in the utmost extremity without sending any due proportion of spirits to the brain till they settle a little and grow more moderate Now when these motions are moderate they immediately send up some abundance of spirits to the brain which if they be in a convenient proportion are by the brain thrust into such nervs as are fit to receive them and swelling them they give motion to the muscles and tendons that are fastned to them and they move the whole body or what part of it is under command of those nervs that are thus fill'd and swell'd with spirits by the brain If the object was conformable to the living creature then the brain sends spirits into such nervs as carry the body to it but if otherwise it causes a motion of aversion or flight from it To the cause of this latter we give the name of Fear and the other that carries one to the pursuit of the object we call Hope Anger or Audacity is mixt of both these for it seeks to avoid an evil by embracing and overcoming it and proceeds out of abundance of spirits Now if the proportion of spirits sent from the heart be too great for the brain it hinders or perverts the due operation both in man and beast All which it will not be amiss to open a little more particularly and first why painful or displeasing objects contract the spirits and grateful ones contrariwise dilate them It is because the good of the heart consists in use that is in heat and moisture and 't is the nature of heat to dilate it self in moisture whereas cold and dry things contract the bodies they work on and such are enemies to the nature of men and beasts And accordingly experience as well as reason teaches us that all objects which be naturally good are hot and moist in due proportion to the creature that is affected and pleas'd with them Now the living creature being composed of the same principles as the world round about him is and the heart being an abridgment of the whole sensible creature and besides full of blood and that very hot it comes to pass that if any of these little extracts of the outward world arrive to the hot blood about the heart it works in this blood such like an effect as we see a drop of water falling into a glass of wine which is presently dispersed into a competent compass of the wine so that any little object must needs make a notable motion in the blood about the heart This motion according to the nature of the object will be either conformable or contrary unless it be so little a one as no effect will follow of it and then 't is of that kind which above we call'd indifferent If the ensuing effect be connatural to the heart there rises a motion of a certain fume about the heart which motion we call Pleasure and it never fails of accompanying all those motions which are good as Joy Love Hope and the like but if the motion be displeasing there is likewise a common sense of a heaviness about the heart which we call Grief and it is common to Sorrow Fear Hate and the like Now 't is manifest by experience that these motions are all different ones and strike against divers of those parts of of our body which encompass the heart out of which striking follows that the spirits sent from the heart affect the brain diversly and are by it convey'd into divers nerves and so set divers members in action Whence follows that certain Members are generally moved upon the motion of such a passion in the heart especially in beasts who have a more determinate course of working than man hath and if somtimes we see variety even in beasts upon knowledge of the circumstances we may easily guess at the causes of that variety The particularities of all which motions we remit Physicians and Anatomists advertising only that the fume of pleasure and the heaviness of grief plainly shew that the first motions participate of Dilatation and the latter of Compression Thus you see how by the senses a living creature becomes judg of what is good what bad for him which operation is perform'd more perfectly in Beasts and especially in those that live in the free air remote from humane conversation for their senses are fresh and untainted as nature made them than in Men. Yet without doubt nature has been as favourable in this particular to men as them were it not that with disorder and excess we corrupt and oppress our senses as appears evidently by the Story we have recorded of John of Leige as also by the ordinary practice of some Hermites in the Deserts who by their taste or smell would presently be inform'd whether the herbs and roots and fruits they met with were good or hurtful for them though they never before had had trial of them Of which excellency of the Senses there remains in us only some dim sparks in those qualities which we call sympathies and antipathies wherof the reasonss are plain out of our late discourse and are nothing else but a conformity or opposition of a living creature by some individual property of it to some body without it in such sort as its conformity or opposition to things by its specifical qualities is term'd natubal or against nature But of this we shall discourse more at large hereafter Thus it appears how the senses are seated in us principally for the end of moving us to or from objects that are good for or hurtful to us But though our Reader be content to allow this intent of nature in our three inferiour senses yet he may peradventure not be satisfied how the two more noble ones the Hearing and the Seeing cause such motions to or from objects as are requisite to be in living creatures for the preservation of them for may he say how can a man by only seeing an object or by hearing the sound of it tell what qualities it is imbued with or what motion of liking or disliking can be caus'd in his heart by his meer receiving the visible species of an object at his eyes or by his ears hearing some noise it makes And if there be no such motion there what should occasion him to prosecute or avoid that object When he tasts or smells or touches a thing he finds it sweet or bitter or stinking or hot or cold and is therwith either pleased or displeased but when he only sees or hears it what liking or disliking can he have of it in order to the preservation of his nature The solution of this difficulty may in part appear out of what we have already said But for the most part the objects of these two nobler senses move us by being joyn'd in the Memory with some other thing that either pleas'd or displeas'd some of the other three senses And from thence it is that the motion of going to imbrace the object or
same point of incidence in a shorter line and a greater angle than another does In both these wayes 't is apparent that a body composed of greater parts and greater pores exceeds bodies of the opposite kind for by reason that in the first kind more light may beat against one part a body in which that happens will wake an appearance from a further part of its superficies wheras in a body of the other sort the light that beats against one of the little parts of it will be so little as 't will presently vanish Again because in the first the part at the incidence is greater the surface from which the reflection is made inwards has more of a plain and straight superficies and consequently reflects at a greater angle than that whose superficies hath more of inclining But we must not pass from this question without looking a little into the nature of those bodies in which refraction is made for if they as well as the immediate causes of refraction likewise favour us it will not a little advance the certainty of our determination To this purpose we may call to mind how experience shews us that great refractions are made in smoke and mists and glasses and thick-bodied waters and Monsir des Cartes adds certain Oyls and Spirits or strong Waters Now most of these we see are composed of little consistent bodies swimming in another liquid body As is plain in smoke and mists for the little bubbles which rise in the water before they get out of it and that are smoke when they get into the air assure us that smoke is nothing else but a company of little round bodies swimming in the air and the round consistence of water upon herbs leavs twigs in a rind or dew gives us also to understand that a Mist is likewise a company of little round bodies that sometimes stand sometimes float in the air as the wind drives them Our very eyes bear witness to us that the thicker sort of waters are full of little bodies which is the cause of their not being clear As for Glass the blowing of it convinces that the little darts of fire which pierce it every way do naturally in the melting of it convert it into little round hollow bodies which in their cooling must settle into parts of the like figure Then for Chrystal and other transparent stones which are found in cold places it cannot be otherwise but that the nature of cold piercing into the main body and contracting every little part in it self this contraction must needs leave vacant pores between part and part And that such transparent stones as are made by heat have the like effect and property may be judg'd out of what we see in Bricks and Tiles which are left full of holes by the operation of the fire And I have seen in bones that have lain a long time in the Sun a multitude of sensible little pores close to one another as if they had been formerly stack all over with subtile sharp needles as close as they could be thrust in by one another The Chymical Oyles and Spirits which Monsir des Cartes speaks of are likely to be of the same composition since such use to be extracted by violent fires for a violent fire is made by the conjunction of many rayes together and that must needs cause great pores in the body it works on and the sticking nature of these spirits is capable of conserving them Out of all these observations it follows that the bodies in which greatest refractions happen are compounded as we have said of great parts and great pores and therfore by only taking light to be such a body as we have described it where we treated of its nature 't is evident the effect we have exprest must necessarily follow by way of reflection and refraction is nothing else but a certain kind of reflection Which last assertion is likewise convinced out of this that the same effects proceed from reflection as from refraction for by reflection a thing may be seen greater than it is in a different place from the true one where it is colours may be made by reflection as also gloating light and fire likewise and peradventure all other effects which are caused by refraction may as well as these be perform'd by reflection And therfore 't is evident they must be of the same nature since children are the resemblances of their parents CHAP. XIV Of the composition qualities and generation of mixed bodies HAving now declar'd the vertues by which Fire and Earth work upon one another and upon the rest of the Elements which is by Light and the motions we have discours'd of Our task shall be in this Chapter first to observe what will result out of such action of theirs and next to search into the ways and manner of compassing and performing it Which latter we shall the more easily attain to when we first know the end that their operation levels at In this pursuit we shall find that the effect of the Elements combinations by means of the motions that happen among them is a long pedegree of compounded qualities and bodies wherein the first combinations like marriages are the breeders of the next more-composed substances and they again are the parents of others in greater variety and so are multiplied without end for the further this work proceeds the more subjects it makes for new business of the like kind To descend in particular to all these is impossible And to look further then the general heads of them were superfluous and troublesome in this discourse wherin I aim only at shewing what sorts of things in common may be done by Bodies that if hereafter we meet with things of another nature and strain we may be sure they are not the off-spring of bodies and quantity which is the main scope of what I have design'd here And to do this with confidence certainty requires of necessity this leisurely and orderly proceeding we have hitherto used and shall continue to the end For walking thus softly we have always one foot upon the ground so as the other may be sure of firm footing before it settle Wheras they that for more hast will leap over rugged passages and broken ground when both their feet are in the air cannot help themselvs but must light as chance throws them To this purpose then we may consider that the qualities of bodies in common are of three sorts For they are belonging either to the Constitution of a compounded body or else to the Operation of it and the Operation of a body is of two kinds one upon Other Bodies the other upon Sense The last of these three sorts of qualities shall be handled in a peculiar Chapter by themselvs Those of the second sort wherby they work upon Other bodies have been partly declar'd in the former chapters and will be further discours'd of in the rest of this first
that the effect which we call pain is nothing else but a compression For although this solution of continuity may seem to be a dilatation yet in truth it is a compression in the part where the evil is which happens to it in the same manner as we shew'd when we spoke of the motion of Restitution it doth to stiff bodies that by violence are compress'd and drawn into a lesse capacious figure than their nature affects and return into their own state as soon as the mastring violence leaves them at liberty Pleasure therfore must be contrary to this and consist in a moderate dilatation for an immoderate one would cause a compression in some adherent parts and there would become pain And conformable to this we experience that generally they are hard things which breed pain to us and those which breed pleasure are oily and soft as meats and odours which are sweet to the taste and smell and soft substances which are grateful to the touch the excess of all which proves offensive and painful so that from the extremity of pleasure one enters presently upon the confines of pain Now then let us consider how the little similitudes of bodies which from without come into the fantasy must of necessity work there according to their little power effects proportionable to what they wrought first in the outward senses from whence they were convey'd to the brain For the senses that is the nervs and the Septum lucidum having both of them their origin from the very substance of the brain and differing only in degrees of purity and refinement the same object must needs work like effects in both compressing or dilating them proportionaby to one another Which compression or dilatation is not pain or pleasure as it is in the outward sense but as it is reported to the heart and that being the seat of all pains or pleasures wrought in other parts and that as it were dies them into those qualities is not capable of feeling either it self so that the strokes of any little similitudes upon the fantasie make only compressions or dilatations there not pains or pleasures Now these bodies or similitudes if they be reverberated from the fantasie or Septum Lucidum upon the little roots of the nervs of the fixt couple which go to the heart must needs work there a proportionable impression to what they wrought upon the fansie either compressing or dilating it and the heart being extremely passive by reason of its exceeding tenderness and heat cannot choose but change its motion at least in part if not in whole and this with relation to two causes one the disposition of the heart it self the other the vehemency of the stroke This change of motion and different beating of the heat is that which properly is called Passion and is ever accompanied with pleasure or with grief according to the nature of the impression that either contracts or dilates the heart and the spirits about it and is discovered by the beating of the arteries and of the pulse Conformable wherunto Physicians tell us that every passion hath a distinct pulse The pulses are divided in common by abundance or by want of spirits yet it both kinds they may have common disferences for in abundance the pulse may be quick or slow regular or irregular equal or unequal and the like may happen in defect of spirits according to the motions of the heart which are their causes Again the object by being present or further off makes the stroke greater or lesser and accordingly varies the motion of the heart Let us then call to mind how we have formerly declared that life consists in heat and humidity and that these two join'd together make a thing great and we may conclude that of necessity the motion which is most lively must have a great full and large stroke like the even rolling waves of a wide and smooth sea and not too quick or smart like the breaches of a narrow Fretum agitated by tempestuous winds From this other motions may vary either by excess or by deficiency the first makes the stroke become smart violent and thick the other slackens it and makes it grow little slow weak and thin or seldom And if we look into the motions of our heart we shall see these three differences of them follow three several chief passions The first follows the passion of Joy the second the passion of Anger and the third the passion of Grief Nor need we look any further into the causes of the several motions for we see that Joy and Grief following the stroke of sense the one of them must consist in an oily dilatation that is the spirits about the heart must be dilated by a gentle large great and sweet motion in a moderation between velocity and slowness the other contrariwise following the stroke of sense in pain as the first did in pleasure must contract the spirits and consequently make their motion or stroke become little and deficient from all the properties we have above set down As for Anger the motion following that passion is when the abundance of spirits in the heart is a little check'd by the contrary stroke of sense but presently overcomes that opposition and then as we see a hinder'd water or a man that suddainly or forcibly brake through what withstood their motion go on with a greater violence than they did and as it were precipitately so the heart having overcome the contraction which the sense made in it dilates it self with a fury and makes its motion smart and vehement Whence also it follows that the spirits grow hotter than they were and accordingly it is often seen that in the scoulding of a woman and in the irritation of a dog if ever now and then one thwart them and interpose a little opposition their fury will be so sharpned and heightned that the woman will be transported beyond all limits of reason and the dog will be made mad with nothing else done to him but angring him at convenient times and some men likewise have by slight oppositions iterated speedily upon them before their spirits could relent their vehement motion and therfore must still encrease it been angred into feavors This passion of Anger seems almost to be solitary on the side of excess beyond joy which is as it were the standard and perfection of all passions as light or whiteness is of all colours but on the other side of deficiency there are several middle passions which participate more or less of joy and grief As particularly those two famous ones which govern mans life Hope and Fear Concerning which Physicians tell us that the pulse or beating of Fear is quick hard and unequal to which I conceive we may safely add that it must also be small and feeble the perfection of joy decreasing in it on one side to wit from greatness and largeness but not intirely so that a kind of quickness supplies
in part the other defect Hope on the other side is in such sort defective from joy that nevertheless it hath a kind of constancy and moderate quantity and regularity in its motion and therefore is accounted to be the least hurtful of all the passions and that which more prolongs mans life And thus you see how those motions which we call passions are engender'd in the heart and what they are Let us then in the next place consider what will follow in the rest of the body out of these varieties of Passions once rais'd in the heart and sent into the brain 'T is evident that according to the nature and quality of these motions the heart must needs in every one of them void out of it self into the arteries a greater or lesser quantity of blood and that in divers fashions and the arteries which lie fittest to receive these sudden egestions of blood are those which go into the brain which course being directly upwards we cannot doubt but that it is the hottest and subtilest part of the blood and the fullest of spirits that flies that way These spirits then running a long and perplexed journey up and down in the brain by various meanders and anfractuosities are there mingled with the humid steam of the brain it self and therwith cooled and come at last to smoak at liberty in the hollow ventricles of the brain by reeking out of the little arterial branches that weave the plexus choroides or net we spoke of erewhile and they being now grown heavy fall by their natural course into that part or process of the brain which is called medulla spinalis or the marrow of the back-bone which being beset by the nervs that run through the body it cannot happen otherwise but that these thick'ned and descending spirits must either fall themselvs into those nervs or else press into them other spirits which are before them that without such new force to drive them violently forwards would have slided down more leisurely Now this motion being downwards and meeting with no obstacle till it arrive to its utmost period that way the lowest nervs are those which naturally feel the communication of these spirits first But 't is true if the flowing tide of them be great and plentiful all the other nerves will also be so suddenly fill'd upon the filling of the lowermost that the succession of their swellings will hardly be perceptible as a sudden and violent inundation of water seems to rise on the sides of the channel as it doth at at the Mill-dam though reason assures us it must begin there because there it is first stop't On the contrary side if the spirits be few they may be in such a proportion as to fill only the lower nervs and to communicate little of themselvs to any of the others And this is the case in the passion of fear which being stored with fewer spirits than any other passion that causes a motion in the body it moves the leggs most and so carries the animal that is afraid with violence from the object that affrights him Although in truth it is a faint hope of escaping mingled with fear which begets this motion for when fear is single and at its height it stops all motion by contracting the spirits and thence is called Stupor as well as grief for the same reason And accordingly we see extreme cowards in the extremity of their fear have not the courage to run away no more than to defend or help themselvs by any other motions But if there be more abundance of spirits then the upper parts are also moved as well as the leggs whose motion contributes to defence but the brain it self and the senses which are in the head being the first in the course of this floud of spirits that is sent from the heart to the head 't is impossible but that some part of them should be press'd into the nervs of those senses and so will make the animal vigilant and attentive to the cause of its fear or grief But if the fear be so great that it contracts all the spirits and quite hinders their motion as in the case we touch'd above then it leaves also the nervs of the senses destitute of spirits and so by too strong apprehension of a danger the animal neither sees nor apprehends it but as easily precipitates it self into it as it happens to avoid it being meerly govern'd by chance and may peradventure seem valiant through extremity of fear And thus you see in common how all the natural operations of the body follow by natural consequence out of the passions of the mind without needing to attribute discourse or reason either to men or beasts to perform them Although at first sight some of them may appear to those that look not into their principles and true causes to flow from a source of intelligence wheras 't is evident by what we have laid open they all proceed from the due ranging and ordering of quantitative parts so or so proportioned by rarity and density And there is no doubt but who would follow this search deeply might certainly retrive the reasons of all those external motions which we see use to accompany the several passions in Men and Beasts But for our intent we have said enough to shew by what kind of order and course of nature they may be effected without confining our selves over scrupulously to every cincumstance that we have touch'd and to give a hint wherby others that will make this inquiry their task may compile an intire and well grounded and intelligible doctrine of this matter Only we will add one advertisment more which is that these external motions caused by passion are of two kinds for some of them are as it were the beginnings of the actions which nature intends to have follow out of the passions that cause them but others are only bare signs of passions that produce them and are made by the connexion of parts unnecessary for the main action that is to follow out of the passion with other parts that by the passion are necessarily moved As for example when an hungry mans mouth waters at the sight of good meat it is a kind of beginning of eating or of preparation for eating for when we eat nature draws a moisture into our mouth to humectate our meat and convey the tast of it into the nervs of the tongue which are to make report of it to the brain but when we laugh the motion of our face aims at no further end and follows only by the connexion of those muscles which draw the face in such a sort to some inward parts that are moved by the passion out of which laughing proceeds But we must not leave this subject without some mention of the Diaphragma into which the other branch of those nervs that are called of the sixth conjugation comes for the first branch we have said goes into the heart and carries
thither the objects that come into the brain and this we shall find carries back to the brain the passion or motion which by the object is rais'd in the heart Concerning this part of our body you are to note that it is a musculous membrane which in the middle of it hath a sinewy circle wherto is fastned the case of the heart call'd the Pericardium This Diaphragma is very sensible receiving its vertue of feeling from the above mention'd branch of the sixth couple of nervs and being of a trembling nature is by our respiration kept in continual moon and flaps upon all occasions as a drum head would do if it were slack and moist or as a sail would do that were brought into the wind Out of this description of it 't is obvious to conceive that all the changes of motion in the heart must needs be express'd in the Diaphragma For the heart beating upon the Pericardium and the Pericardium being join'd to the Diaphragma such jogs and vibrations must needs be imprinted and ecchoed there as are formed in the heart which from thence cannot chuse but be carried to the brain by the sixth couple of nervs And thus it comes about that we feel and have sensation of all the passions that are moved in our heart Which peradventure is the reason why the Greeks call this part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and from it derive the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that in Latine signifies Sapere with Us to Savour or to like for by this part of our body we have a liking of any object or a motion of inclination towards it from whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived by composition of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a prudent man is he that likes and is moved to compass wholsom and good things Which Etymology of the word seems to me more natural than from the phrensy from whence some derive it because a great distemper or inflammation in the Diaphragma often causes that disease Now because the object is covey'd from the brain to the heart some part of its way by the same passage as the motion of the heart is re-convey'd back to the brain it must of necessity follow that who is more attentive to outward sense less considers or reflects on his passion and who is more attentive to observe and be govern'd by what passes in his heart is less wrought upon by external things For if his fantasy draws strongly to it the emanations from outward agents upon the senses the stream of those emanations will descend so strongly from the overfill'd fantasy into the heart that it will hinder the ascent of any fewer and weaker spirits by the same pipe But if the current set strongest upwards from the heart by the Diaphragma to the brain then it will so fill the pipe by which it ascends that little of a weaker tide can make a contrary eddy water in the same channel And by this means nature effects a second pleasure or pain in a living creature which moves it oftentimes very powerfully in absence of the primary object as we may observe when thinking of any pleasing or displeasing action we find about our heart a motion which entices us to it or averts us from it For as the first pleasure was occasioned by the stroke which the object apply'd to the outward sense made upon the fantasy which can judg of nothing without being strucken by it so the second pleasure springs from the spirits moved in the heart by messengers from the brain which by the Diaphragma rebound a stroke back again upon the fantasy And from hence it proceeds that Memory delights or afflicts us and that we think of past things with sweetness or with remorse and therby assuefaction is wrought in beasts as far as the appetitive part contributes therto to perfect what was begun in their cognoscitive part by the ingression of corporeal specieses into their fantasy in order to the same effect as we have touch'd before But now let us examine how so small a quantity of a body as comes from an object into our sense can be the cause of so great a motion about our heart To which purpose we are to remember that this motion is perform'd in the most subtile and thin substance that can be imagin'd They are the vital spirits that do all this work which are so subtile so agil and so hot that they may in some sort be termed fire Now if we reflect how violent fire is we need not wonder at the suddain and great motion of these passions But we must further take notice that they are not in the greatest excess but where the living creature hath been long inured and exercised to them either directly or indirectly so that they arrive not to that pitch so much out of the power of the agent as out of the preparation and disposition of the patient As when cold water hath been often heated by extinguishing red hot irons in it after some repetitions a few quenchings will reduce it from cold to boiling that at the first would scarce have made it lukewarm and accordingly we see a heart that for a long time hath loved and vehemently desired enjoying is transported in a high degree at the least sight and renuance of strokes from its beloved object and is as much dejected upon any the least deprivation of it For to such an object the living creature is hurried away by a force much resembling the gravity or celerity of a dense body that is set on runing down a steep hill to which the only taking away of a weak let or the least stop gives a precipitate course not out of the force of what is done to it but out of the force which was formerly in the thing though for the present it lay there undiscovered and so likewise in these cases the object rather gives the occasion of the violent motion than the force or power to it These things being thus determined some peradventure may ask how it comes to pass that the spirits which cause motion being sent on their errand by the brain alwayes hit the right way and light duly into those very sinews which move the living creature according as is requisite for its nature Since all the passages are open what is it that governs them so as they never mistake and the animal is never driven towards harm in stead of flying from it Who is their guide in these obscure paths But it were to impute ignorance to the Maker to think that he framed all the passages alike and so every one of them promiscuously apt to receive into them all sorts of spirits however they be moved And therfore we may assure our selvs that since in these diversities of occasions there are likewise divers kinds of motions from the heart either there is proportionable to them divers kinds of passages fit to receive and entertain
assistance of the spirits which inhabit the brain now then it follows that if she have not the command of those spirits which flock thither she must of necessity be carried along by the stream of the greater and stronger multitude which in our case is the throng of those that are sent up into the brain by the desired object and they come thither so thick and so forcibly that they displace the others which fought under Reasons Standard Which if they do totally and excluding Reasons party entirely possess the fansie with their troops as in madness and extremity of sudden passion it happens then must Reason wholly follow their sway without any strugling at all against it for whatever beats on the fansie occasions her to work and therfore when nothing beats there but the messengers of some sensual object she can make no resistance to what they impose But if it happen that these tumultuary ones be not the only spirits which beat there but Reason hath likewise some under her jurisdiction which keep possession for her though they be too weak to turn the others out of doors then 't is true she can still direct fairly how in that case a man should govern himself but when he comes to execute he finds his sinews already possess'd and swel'd with the contrary spirits and they keeping out the smaller and weaker number which reason has rank'd in order and would furnish those parts with he is drawn even against his judgment and reason to obey their appetites and move himself in prosecution of what they propose experimenting in himself what the Poet expresses in Medea when she complain'd and bemoan'd her self in these words Video meliora proboque Deteriora sequor And in this case a man foresees his misery all the way he rouls towards it and leaps into the precipice with his eyes open Which shews that the Army of thoughts on Reason's side should be increas'd in number to have her strong enough to wage battle with the rebellious adversary or else that her adversary should be so much weakned that she though not grown stronger in her self yet might through the others enfeebling beable to make her party good and hence is the use of corporeal Mortifications to subject our Passions to the command of Reason Even as when we see that when we are in health our arms and legs and all our limbs obey our will reaching what we command them and carrying us whither we desire because the spirits which are sent into them from our brain are strong enough to raise and move them as they are directed but if our sinews be so steep'd in some cold and watry humour that the spirits coming down find not means to swell and harden them well we may wish and strive but all in vain for we shall not be able to make them perform their due functions In like manner if Reason send her emissaries into the arm or leg or other member and no other spirits there strive against them then that limb is moved and govern'd absolutely according to her directions but if at the same time a greater multitude of others hinder Reasons servants from coming thither or flocking into other sinews carry that limb a contrary way in vain Reason strives to move them to her byas for those obeying parts must observe the rules which the violent conqueror prescribes CHAP. V. Containing proofs out of our Single Apprehensions that our Soul is Incorporeal AS in our First Treatise we dissected Nature and shew'd how out of the notion and first division of Quantity arises that vast multiplicity of things which filling this world falls under the consideration of our senses so in the begining of this Second Treatise we have search'd into those operations of a Man attributed to his Soul by which he is conceiv'd to excel all other living creatures and there discover'd that the admirable and unlimited variety of works which is seen in mens writings and actions doth all flow from the source of Single Apprehensions and even from one bare notion of Being which is the root and principle from whence all others derive their origine and into which all may be resolved Works proceeding from Resolutions they from Discourses these being composed of Judgments and Judgments of Single Apprehensions This part we must now review and enquire what we can find in mans operation arguing the Quality of his Soul whether it be corporeal or no. For if these Single Apprehensions and the processes compounded of them may be perform'd by the Ordering of Rare and Dense parts as the other works of nature are then they will be corporeal and of the same kind with those which we opened in the first Treatise but if we shall prove that they cannot possibly be deduced from Multiplicity and Order of Quantitative parts then we may confidently resolve of our selvs that in the cause from which they flow there is a nature wholly discrepant from that which resides among bodies and corporeal things This we shall here labour to do and to that end we will begin our work with reflecting on what we have deliver'd of a Single Apprehension in the First Chapter of this Second Treatise whose nature we there first explicated in common and thence proceeded to some particular apprehensions and lastly shew'd the extent they comprehended These then must be the subject of our present speculation As for their nature we may remember how we resolv'd three things first that by apprehension the very thing apprehended is by it self in our Soul next that the notion of Being is the first of all notions and resumed in all others and thirdly that what is added to the notion of Being is but respects to other things Now then let us consider what kind of Engines they must be that may have the power to make things themselvs to be in our Soul if they were to be there materially How shall the place or the time pass'd be removed and put in another place and in another time How shall the quantity of the Heavens of the whole World nay of Bigness exceeding all that by millions of proportional encreases be shut up in the little circuit of Mans Brain And if we examine our selves strictly we shall find nothing wanting all is there How shall the same thing be corporeally in two nay in two thousand places at the same time And yet in so many is the Sun when two thousand men think of it at once We must then allow that things are there immaterially and consequently that what receives them is immaterial since every thing is received according to the measure and nature of what receives it But I easily conceive that the strangeness and incredibility of our position may counterballance the force of it for who can perswade himself that the very thing he apprehends is in his mind I acknowledg that if its being there were to be understood corporeally it were impossible but on the other
is The better to apprehend how much this faint resemblance of flame upon the paper maketh for our purpose let us turn the leaf and imagine in our thoughts after what fashion that fire which is in the flame of a little candle would appear to us if it were dilated and stretch'd out to the utmost extent that excess of rarity can bring it to Suppose that so much flame as would fill a cone of two inches height and half an inch Diameter should suffer so great an expansion as to replenish with his light body a large chamber and then what can we imagine it would seem to be How would the continual driving it into a thinner substance as it streams in a perpetual flood from the flame seem to play upon the paper And then judg whether it be likely to be a body or no when our discourse suggests to us that if it be a body those very appearances must follow which our eyes give us evidence are so in effect If gold beaten into so airy a thinness as we see gilders use remains still Gold notwithstanding the wonderfull expansion of it why shall we not allow that fire dilated to its utmost period shall still remain fire though extreamly rarified beyond what it was We know that fire is the rarest and the subtilest substance that nature hath made among bodies and we know likewise that it is ingendred by the destroying and feeding upon some other more grosse body let us then calculate when the oyl or tallow or wax of a candle or the bulk of a faggot or billet is dilated and rarified to the degree of fire how vast a place must it take up To this let us add what Aristotle teaches us that fire is not like a standing pool which continues full with the same water and as it has no waste so has it no supply but it is a fluent and brook-like current Which also we may learn out of the perpetual nutriment it requires for a new part of fewel being converted into a new part of fire as we may observe in the little atomes of Oyl or melted wax that continually ascend apace up the wieke of a burning candle or lamp of necessity the former must be gone to make room for the latter and so a new part of the river is continually flowing Now then this perpetual flux of fire being made of a grosse body that so rarified will take up such a vast room if it die not at the instant of its birth but have some time to subsist be it never so short it must needs run some distance from the fountain whence it springs Which if it do you need not wonder that there should be so great an extent of fire as is requisite to fill all that space which light replenishes nor that it should be still supplyed with new as fast as the cold of the aire kills it For considering that flame is a much grosser substance then grosse fire by reason of the mixture with it of that viscous oyly matter which being drawn out of the wood and candle serves for fewel to the fire and is by little and little converted into it and withal reflecting on the nature and motion of fire which is to dilate it self extreamly and to fly all about from the center to the circumference you cannot choose but conceive that the pure fire strugling to break away from the oyly fewel which is still turning into new fire doth at length free his wings from that birdlime and then flies abroad with extream swiftness swels and dilates it self to a huge bulk now that it has gotten liberty and so fills a vast room but remains still fire till it die Which it no sooner doth but it is still supply'd with new streams of it that are continually strain'd as it were squees'd out of the thick flame which imprison'd and kept it within it till growing fuller of fire then it could contain by reason of the continual attenuating the oyly parts of it and converting them into fire it gives liberty to those parts of fire that are next the superficies to fly whither their nature will carry them And thus discourse would inform a Blind man after he has well reflected on the nature of fire how it must needs fill a mighty extent of place though it have but a narrow beginning at its spring head and that there by reason of the condensation of it and mixture with a grosser body it must needs burn other bodies but that when it is freed from such mixture and suffers an extream expansion it cannot have force to burn but may have means to express it self to be there present by some operation of it upon some body that is refin'd and subtilized enough to perceive it And this operation a seeing man will tell you is done upon his eyes whose fitness to receive impression from so subtile an Agent Anatomists will teach you And I remember how a blind Schoolmaster that I kept in my house to teach my children who had extream subtile spirits and a great tenderness through his whole body and met with few distractions to hinder him from observing any impression never so nicely made upon him used often to tell me that he felt it very perceptibly in several parts of his body but especially in his brain But to settle us more firmly in the perswasion of light 's being a body and consequently fire let us consider that the properties of a body are perpetually incident to light look what rules a ball will keep in its rebounds the same doth light in its reflections and the same demonstration alike convinces the one and the other Besides light is broken like a body as when 't is snapped in pieces by a tougher body it is gather'd together in a little room by looking or burning glasses as water is by ordering the gutters of a house so as to bring into one cistern all that rains dispersedly upon the whole roof It is sever'd and dispers'd by other glasses and is to be wrought upon and cast hither and thither at pleasure all by the rule of other bodies And what is done in light the same will likewise be done in heat in cold in wind and in sound And the very same instruments that are made for light will work their effects in all these others if they be duly managed So that certainly were it not for the authority of Aristotle and his learned followers that presses us on the one side and for the seemingness of those reasons we have already mention'd which perswades us on the other side our very eyes would carry us by stream into this consent that light is no other thing but the nature and substance of fire spread far and wide and freed from the mixture of all other gross bodies Which will appear yet more evident in the solutions of the oppositions we have brought against our own opinion for in them there will
occur other arguments of no less importance to prove this verity than these we have already proposed CHAP. VII Two objections answer'd against light being fire with a more ample proof of its being such HAving then said thus much to perswade us of the corporeity of this subtile thing that so queintly plays with our eyes we will in the next place examine those objections that at the beginning we set down against its being a body and if after a through discussion of them we find they do in truth conclude nothing of what at the first sight they bear so great a shew of but that we shall be able perfectly to solve and enerve their force no body will think it rashness in us to crave leave of Aristotle that we may dissent from him in a matter that he has not look'd to the bottom of and whose opinion therin cannot be defended from plain contradictions and impossibilities 'T is true never any one man looked fo far as he into the bowels of nature he may be rightly termed the Genius of it and whoever follows his principles in the main cannot be led into errour but we must not believe that he or any man else who relies upon the strength and negotiation of his own reason ever had a priviledge of infallibility entail'd to all he said Let us then admire him for what he has deliver'd us and where he falls short or is weary in his search and suffers himself to be born down by popular opinions against his own principles which happens very seldom to him let us seek to supply and relieve him But to pursue our intent We will begin with answerin the third objection which is that if light were fire it must heat as well as enlighten where it shines There 's no doubt but it doth so as is evident by the weather-glasses and other artificiall musical instruments as Organs and Virginals that played by themselvs wâ—ch Cornelius Drebbel That admirable master of Mechanicks made to shew the King All which depends upon the rarefaction and condensation of some subtile body conserv'd in a cavity within the bulk of the whole instrument for assoon as the Sun shined they would have motion and play their parts And questionless that grew out of the rarefaction of the subtile liquor he made use of which was dilated assoon as the air was warmd by the Sun-beams Of whose operation it was so sensible that they no sooner left the Horizon but its motion ceased And if but a cloud came between the instrument and them the musick would presently go slower time And the ancient miracle of Memnons statue seems to be a juggling of the Ethiopian priests made by the like invention But though he and they found some spirituall and refined natter that would receive such notable impressions from so small alterations of temper yet it is no wonder that our gross bodies are not sensible of them for we cannot feel heat unless it be greater then that which is in our sense And the heat there must be in proportion to the heat of our bloud which is an high degree of warmth and therfore 't is very possible that an exceeding rarified fire may cause a far lesse impression of heat then we are able to feel Consider how if you set pure spirit of wine on fire and so convert it into actual flame yet it will not burn nor scarce warm your hand and then can you expect that the light of a candle which fills a great room should burn or warm you as far as it shines If you would exactly know what degree of heat and power of burning that light has which for example shines upon the wall in a great chamber in the midst wherof there stands a candle do but calculate what overproportion of quantitie all the light in the whole room bears to the quantity of the little flame at the top of the candle and that is the overproportion of the force of burning which is in the candle to the force of burning which is in so much light at the wall as in extension is equall to the flame of the candle Which when you have considered you will not quarrel at its not warming you at that distance although you grant it to be fire streaming out from â—e flame as from the spring that feeds it and extreamly dilated according to the nature of fire when it is at liberty by going so far without any other grosse body to imprison or clog it 'T is manifest that this rule of examining the proportion of burning in so much of the light as the flame is by calculating the proportion of the quantity or extension of all the light in the room to the extension of the flame of the candle and then comparing the flame of the candle to a part of light equall in extension unto it is a good and infallible one if we abstract from accidental inequalities since both the light and the flame are in a perpetual flux and all the light was first in the flame which is the spring from whence it continually flows As in a river where every part runs with a settled stream though one place be straighter and another broader yet of necessity since all the water that is in the broad place came out of the narrow it must follow that in equal portions of time there is no more water where it has the liberty of a larg channel then where the banks press it into a narrow bed so that there be no inequalities in the bottome In like manner if in a large stove a basin of water be converted into steam that rarified water which then fills the whole Stove is no more then what the Basin contain'd before and consequently the power of moistening which is in a foot 's extension for example of the stove wherein that steam is must be in proportion to the vertue of wetting in the foot extension of water as the quantity of that great room which the steam fills is to the quantity of the water contain'd in the basin For although the rarified water be not in every least part of that great place it seems to take up by reason that there is Air in which it must swim yet the power of wetting that was in the Basin of water is dilated through the whole room by the conjunction of the Myst or Dew to all the sensible parts of the Air that is in the room and consequently the power of wetting which is in any foot of that room is in a manner as much less then the power of wetting which was in the foot of water as if the water were rarified to the quantity of the whole room and no air were left with it And in the same manner it fares with dilated fire as it doth with dilated water with only this difference peradventure that Fire grows purer and more towards its own nature by dilatation whereas water becomes more mix'd and is carried
activity and the great activity shews a great percussion burning being effected by a kind of attrition of the thing burned And the great force which fire shews in Guns and in Mines being but a multiplication of the same evidently convinces that of its own nature it makes a stong percussion when all due circumstances concur Whereas it has but little effect if the due circumstances be wanting as we may observe in the insensible burning of so rarified a body as pure spirit of wine converted into flame But we must examine the matter more parrticularly and seek the cause why a violent effect doth not always appear wherever light strikes For which we are to note that three things concur to make a percussion great The bigness the density and the celerity of the body moved Of which three there is onely one in light to wit celerity for it has the greatest rarity and the rays of it are the smallest parcels of all natural bodies and therfore since only celerity is considerable in the account of lights percussions we must examine what celerity is necessary to make the stroke of a ray sensible First then we see that all the motes of the aire nay even feathers and straws do make no sensible percussion when they fall upon us therefore we must in light have at the least a celerity that may be to the celerity of the straw falling upon our hand for example as the density of the straw is to the density of light that the percussion of light may be in the least degree sensible But let us take a corn of gunpowder instead of a straw between which there cannot be much difference and then putting that the density of fire is to the density of Gunpowder as 1. to 125000. and that the density of the light we have here in the earth is to the density of that part of fire which is in the Suns body as the body of the Sun is to that body which is called Orbis magnus whose Semidiameter is the distance between the Sun and the Earth which must be in subtriple proportion of the Diameter of the Sun to the Diameter of the great Orb it follows that 125000. being multiplyed by the proportion of the great Orb to the Sun which Galileo tells us is as 106000000. to one will give a scantling of what degree of celerity light must have more then a corn of Gunpowder to recompence the excess of weight which is in a corn of Gunpowder above that which is in a ray of light as big as a corn of Gunpowder Which will amount to be much greater than the proportion of the Semediameter of Orbis magnuâ— to the Semidiameter of the corn of Gunpowder for if you reckon five grains of Gunpowder to a Barly-corns breadth and 12. of them in an inch and 12. inches in a foot and 3. feet in a pace and 1000. paces in a mile and 3500. miles in the Semidiameter of the earth and 1208. Semidiamiters of the earth in the Semidiameter of the Orbis magnus there will be in it but 913 2480000000. grains of Gunpowder whereas the other calculation makes light to be 13250000000000 times rarer then gunpowder which is almost ten times a greater proportion then the other And yet this celerity supplies but one of the two conditions wanting in light to make its percussions sensible namely density Now because the same velocity in a body of a lesser bulk doth not make so great a percussion as it doth in a bigger body and that the littleness of the least parts of bodies follows the proportion of their rarity this vast proportion of celerity must again be drawn into it self to supply for the excess in bigness that a corn of gunpowder hath over an atome of light and the product of this multiplication will be the celerity required to supply for both defects Which evidently shews it is impossible that a ray of light should make any sensible percussion though it be a body Especially considering that sense never takes notice of what is perpetually done in a moderate degree And therefore after this minute looking into all circumstances we need not have difficulty in allowing to light the greatest celerity imaginable and a percussion proportionate to such a celerity in so rare a body and yet not fear any violent effect from its blow unless it be condens'd and many parts of it be brought together to work as if they were but one As concerning the last objection that if light were a body It would be fanned by the wind we must consider what is the cause of a thing appearing to be moved and then examine what force that cause hath in light As for the first part we see that when a body is discern'd now in one place now in another then it appears to be moved And this we see happens also in light as when the Sun or a candle is carried or moves the light thereof in the body of the Candle or Sun seems to be moved along with it And the like is in a shining cloud or comet But to apply this to our purpose We must note that the intention of the objection is that the light which goes from the fire to an opacous body far distant without interruption of its continuity should seem to be jog'd or put out of its way by the wind that crosses it Wherein the first failing is that the Objector conceives light to send species to our eye from the midst of its line whereas with a little consideration he may perceive that no light is seen by us but that which is reflected from an opacous body to our eye so that the light he means in his objection is never seen at all Secondly 't is manifest that the light which strikes our eye strikes it in a straight line and seems to be at the end of that straight line wherever that is and so can never appear to be in another place but the light which we see in another place we conceive to be another light Which makes it again evident that the light can never appear to shake though we should suppose that light may be seen from the middle of its line for no part of wind or air can come into any sensible place in that middle of the line with such speed that new light from the sourcce doth not illuminate it sooner then it can be seen by us wherefore it will appear to us illuminated as being in that place and therefore the light can never appear shaken And lastly it is easier for the air or wind to destroy the light then to remove it out of its place wherefore it can never so remove it out of its place as that we should see it in another place But if it should remove it it would wrap it up within it self and hide it In conclusion after this long dispute concerning the nature of light If we consider well what hath been said on both sides
in some countries where some one wind has a main predominance and reigns most continually as near the Seashore upon the western coast of England where the South-West wind blows constantly the greatest part of the year may be observed but this effect proceeding from a particular and extraordinary cause concerns not our matter in hand We are to examine the reason of the motion of Restitution which we generally see in young trees and branches of others as we said before In such we see that the earthy part which makes them stiff or rather stark abounds more then in the others that stand as they were bent at least in proportion to their natures but I conceive this is not the cause of the effect we enquire about but that 't is a subtile spirit which hath a great proportion of fire in it For as in rarefaction we found that fire which was either within or without the body to be rarified did cause the rarefaction either by entring into it or by working within it so seeing here the question is for a body to go out of a lesser superficies into a greater which is the progress of rarefaction and hapen's in the motion of restitution the work must needs be done by the force of heat And because this effect proceeds evidently out of the nature of the thing in which it is wrought and not from any outward cause we may conclude it has its origine from a heat within the thing it self or else that was in it and may be press'd to the outward parts of it and would sink into it again As for example when a young tree is bended both every mans conceit is and the nature of the thing makes us believe that the force which brings the tree back again to its figure comes from the inner side that is bent which is compress'd together as being shrunk into a circular figure from a straight one for when solid bodies that were plain on both sides are bent so as on each side to make a portion of a Circle the convex superficies will be longer then it was before when it was plain but the concave will be shorter And therfore we may conceive that the spirits which are in the contracted part being there squeez'd into less room then their nature well brooks work themselvs into a greater space or else that the spirits which are crush'd out of the convex side by the extension of it remain besieging it and strive to get in again in such manner as we have declared when we spoke of attraction wherin we shew'd how the emited spirits of any body will move to their own source and settle again in it if they be within a convenient compass and accordingly bring back the extended parts to their former situation or rather that both these causes in their kinds concur to drive the tree into its natural figure But as we see when a stick is broken 't is very hard to replace all the splinters every one in its proper situation so it must of necessity fall out in this bending that certain insensible parts both inward and outward are therby displaced and can hardly be perfectly rejoynted Whence it follows that as you see the splinters of a half broken stick meeting with one another hold the stick somwhat crooked so these invisible parts do the like in such bodies as after bending stand a little that way but because they are very little ones the tree or branch that has been never so much bended may so nothing be broken in it be set strait again by pains without any notable detriment of its strength And thus you see the reason of some bodies returning in part to their natural figures after the force leaves them that bent them Out of which you may proceed to those bodies that restore themselvs entirely whereof steel is the most eminent And of it we know that there is a fiery spirit in it which may be extracted out of it not only by the long operations of calcining digesting and distilling it but even by gross heating and then extinguishing it in wine and other convenient Liquors as Physicians use to do Which is also confirm'd by the burning of steel-dust in the flame of a candle before it has been thus wrought upon which after-wards it will not do wherby we are taught that originally there are store of spirits in steel till they are sucked out Being then assured that in steel there is such abundance of spirits and knowing that it is the nature of spirits to give a quick motion and seeing that duller spirits in trees make this motion of Restitution we need seek no further what it is that doth it in steel or in any other things that have the like nature which through the multitude of spirits that abound in them especially steel returns back with so strong a jerk that their whole body will tremble a great while after by the force of its own motion By what is said the nature of those bodies which shrink and stretch may easily be understood for they are generally composed of stringy parts to which if humidity happen to arrive they grow therby thicker and shorter As we see that drops of water getting into a new rope of a well or into a new cable will swell it much thicker and by consequence make it shorter Galileus notes such wetting to be of so great efficacy that it will shrink a new cable and shorten it notably notwithstanding the violence of a tempest the weight and jerks of a loaden ship strain it what is possible for them to stretch it Of this nature leather seems to be and parchment and divers other things which if they be proportionably moistned and no exteriour force apply'd to extend them will shrink up but if they be overweted they will become flaccide Again if they be suddenly dryed they 'l shrivel up but if they be fairly dried after moderate weting they will extend themselvs again to their first length The way having been open'd by what we have discoursed before we came to the motion of Restitution towards the discovery of the manner how heavy bodies may be forced upward contrary to their natural motion by very smal means in outward appearance let us now examine upon the same grounds if like motions to this of water may not be done in some other bodies in a subtiler manner In which more or less needs not trouble us since we know that neither quantitâ—â—or the operations of it consist in an indivisible or are limited or determin'd by periods they may not pass 'T is enough for us to find a ground for the possibility of the operation and then the perfecting and reducing of it to such a height as at first might seem impossible incredible we may leave to the Oeconomy of wise nature He that learns to read write or play on the Lute is in the beginning ready to lose heart at every step
For what can be the reason of this but that the brain employing the greatest part of his store of Spirits about that one object which so powerfully entertains him the other finde very few free for them to imbue with their Tincture And therefore they have not strength enough to give the brain a sufficient taste of themselvs to make it be observ'd nor to bring themselvs into a place where they may be distinctly discern'd but striving to get to it they lose themselvs in the throng of the others who for that time besiege the brain closely Wheras in Monsir des Cartes his way in which no spirits are required the apprehension must of necessity be carried precisely according to the force of the motion of the extern object This argument I confess is not so convincing against his opinion but that the necessity of the consequence may be avoided and another reason be given for this effect in Monsir des Cartes his doctrime For he may say that the affection being vehemently bent upon some one object may cause the motion to be so violent by the addition of inward percussions that the other coming from the outward sense being weaker may be drown'd by it as lesser sounds are by greater which forcibly carry our ears that way and fill them so entirely that the others cannot get in to be heard or as the drawing of one man that pulls backwards is not felt when a hundred draw forwards Yet this is hard to conceive considering the great eminency which the present object hath over an absent one to make it self be felt whence it follws that multiplication of motion must be extremely encreased wthin to overtop and bear down the motion caused by a present object actually working without But that which indeed convinces me to believe I go not wrong in this course which I have set down for extern bodies working upon our sense and knowledge is first the convenience and agreeablness to nature both in the objects and in us that it should be done in that manner and next a difficulty in Monsir des Cartes his way which me thinks makes it impossible that his should be true And then his being absolutely the best of any I have hitherto met withal and mine supplying what his falls short in and being sufficient to perform the effects we see I shall not think I do amiss in believing my own to be true till some body else shew a better Let us examine these considerations one after another 'T is manifest by what we have already establish'd that there is a perpetual flux of little parts or atomes out of all sensible bodies that are composed of the four Elements and are here in the sphere of continual motion by action and passion and such it is that in all probability these little parts cannot chuse but get in at the doors of our bodies and mingle themselvs with the spirits that are in our nervs Which if they do 't is unavoidable but that of necessity they must make some motion in the brain as by the explication we have made of our outward senses is manifest and the brain being the source and origine of all such motion in the Animal as is term'd voluntary this stroke of the object will have the power to cause some variation in its motions that are of that nature and by consequence must be a Sensation for that change which being made in the brain by the object is cause of voluntary motion in the Animal is that we call sensation But we shall have best satisfaction by considering how it fares with every sense in particular 'T is plain that our Touch or feeling is affected by the little bodies of heat or cold or the like which are squees'd or evaporated from the object and get into our flesh and consequently mingle themselvs with our spirits and accordingly our hand is heated with the flood of subtile fire which from a great one without streams into it and is benum'd with multitudes of little bodies of cold that settle in it All which little bodies of heat or of cold or of what kind soever they be when they are once got in must needs mingle themselvs with the spirits they meet with in the nerve and consequently must go along with them up to the brain For the channel of the nerve being so little that the most accurate Inspectors of nature cannot distinguish any little cavity or hole running along the substance of it and the spirits which ebb and flow in those channels being so in infinitely subtile and in so small a quantity as such channels can contain 't is evident that an atome of insensible bigness is sufficient to imbue the whole length and quantity of spirit that is in one nerve and that atome by reason of the subtilty of the liquor it is immers'd in is presently and as it were instantly diffused through the whole substance of it The source therfore of that liquor being in the brain it cannot be doubted but that the force of the extern object must needs affect the brain according to the quality of the said atome that is give a motion or knock conformable to its own nature As for our Tast 't is as plain that the little parts pressed out of the body which affects it mingle themselvs with the liquor that being in the tongue is continuate to the spirits and then by our former argument 't is evident they must reach to the brain And for our Smelling there is nothing can hinder Odors from having immediate passage up to our brain when by our nose they are once gotten into our head In our Hearing there is a little more difficulty for Sound being nothing but a motion of the air which strikes our ear it may seem more then needs to send any corporeal substance into the brain and that it is sufficient that the vibrations of the outward air shaking the drum of the Ear do give a like motion to the air within the ear that on the inside touches the Tympane and so this air thus moved shakes and beats upon the brain But this I conceive will not serve the turn for if there were no more but an actual motion in the making of Hearing I do not see how sounds could be conserved in the Memory since of necessity motion must always reside in some body which argument we shall press anon against Monsir des Cartes his Opinion for the rest of the Senses Out of this difficulty the very inspection of the parts within the ear seems to lead us For had there been nothing necessary besides motion the very striking of the outward air against the Tympanum would have been sufficient without any other particular and extraordinary organization to have produced Sounds and to have carried their motions up to the brain as we see the head of a Drum brings the motions of the Earth to our Ear when we lay it therto as we
aversion from it immediately proceeds As when a dog sees a man that uses to give him meat the species of the man coming into his fansie calls out of his memory the others which are of the same nature and are former participations of that man as well as this fresh one is but these are joyn'd with spicies of meat because at other times they did use to come in together and therfore the meat being a good unto him and causing him in the manner we have said to move towards it it will follow that the dog will presently move towards that man and express a contentedness in being with him And this is the ground of all assuefaction in beasts and of making them capable of receiving any instructions CHAP. XXXV Of the material instruments of Knowledge and Passion Of the several effects of Passions Of Pain and Pleasure and how the vital spirits are sent from the brain into the intended parts of the body without mistaking their way TO conclude this great business which concerns all the mutations and motions that are made by outward Agents in a living creature it will not be amiss to take a short and general survey of the material instruments which concur to this effect Wherof the brain being principal or at least the first and next of the principals we may take notice that it contains towards the middle of its substance four concavities as some count them but in truth these four are but one great concavity in which four as it were divers rooms may be distinguished The nether part of these concavities is very unequal having joyn'd to it a kind of a net wrought by the entangling of certain little arteries and of small emanations from a Sinus which are interwoven together Besides this it is full of kernels which make it yet more uneven Now two rooms of this great concavity are divided by a little body somwhat like a skin though more fryable which of it self is clear but there it is somwhat dim'd by reason that hanging a little slack it somwhat shrivels together and this Anatomists call Septum lucidum or speculum and 't is a different body from all the rest that are in the brain This transparent body hangs as it were straightwards from the forehead towards the hinder part of the head and divides the hollow of the brain as far as it reaches into the right and the left ventricles This part seems to me after weighing all circumstances and considering all the conveniencies and fitnesses to be that and only that in which the fansie or common sense resides though Monsir des Cartes has rather chosen a kernel to place it in The reasons of my assertions are First that it is in the middle of the brain which is the most convenient situation to receive the messages from all our body that come by nervs some from before and some from behind Secondly that with its two sides it seems conveniently opposed to all such of our senses as are double the one of them sending its little messengers or atomes to give it advertisements on one side the other on the other side so that it is capable of receiving impression indifferently from both Again by the nature of the body it seems more fit to receive all differences of motion than any other body near it It is also most conformable to the nature of the eye which being our principal outward sense must needs be in the next degree to that which is elevated a strain above our outward senses Fifthly it is of a singular and peculiar nature wheras the kernels are many and all of them of the same condition quality and appearance Sixthly it is seated in the very hollow of the brain which of necessity must be the place and receptacle where the specieses and similitudes of things reside and where they are moved and tumbled up and down when we think of many things And lastly the situation we put our head in when we think earnestly of any thing favours this opinion for then we hang our head forwards as it were forcing the specieses to settle towards our forehead that from thence they may rebound and work upon this diaphanous substance This then supposed let us consider that the atomes or likenesses of bodies having given their touch upon this Septum or Speculum do thence retire back into the concavities and stick as by chance it happens in some of the inequalities they encounter with there But if some wind or forcible steam should break into these caves and as it were brush and sweep them over it must follow that these little bodies will loosen themselvs and begin to play in the vapour which fills this hollow place and so floting up and down come anew to strike and work upon the Speculum or fantasy Which being also a soluble body many times these atomes striking on it carry some little corporeal substance from it sticking upon them whence ensues that they returning again with those tinctures or participations of the very substance of the fantasy make us remember not only the objects themselvs but also that we have thought of them before Further we are to know that all the nervs of the brain have their beginnings not far from this speculum of which we shall more particularly consider two that are call'd the sixth pair or couple which pair has this singularity that it begins in a great many little branches that presently grow together and make two great ones contain'd within one skin Now this being the property of a sense which requires to have many fibers in it that it may be easily and vigorously strucken by many parts of the object lighting upon many parts of those little fibers it gives us to understand that this sixth couple hath a particular nature conformable to the nature of an extern sense and that the Architect who placed it there intended by the several conduits of it to give notice to some part they go to of what passes in the brain And accordingly one branch of this nerve reaches to the heart not only to the Pericardium as Galen thought but even to the very substance of the heart it self as later Anatomists have discover'd by which we plainly see how the motion which the senses make in the Speculum may be derived down to the heart Now therfore let us consider what effects the motions so convey'd from the brain will work in the heart First remembring how all that moves the heart is either pain or pleasure though we do not use to call it pain but grief when the evil of sense moves us only by memory and not by being actually in the sense and then calling to mind how pain as Naturalists teach us consists in some division of a nerve which they call Solutio continui and must be in a nerve for that no solution can be the cause of pain without sense nor sense be without nerves we may conclude
I conceive his tale may be paâ—ed with that which tells us of another Fox who having his prey taken from him by an Eagle brought the next day a new prize into the same place having first rolled it in the fire so that some burning coals stuck upon it which the Eagle coming again and snatching from him carried to her Nest which was therby set on fire and the young ones falling down became the Foxes share instead of what their Dam had rob'd him of Such stories so quaintly contrived are fitter for a moral than for a natural Philosopher Aesope may entertain himself and his Disciples with them whiles all the reflection I shall make upon them is that when I hear any such finely order'd Tales I cannot doubt but they are well amended in the relation by those that tell them it being the inclination and custom of most men partly through a desire of having strange things come from them and partly out of a care that what they say may appear like truth and so be the easier believ'd to add circumstances beyond the truth of the matter which increasing at every new mans relation of the same accident for this humour reigns very generally at length so handsom and yet so strange a Tale is composed that the first Author or Teller of it wonders at it as well as others and cannot discern that his story begot this latter Therfore when one of these fine tales is proposed to speculate on and that I have no light to guide me in determining what part of them to allow and what to reject I think it better to expect an authentick record of it than to be too hasty at guesses leaving such as pretend ability in reading of Riddles to descant of the ways how such actions may be effected But for others that have a semblance of truth or happen ordinarily be they at the first sight never so like the operations of reason I doubt not but the causes of them may be reduced to the principles we have already established and the waies of performing them may be pitched upon by such discourses about them as we have made about those examples we have above produced Especially if the actions themselves were observ'd by one that could judg of them and were reported with a desire of expressing the truth nakedly as in it self it lieth for divers times it happens that men saying nothing but truth express it in such a manner and with such terms that the ignorant hearer conceives the thing quite another way than indeed it is meerly for the too emphatical expressions especially if the relator himself misses in conceiving the true causes of what he reports and so expresses it proportionably to those which he apprehends To conclude then this first branch we see how the Doubting the Resolving the Aiming the Inventing and the like which we experience in Beasts may by the vestigia's we have traced out be follow'd to their root as far as the division of Rarity and Density without needing repair to any higher principle but the wisdom of the Orderer and Architect of Nature in so admirably disposing and mingling these material gross and liveless bodies that strange effects and incomprehensible to them who will not look into their several joints may follow out of them for the good of the creature in whose behalf they are so order'd But before we go to the next point we cannot for bear mentioning their vanity as well as ignorance who to purchase the estimation of deeper knowers of Nature would have it believ'd that Beasts have compleat Languages as Men have to discourse with one another 〈◊〉 which they vanâ—d they had the intelligence of â—Tis 〈◊〉 that 〈◊〉 us speaking or talking is an operation of reason not because it flows immediately from reason but because by the command and direction of reason 't is form'd and is no where to be found without reason which those irrational Philosophers which pretended to understand the Language of Beasts allow'd them as well as the ability of talking to one another but it was because they had more pride than knowledg Of which rank one of the chief was Apollonius sirnamed from Thâ—na for if he had known how to look into the nature of beasts he would have perceiv'd the reason of the divers voices which the same beast in divers occasions forms This is evident that an Animals lungs and chest lying so neer as they do to his heart and all voice being made by the breath 's coming out of his mouth and through his windpipe it must necessarily follow that by the divers ordering of these instruments his voice will become divers and these instruments will be diversly order in him according to the divers motions of his heart that is by divers passions in him for so we may observe in our selvs that our breath is much changed by our being in passion And consequently as a beast is agitated by various passions he must needs utter variety of voices which cannot choose but make divers impressions in other beasts that have commerce with him whether they be of the same kind as he is or of a different And so we see that if a Dogg setts upon a Hog and the bitten hogs cry makes an impression in the other Hogs to come to their fellows rescue and in other Dogs to run after the crying Hog in like manner anger in a Dog makes snarling or barking pain whining desire another kind of barking and his joy of seeing a person that he uses to receive good by will break out in another kind of whining So in a Hen her divers passions work divers kinds of clocking as when she sees a Kite she hath one voice when she meets with meat another when she desires to gather her Chickens under her wings a third and so upon divers occasions a divers sound according to the divers ordering of her vocal instrustruments by the passion which presses her heart So that who would look curiously into the motions of the variously disposed vocal instruments of Beasts and into those of the spirits about a Beasts heart which motion we have shew'd is passion would be able to give account why every voice of that beast was such a one and what motion about the heart it were that caus'd it And as much may be observ'd in Men who in pains and griefs and other passions use to break out into those voices which we call Interjections and which signifie nothing in the Understanding of them that form them but to the Hearer are signs of the passion from whence they proceed which if a man heedfully mark in himself he will perceive that they are nothing else but the sudden eruptions of a great deal of breath together caus'd by some compression made within him by the pain he is in Which is the reason that the striving against groaning in certain occasions doth fick persons much harm for it disorders the natural motions of
outward cast of its body as we have above described somtimes happen to fill certain places of the childs body with the infection and tincture of this object and that according to the impression with which they were in the mothers fantasy for so we have said that things which come together into the fantasy naturally stick together in the animal spirits The hairiness therfore will be occasioned in those parts where the Mother fansied it to be the colour likewise and such extancies or defects as may any way proceed from such a cause will happen to be in those parts in which they were fansied And this is as far as is fit to wade into this point for so general a discourse as ours is and more than was necessary for our turn to the serving wherof the verity of the fact only and not the knowledg of the cause was required for we were to shew no more but that the apprehensions of the parents may descend to the children Out of this discourse the reason appears why beasts have an aversion from those who use to do them harm and why this aversion descends from the old ones to their brood though it should never have hapned that they had formerly encountred with what at the first sight they fly from and avoid But yet the reason appears not why for example a Sheep in England where there are no Wolves bred nor have been these many ages should be afraid and tremble at sight of a Wolf since neither he nor his dam or sire nor theis in multitudes of generations ever saw a Wolf or receiv'd hurt by any In like manner how should a tame Weasell brought into England from Ireland where there are no poisonous creatures be afraid of a Toad as soon as he sees one Neither he nor any of his race ever had any impressions of following harm made upon their fantasies and as little can a Lion receive hurt from a houshold Cock therfore we must seek the reasons of these and such like Antipathies a little further and we shall find them hanging upon the same string with Sympathies proportionable to them Let us go by degrees We daily see that Dogs will have an aversion from Glovers that make their ware of Dogs skins they will bark at and be churlish to them and not endure to come near them though they never saw them before The like hatred they will express to the Dog-killers in the time of the Plague and to those that flea Dogs I have known of a man that used to be imploid in such affairs who passing somtimes over the grounds near my Mothers house for he dwellt at a Village not far off the Dogs would wind him at a very great distance and all run furiously out the way he was and fiercely fall upon him which made him go always well provided for them and yet he has been somtimes hard put to it by the fierce Mastiffs there had it not been for some of the Servants coming in to his rescue who by the frequent hapning of such accidents were warned to look out when they observ'd so great commotion and fury in the dogs and yet perceiv'd no present cause for it Warreners observe that vermin will hardly come into a trap wherin another of their kind hath been lately kill'd and the like happens in Mouse-traps into which no Mouse will come to take the bait if a Mouse or two have already been kill'd in 't unless it be made very clean so that no scent of them remain upon the Trap which can hardly be done on the sudden otherwise than by fire 'T is evident that these effects are to be refer'd to an activity of the object upon the sense for some smell of the skins or of the dead dogs or of the vermine or of the Mice cannot choose but remain upon the Men and Traps which being alter'd from their due nature and temper must needs offend them Their conformity on the one side for somthing of the canine nature remains makes them have easy ingression into them and so they presently make a deep impression but on the other side their distemper from what they should be makes the impression repugnant to their nature and be disliked by them and to affect them worse than if they were of other creatures that had no conformity with them As we may observe that stinks offend us more when they are accompanied with some weak perfume than if they set upon us single for the perfume gets the stink easier admittance into our sense and in like manner 't is said that poisons are more dangerous when they are mingled with a cordial that is not able to resist them for it serves to convey them to the heart though it be not able to overcome their malignity From hence then it follows that if any beast or bird prey upon some of another kind there will be some smell about them exceedingly noisom to all others of that kind and not only to beasts of that same kind but for the same reason even to others likewise that have a correspondence and agreement of temper and constitution with that kind of beast whose hurt is the original cause of this aversion Which being assented to the same reason holds to make those creatures whose constitutions and tempers consist of things repugnant and odious to one another be at perpetual enmity and fly from one another at the first sight or at least the sufferer from the more active creature as we see among those men whose unhappy trade and continual exercise it is to empty Jakeses such horrid stinks are by time grown so conformable to their nature as a strong perfume will as much offend them and make them as sick as such stinks would do another man bred up among perfumes and a Cordial to their spirits is some noysome smell that would almost poison another man And thus if in the breach of the Wolf or the steam coming from his body any quality be offensive to the Lamb as it may very well be where there is so great a contrariety of natures it is not strange that at the first sight and approach of him he should be distemper'd and flie from him as one fighting Cock will do from another that hath eaten Garlike and the same happens between the Weasel and the Toad the Lion and the Cock the Toad and the Spider and several other creatures of whom like enmities are reported All which are caus'd in them not by secret instincts and Antipathies and Sympathies wherof we can give no account with the bare sound of which words most men pay themselvs without examining what they mean but by downright material qualities that are of contrary natures as fire and water are and are either begotten in them in their original constitution or implanted afterwards by their continual food which nourishing them changes their constitution to its complexion And I am perswaded this would go so far that if one
our Sensual part and its antagonist which maintains the resolution set by reason and observe how exceedingly their courses and proceedings differ from one another we shall more plainly discern the nature and power and efficacy of both of them We may perceive that the motions against Reason rise up turbulently as it were in billows and like a hill of boiling water as truly Passion is a conglobation of spirits put us into an unquiet and distemper'd heat and confusion On the other side Reason endeavours to keep us in our due temper by somtimes commanding down this growing sea otherwhile contenting in some measure the desires of it and so diverting another way its unruly force somtimes she terrifies it by the proposal of offensive things joyn'd to those 't is so earnest to enjoy again somtimes she prevents it by cuting off all the causes and helps that promote on its impotent desires and by engaging before hand the power of it in other things and the like All which evidently convince that as Reason hath a great strength and power in opposition of Sense so it must be a quite different thing and of a contrary nature to it We may add that the work of Reason can never be well perform'd but in a great quiet and tranquillity wheras the motions of Passion are always accompanied with disorder and perturbation So as it appears manifestly that the force of Reason is not purely the force of its Instruments but the force of its instruments as they are guided and as the quantities of them are proportioned by it And this force of Reason is different from the force of its instruments of themselvs as the force of a Song is different from the force of the same sounds wherof it is composed taken without that Order which the Musitian puts in them for otherwise the more spirits that are rais'd by any thought which Spirits are the Instruments whereby Reason performs all her operations in us the more strongly reason should work the contrary of which is evident for we see that too great abundance of Spirits confounds Reason This is as much as at present I intend to insist upon for proof that our Understanding hath its proper and distinct operations and works in a peculiar manner and in a quite different strain from all that is done by our Senses Peradventure some may conceive that the watchfulness and recalling of our thoughts back to their enjoyn'd work when they break loose and run astray and our not letting them range abroad at random doth also convince this assertion but I confess ingenuously the testimony of it seems not clear to me and therfore I rank it not with those that I would have if it may be solidly weighty and undeniable to one who shall consider maturely the bottom and full efficaciousness of them Of such a few or any one is enough to settle ones mind in the belief of a truth and I hope that this which I have labour'd for in this Chapter is so sufficiently proved as we need not make up our evidence with number of Testimonies But to shew the exceptions I take against this argument let us examine how this act within us which we call watchfulness is perform'd Truly me-thinks it appears to be nothing else but the promptitude and recourse of some spirits that are proper for this effect which by a mans earnestness in his resolution take a strong impression and so are still ready to knock frequently at the door of our understanding and therby enable it with power to recal our stray'd thoughts Nay the very reflection itself which we make upon our thoughts seems to me only this that the object beating upon the fansie carries back with it at its retiring from thence some little particle or atome of the brain or Septum Lucidum against which it beats sticking upon it in like manner as upon another occasion we instanced in a Ball rebounding from a green Mud-wall to which some of the matter of the wall must needs adhere Now this object together with the addition it gets by its stroak upon the fansie rebounding thence and having no more to do there at present betakes it self to rest quietly in some Cell it is disposed into in the brain as we have deliver'd at large in our former Treatise where we discoursed of Memory but whenever it is called for again by the fansie or upon any other occasion returns thither it comes as it were capped with this additional piece it acquir'd formerly in the fansie and so makes a representation of its own having been formerly there Yet be these actions perform'd how they will it cannot be deny'd but both of them are such as are not fit nor would be any ways useful to creatures that have not the power of ordering their own thoughts and fansies but are govern'd throughout meerly by an uniform course of nature Which ordering of thoughts being an operation feasible only by rational creatures and none others these two actions which would be in vain where such ordering is not used seem to be specially ordain'd by nature for the service of Reason and of the Understanding although peradventure a precise proper working of the understanding do not clearly shine in it Much less can we by experience find among all the actions we have hither to spoken of that our Reason or Understanding works singly and alone by it self without the assistance and consortship of the fansie and as little can I tell how to go about to seek any experience of it But what Reason may do in this particular we shall hereafter enquire and end this Chapter with collecting out of what is said how it fares with us when we do any thing against Reason or against our own knowledge If this happen by surprise 't is plain that the watch of Reason was not so strong as it should have been to prevent the admittance or continuance of those thoughts which work that transgression Again if it be occasion'd by Passion 't is evident that in this case the multitude and violence of those spirits which Passion sends boyling up to the fansie is so great as the other spirits which are in the jurisdiction and government of Reason are not able for the present to ballence them and stay their impetuosity whiles she makes truth appear Somtimes we may observe that Reason hath warning enough to mustet together all her forces to encounter as it were in battail the assault of some concupiscence that sends his unruly bands to take possession of the fansie and constrain it to serve their desires and by it to bring Reason to their bent Now if in this pitch'd field she lose the bridle and be carried away against her own resolutions and forced like a captive to obey the others laws 't is clear that her strength was not so great as the contrary factions The cause of which is evident for we know she can do nothing but by the
oore in which she suffers by reason of that oore she presently becomes impassible as being purely of her own nature a fixed substance that is a pure Being Both which states of the Soul may in some sort be adumbrated by what we see passes in the coppelling of a fixed metal For as long as any lead or dross or allay remains with it it continues melted flowing and in motion under the muffle but as soon as they are parted from it and that it is become pure without any mixture and singly it self it contracts it self to a narrower room and at that very instant ceases from all motion grows hard permanent resistent to all operations of fire and suffers no change or diminution in its substance by any outward violence we can use to it CHAP. XI Shewing what effects the divers manners of living in this world cause in a Soul after she is separated from her Body ONe thing may peradventure seem of hard digestion in our past discourse and it is that out of the grounds we have laid it seems to follow that all Souls will have an equality since we have concluded that the greatest shall see or know no more than the least And indeed there appears no cause why this great and noble creature should ly imprison'd in the obscure dungeon of noisom flesh if in the first instant in which it hath its first knowledg it hath then already gain'd whatever it is capable of gaining in the whole progress of a long life afterwards Truly the Platonick Philosophers who are perswaded that a humane Soul doth not profit in this life nor acquired any knowledg here as being of her self compleatly perfect and that all our discoursings are but her remembrings of what she had forgotten will find themselvs ill bestead to render a Philosophical and sufficient cause of her being lock'd into a Body For to put forgetfulness in a pure Spirit so palpable an effect of corporeity and so great a corruption in respect of a creature whose nature is to know of it self is an unsufferable error Besides when they tell us she cannot be changed because all change would prejudice the spiritual nature which they attribute to her but that well she may be warned and excited by being in a Body they meerly trifle For either there is some true mutation made in her by that which they call a warning or there is not If there be not how becomes it a warning to her or what is it more to her than if a straw were wag'd at the Antipodes But if there be some mutation be it never so little made in her by a corporeal motion what should hinder why she may not by means of her Body attain to Science she never had as well as by it receive any the least intrinsecal mutation whatever For if once we admit any mutability in her from any corporeal motion 't is far more conformable to reason to suppose it in regard of that which is her natural perfection and of that which by her operation we see she hath immediately after such corporeal motions and wherof before them there appear'd in her no marks at all than to suppose it in regard of a dark intimation of which we neither know it is nor how it is performed Surely no Rational Philosopher seeing a thing whose nature is to know have a Being wheras formerly it existed not and observing how that thing by little and little gives sign of more and more knowledg can doubt but that as she could be changed from not Being to Being so may she likewise be changed from less knowing to more knowing This then being irrefragably setled that in the Body she encreases in knowledg let us come to our difficulty and examine what this encrease in the Body avails her Since as soon as she parts from it she shall of her own nature enjoy and be replenish'd with the knowledg of all things why should she laboriously strive to anticipate the geting of a few drops which but encrease her thirst and anxiety when having but a little patience she shall at one full and everlasting draught drink up the whole sea of it We know that the Soul is a thing made proportionably to the making of its Body seeing it is the Bodies compartner and we have concluded that while it is in the Body it acquires perfection in that way which the nature of it is capable of that is in knowledg as the Body acquires perfection in its way which is in strength and agility Now then let us compare the proceedings of the one with those of the other substance and peradventure we may gain some light to discern what advantage it may prove to a Soul to remain long in its Body if it make right use of its dwelling there Let us consider the Body of a Man well and exactly shaped in all his members yet if he never use care nor pains to exercise those well framed limbs of his he will want much of those corporeal perfections which others will have who employ them sedulouslâ— Though his leggs arms and hands be of an exact symmetry yet he will not be able to run to wrestle or to throw a dart with those who labour to perfect themselvs in such exercises Though his fingers be never so neatly moulded or composed to all advantages of quick and smart motion yet if he never learn'd and practis'd on the Lute he will not be able with them to make any musick upon that instrument even after he sees plainly and comprehends fully all that the cunning Lutenist doth neither will he be able to play as he doth with his fingers which of themselvs are peradventure less apt to those voluble motions than his are That which makes a man dexterous in any of these Arts or in any other operations proper to any of the parts or limbs of his body is the often repetitions of the same Acts which amend and perfect those limbs in their motions and make them fit and ready for the actions they are design'd to In the same manner it fares with the Soul whose essence is that which she knows her several knowledges may be compared to arms hands fingers leggs thighs c. in a Body and all her knowledges taken together compose as I may say and make her up what she is Now those limbs of hers though they be when they are at the worst entire and well shaped in bulk to use the comparison of Bodies yet they are susceptible of further perfection as our corporeal limbs are by often and orderly usage of them When we iterate our acts of understanding any object the second act is of the same nature as the first the third as the second and so of the rest every one of which perfects the understanding of that thing and of all that depends on the knowledg of it and makes it become more vigorous and strong Even the often throwing of a Boul at the same
we should be certain that thy parting from this life waft thee over to assured happiness For thou well know'st that there are noxious actions which deprave infect the Soul while it is forging and moulding here in its Body and tempering for its future Being and if thou should'st sally hence in such a pervers disposition unhappiness would betide theeinstead of thy presumed Bliss I see some men so ravenous after those pleasures which cannot be enjoy'd out of the Body that if those impotent desires accompany their Souls into Eternity I cannot doubt of their enduring an eternity of Misery I cannot doubt of their being tormented with such a dire extremity of unsatisfiable desire and violent grief as were able to tear all this world into pieces were it converted into one heart and to rive in sunder any thing less than the necessity of contradiction How high the Bliss of a well-govern'd Soul is above all power of quantity so extreme must be the ravenous inclemency and Vulture-like cruelty of such an uncompassable desire gnawing eternally upon the Soul for the same reason holds in both and which way soever the gravitation and desires of a Separated Soul carry it it is hurried on with a like impetuosity and unlimited activity Let me then cast a heedful and wary eye on the actions of the generality of mankind from whence I may guess at the weal or wo of their future state and if I find that the greatest number weighs down in the scale of misery have I not reason to fear lest my lot should prove among theirs For the greatest part sweeps along with it every particular that hath not some particular reason to exempt it from the general law Instead then of a few that wisely settle their hearts on legitimate desires what multitudes of wretched men do I see some hungry after Flesh and Blood others gaping after the empty wind of Honour and Vanity others breathing nothing but Ambitious thoughts others grasping all and grov'ling upon heaps of melted Earth So that they put me all in a horror and make me fear lest very few they be that are exempted from the dreadful fate of this incomprehensible misery to which I see and grieve to see the whole face of mankind desperately turned May it not then be my sad chance to be one of their unhappy number Be content then fond man to live Live yet till thou hast first secured the passage which thou art but once to venture on Be sure before thou throwst thy self into it to put thy Soul into the Scales ballance all thy thoughts examine all thy inclinations put thy self to the test try what dross what pure gold is in thy self and what thou findest wanting be sure to supply before nature calls thee to thy dreadful account 'T is soon done if thou beest what thy nature dictates thee to be Follow but evident reason and knowledg and thy wants are supply'd thy accounts made up The same evershining truth which makes thee see that two and two are four will shew thee without any contradiction how all these base allurements are vain and idle and that there is no comparison between the highest of them and the meanest of what thou maist hope for hast thou but strength to settle thy heart by the steerage of this most evident Science In this very moment thou maist be secure But the hazard is great in missing to examine thy self truly and throughly And if thou miscarry there thou art lost for ever Apply therfore all thy care all thy industry to that Let that be thy continual study and thy perpetual entertainment Think nothing else worth the knowing nothing else worth the doing but screwing up thy Soul to this height but directing it by this level by this rule Then fear not nor admit the least doubt of thy being happy when thy time shall come and that time shall have no more power over thee In the mean season spare no pains forbear no diligence employ all exactness burn in Summer freeze in Winter watch by night labour by day joyn months to months entail years upon years Think nothing sufficient to prevent so main a hazard and deem nothing long or tedious in this life to purchase so happy an Eternity The first discoverers of the Indies cast themselvs among swarms of Man eaters they fought and strugled with unknown ways so horrid ones that often times they perswaded themselvs they climb'd up mountains of waters and straight again were precipitated headlong down between the cloven sea upon the foaming sand from whence they could not hope for a resource Hunger was their food Snakes and Serpents were their dainties sword and fire were their daily exercise and all this only to be masters of a little Gold which after a short possession was to quit them for ever Our searchers after the Northern passage have cut their way through mountains of ice more affrightful and horrible than the Simplegades They have imprison'd themselvs in half-year nights they have chain'd themselvs up in perpetual stone-cleaving colds some have been found closely embracing one another to conserve as long as they were able a little sewell in their freezing hearts at length petrefy'd by the hardness of that unmerciful winter Others have been made the prey of inhumane men more savage than the wildest Beasts others have been never found nor heard of so that surely they have proved the food of ugly monsters of that vast icy Sea And these have been able and understanding men What motives what hopes had these daring men What gains could they promise themselvs to countervail their desperate attempts They aim'd not so much as at the purchase of any treasure for themselvs but meerly to second the desires of those that set them on work or to fill the mouths of others from whence some few crumes might fall to them What is required at thy hands my Soul like this And yet the hazard thou art to avoid and the wealth thou art to attain imcomparably over-sets all that they could hope for Live then and be glad of long and numerous years that like ripe fruit thou maiest drop securely into that passage which duely entred into shall deliver thee into an eternity of Bliss and unperishable happinesâ— And yet my Soul be thou not too sore agast with the apprehension of the dreadful hazard thou art in Let not a tormenting fear of the dangers that surround thee make thy whole life here bitter and uncomfortable unto thee Let the serious and due consideration of them arm thee with caution and wisedom to prevent miscarriage by them But to look upon them with horrour and affrightedness would freez thy spirits and benum thy actions and peradventure engulf thee through pusillanimity in as great mischâ—iefs as thou seekest to avoid 'T is true the harm which would accrue from misgoverning thy passage out of this life is unspeakable is unimaginable But why shouldst thou take so deep thoughts of
the spirits according to the condition they are in so as the passages which are ajusted to one kind of spirits will not admit any of another nature orelse the first motions of liking or disliking in the heart which as we have said cause a swelling or a contradiction of it against this or that part stops and hinders the entrance of the spirits into some sinews and opens others and drives the spirits into them so as in the end by a result of a chain of swellings and contractions of several parts successively one against another the due motions of prosecution or aversion are brought about As for example an object that affects the heart with liking by dilating the spirits about the heart sends some into the optick nervs and makes the living creature turn his eye towards it and keep it steady upon what he desires as contrariwise if he dislike and fear it he naturally turns his eye and head from it Now of this motion of the eye and head may depend the running to the thing in one case and the running from it in the other for the turning of the neck one way may open a passage for the spirits into those sinews which carry the rest of the body towards the object and the turning of it to the other side may open other sinews which shall work a contrary effect and carry the animal from the object And the moving of those sinews which at first turn the neck proceeds from the quality and number of the spirits that ascend from the heart and from the region of the heart whence they are sent according to the variety wherof there are divers sinews fitted to receive them To make up which discourse we call to mind what we have said a little above concerning the motions caused in the external parts of the body by passion moving within as when Fear mingled with hope gives a motion to the legs Anger to the arms and hands and all the rest of the body as wel as to the legs all of them an attention in the outward senses which neverthelessperverts every one of their functions if the passion be in extremity And then surely we may satisfie our selves that either this or some way like it which I leave to the curious in Anatomy to settle with exactness for 't is enough for my intent to shew in gross how these operations may be done without calling in some incomprehensible qualities to our aid is the course of nature in motions where no other cause intervenes besides the object working upon the sense which all the while it doth it is the office of the eye of fantasie or common sense to lie ever open still watching to observe what warnings the outward senses send to him that accordingly he may direct and chang the motions of the heart and whole body But if the object make violent impressions upon the sense and the heart being then vehemently moved therupon send abundance of spirits up to the brain this multitude of spirits thronging upon the common sense oppresses it as we have already said in such sort that the notice which the sense gives of particular circumstances cannot prevail to any effect in the brain and thus by the misguidance of the heart the work of nature is disordered Which when it happens we express in short by saying that Passion blinds the creature in whom such violent and disorderly motions have course for Passion is nothing else but a Motion of the Bloud and Spirits about the Heart and is the preparation or beginning of the Animals working as we have above particularly displai'd And thus you see in common how the circuit is made from the Object to the Sense and from it by the Common sense and Fantasie to the Heart and from the heart back again to the brain which then sets on work those Organs or parts the animal is to make use of in that occasion and they either bring him to or carry him from the object that at the first caused all this motion and in the end becomes the period of it CHAP. XXXVI Of some actions of Beasts that seem formal acts of reason as doubting resolving inventing IN the last Chapter the foundations are laid and the way is opened for discovering how all operations which proceed from nature and passion are perform'd among living creatures and therfore I conceive I have therby sufficiently compli'd with the obligation of my intention which is but to express and shew in common how all the actions of sensible bodies may be reduced to local motion and material application of one body to another in a like manner though in a different degree as those motions which we see in lifeless bodies Yet because among such animals as pass for irrational there happen some operations of so admirable a strain as resemble very much the higest effects which proceed from a man I think it not a miss to give some further light by extending my discourse to some more particulars than hitherto I have done wherby the course and way how they are performed may be more clearly and easily look'd into And the rather because I have met with some men who either wanting patience to bestow on thoughts of this kind so much time as is necessary for the due scanning of them or else through a promptitude of nature passing swiftly from the effect they look upon in gross to the most obvious seeming cause suddenly and strongly resolve that beasts use discourse upon occasions and are endued with reason Yet I intend not here to run through all the several species of their operations for that were to write the history of every particular animal but will content my self with touching the causes in common yet in such sort that the indifferent Reader may be satisfied of a possibility that these effects may proceed from material causes and that I have pointed out the way to those who are more curious and have the patience and leasure to observe diligently what passes among beasts how they may trace these effects from step to step till at length they discover their true causes To begin then I concieve we may reduce all those actions of Beasts which seem admirable and above the reach of an irrational animal to three or four several heads The first may be of such as seem to be the very practice of reason as doubting resolving inventing and the like The next shall be of such as by docility or practice beasts oftentimes arrive to In the third place we will consider certain continuate actions of a long tract of time so orderly perform'd by them as that discourse and rational knowledge seem clearly to shine through them And lastly we will cast our eye upon some others which seem to be even above the reason that is in man himself as the knowing of things which the sense never had impression of before a prescience of future events providences and the like As for