he ought to do for the Preservation of his Life but he never would suffer himself to be agitated against his Will for that is contradictory Also whenever he had a mind to apply himself to the Contemplation of Truth without the least Distraction of Mind his Senses and Passions kept a perfect Silence Order requires it and it is an absolute Consequence of the Power he had over his Body See the Explanation upon the 3d Chapter of the 5 Book I answer in the second place That it is not true that the Pleasure of the Soul is the same thing with its Motion and Love Pleasure and Love are manners of the Soul's Existence But Pleasure has no necessary Relation to the Object which seems to occasion it and Love has a necessary Relation to Good Pleasure is to the Soul what Figure is to the Body and Motion is to the Body what Love is to the Soul Now the Motion of a Body is very different from its Figure I grant that the Soul which is continually mov'd towards Good advances as it were more easily towards it when induc'd thereto by Pleasure than when it suffers Pain as a Body which is push'd forward rouls more
places in Scripture where God is only said to act Ego sum Dominus sayes Isaiah faciens OMNIA extendens Coelos SOLVS stabiliens terram chap. 44.24 NVLLVS mecum A Mother animated with the Spirit of God sayes to her Children that it was not she who formed them Nescio qualiter in utero meo aparuistis singulorum membra NON EGO IPSA COMPEGI Mac. 7.22 23. sed Mundi Creator c. She does not say with Aristotle and the Peripatetic Schools that 't was she and the Sun who gave them birth but the Creator of the Vniverse Now this Opinion that 't is God only who works and forms Children in the Womb is neither conformable to Prejudices or the common Notions Therefore according to the Principle I have before established these passages must be explain'd literally But on the contrary the Opinion of the Efficacy of Second Causes being conformable to the common Notion and impression of the Senses Sol homo generant hominem Arist Phys ausc l. 2. c. 2. See St. Th. upon this Text. although we should find such passages as expresly tell us that Second Causes act of themselves alone they would be of no force when compared with these Concourse therefore is not sufficient to reconcile the different passages of the Scripture and all Force Power and Efficacy must be ascribed to God But although the immediate concourse of God with Second Causes should be proper to reconcile these different Texts I know not whether it ought to be admitted after all For the Sacred Books were not made for the Divines of these times but for the Jews So that if the Jews were not formerly sufficiently inlightened or subtle enough to imagine such a concourse as is admitted in our School-Divinity and to reconcile a thing that the most able Divines have had much trouble to explain it follows methinks that the Holy Scripture which attributed to God and to him only the production and preservation of all things would have thrown them into Error and that the Holy Penmen of these Books would have spoke to Men not only in an unknown but deceitful Language For by telling them that God does all things they would only have intended that God gives his concourse to all things and 't is probable the Jews never so much as thought of this concourse those amongst them that were not great Philosophers believing that God did all things and not that he concurred to all But that we may make a more certain Judgment about this Concourse it would be very proper carefully to explain the different Hypotheses of the Schools about it For besides the impenetrable obscurities which are common to all Opinions that we can explain or maintain only upon rambling and indeterminate terms there are upon this matter so great a variety of Opinions that it would not be very difficult to discover the cause of them But I will not ingage in a discussion which will be too tiresom both for my self and the greatest part of those who will read this Book I rather choose on the contrary to endeavour to show that my Opinions may in some respect be reconciled to the greatest number of the School Divines although I must not dissemble but confess their Language appears very equivocal and confused to me I will explain my self I believe as I have already said elsewhere that Bodies for instance have no power to move themselves and that their Moving Power is only the action of God Or to avoid a term which signifies nothing distinct their Moving Power is only the Will of God alwayes necessarily efficacious which successively preserves them in different places For I don't believe that God creates certain Beings to make them the Moving Power of Bodies Not only because I have no Idea of this kind of Being nor see how they could move Bodies but also since these Beings would themselves have need of some others to move them and so on ad infinitum For none but God is truly immovable and sole Mover together Which being supposed when a Body strikes and moves another I may say that it acts by the Concourse of God and that this Concourse is not distinct from its own action For a Body moves another which it meets only by its Action or Moving Power which at the bottom is nothing but the Will of God that successively preserves this Body in many places The transferring of a Body not being its Action or Moving Power but the effect of its Moving Power Most Divines likewise say That the Action of Second Causes differs not from the Action whereby God concurs with them For although they understand it variously they suppose that God acts in the Greatures in the same Action with the Creatures And they are it seems obliged to speak thus For if the Creatures acted by an Action which God did not produce in them their Action considered as such would as it appears to me be independant Now they believed as they ought that the Creatures depended immediately upon God not only as to their Being but also as to their Operation So in respect to Free Causes I believe that God continually gave the Mind an impression towards Good in general and that he also determined this impression towards particular Goods by the Ideas or Sensations he has given us as I have shewn in the First Explanation And 't is the same Thing with what the Divines believe when they say That God moves and prevents our Wills So that the power which puts our Minds in motion is the Will of God which animates and inclines us towards Good For God created not Beings to make them the Moving power of Minds for the same Reason that he did not create any to make them the Moving power of Bodies The Wills of God being Efficacious of themselves it is enough for him to Will a Thing to have it done And it is useless unnecessarily to multiply Beings Besides whatever is real in the determinations of our Motions likewise proceeds from the Action of God in us as is clear from the First Explanation Now we neither Act or produce any Thing but by our Wills I mean by the impression of the Will of God which is our Moving power For our Wills are Efficacious no farther than as they proceed from God even as Bodies put in motion impell not others but in as much as they have a Moving power which transfer them and this Moving power is only the Will of God which creates or successively preserves them in different places Then we Act only by the Concourse of God and our Action considered as Efficacious and capable of producing any Effect differs not from that of God's And is as most Divines say the very same Action Eadem numero Actio Now all the Changes which happen in the World See Suarez l. 1. de concursu Dei cum voluntate c. 1. have no other Natural Cause than the Motion of Bodies and