by any Image it follows the Soul cannot imagine them which is a thing worthy to be remember'd Lastly By Sense the Soul perceives only Sensible gross and ruder Objects when being present they cause an Impression on the external Organs of her Body Thus it is the Soul sees things plain and rugged present to her Eyes thus she knows the Hardness of the Iron the point of a Sword and the like and this kind of Perceptions one may call Sentiments or Sensations The Soul then has no more than these three ways of Perceiving which will easily be granted if we consider that the things we perceive are either Spiritual or Material If they be Spiritual they are perceptable only by the Pure Vnderstanding If they be Material they are either Present or Absent If they be Absent the ordinary way of the Soul 's representing them is by the Imagination But if they be Present the Soul can perceive them by the Impressions they make upon her Senses And thus Our Souls are not capable of more than a three-fold Perception by Pure Intellect by Imagination and by Sense These three Faculties therefore may be lookt upon as so many certain Heads to which we may reduce the Errors of Men and the Causes of their Errors and so avoid the confusion into which the multitude of them would infallibly cast us should we talk of them without Order or Method But moreover our Inclinations and our Passions act very strongly upon us They dazzle our Mind with their false Lights and overcast and fill it with Clouds and Darkness Thus Our Inclinations and our Passions engage us in an infinite number of Errors when we suffer our selves to be guided by that false Light and abusive Glare which they produce within us We must then together with the three Faculties of the Mind consider them as the Sources of our Deviations and Delinquencies and add to the Errors of Sense Imagination and Pure Intellect those which may be charg'd upon the Passions and Natural Inclinations And so all the Errors of Men and the Causes of them may be reduc'd to five Heads and we shall treat of them according to that Order First We shall speak of the Errors of the Senses Secondly Of the Errors of Imagination Thirdly Of the Errors of the Pure Intellect Fourthly Of the Errors of our Inclinations and Fifthly Of the Errors of the Passions And thus having made an Essay to rid the Soul of the Errors which she's subject to we shall Lastly lay down a General Method to Conduct her in the Search of Truth We will begin with an Explication of the Errors of our Senses or rather of the Errors into which we fall for want of making the due use we should do of our Senses And here we shall not so much descend to our Particular Errors which are almost infinite as fix upon the general Causes of these Errors and such things as seem most necessary to inform us of the Nature of the Humane Mind CHAP. V. Of the SENSES I. Two ways of explaining how they were corrupted by Sin II. That 't is our Liberty and not our Senses which is the true Cause of our Errors III. A Rule for avoiding Error in the use of our Senses UPON an attentive Consideration of the Senses and Passions of Man we find them so well proportion'd to the End for which they were given us that we can by no means agree with those who say they are to all intents and purposes debauch'd and spoil'd by Original Sin But that it may appear it is not without Reason we are of a different Opinion it is necessary to Explain in what manner we may conceive the Order and Regularity which was to be seen in the Faculties and Passions of our First Parent in his State of Righteousness and the Changes and Disorders that were consequent to his Fall Now there are Two ways of Conceiving these things of which this is the First That it seems to be a common Notion That it is necessary to the right ordering of Affairs that the Soul should perceive lesser or greater Pleasures according to the proportion of the Littleness or Greatness of the Goods which she enjoys Pleasure is an Instinct of Nature or to speak clearer 't is an Impression of God himself who inclines us towards some Good which Impression should be so much stronger by how much that Good is greater According to which Principle it seems not to be contested that our first Parent before his Sin coming fresh out of the Hands of his Maker found greater Pleasures in the most solid Goods than in those that were not so Wherefore since he was created in order to Love God who created him and that God was his true Good it may be said God gave him a Taste and Relish of himself That he inclin'd him to the Love of the Divine Perfection by a Sense of Pleasure and that he possess'd him with those Internal Satisfactions in his Duty that counter-balanc'd the greatest Pleasures of the Senses whereof since the State of Sin Man is altogether insensible without a Supernatural Assistance and particular gift of Grace Notwithstanding since he had a Body which God design'd he should take care of and look upon as a Part of himself he gave him to Perceive by the Mediation of his Senses Pleasures like those we our selves are sensible of in the use of things which are proper for and adapted to the Preservation of our Life and Being We presume not here to determine whether the First Man before his Fall had a Power to hinder agreeable or disagreeable Sensations in the instant that the principal part of his Brain was agitated by the Actual Impression of Sensible Objects Possibly he had that Soveraignty over himself because of his Subjection to the Will of God though the contrary Opinion seems more probable For though Adam might stop the Commotions of the Blood and Spirits and the Vibrations of the Fibres of his Brain which Objects excited in it because being in a Regular State his Body must needs submit to his Mind yet it is not probable he was able to prevent the Sensations of Objects at the time he had not stopt the Motions they produc'd in that part of his Body to which his Soul was immediately united For the Union of the Soul and Body consisting principally in the mutual Relation there is betwixt Sensations and the Motions of the Organs this Union would rather seem Arbitrary than Natural if Adam had been capable of hindring Sensation when the Principal Part of his Body receiv'd an Impression from those round about it However I declare for neither of the two Opinions The First Man therefore felt Pleasure in that which was Perfective of his Body as he felt it in that which was Perfective of his Soul And because he was constituted in a Perfect State he found that of the Soul far greater than that of the Body Thus it was infinitely
and greatness worthy of the Wisdom and the Power of its Author Man then may be consider'd after his Sin without a Restorer but under the Expectation of one In considering him without a Restorer we plainly see he ought to have no Society with God that that he is unable of himself to make the least approaches to him that God must needs repel him and severely use him when he offers to leave the Body to unite himself to him that is to say that Man after the Sin must lose the power of getting clear of sensible impressions and motions of concupiscence He ought likewise to be annihilated for the foremention'd Reasons But he expects a Restorer and if we consider him under that Expectation we see clearly that he must subsist He and his Posterity whence his Restorer is to arise and thus it is necessary that Man after his Sin preserve still the power of diversely moving all those parts of the Body whose motion may be serviceable to his Preservation 'T is true that Men abuse daily the power they have of producing certain motions and that their power of moving their tongue for Example several ways is the cause of innumerable Evils But if it be minded that power will appear absolutely necessary to keep up Society to comfort one another in the Exigences of thiâ— present Life and to instruct them in Religion which affords hope of a Redeemer for whom the World subsists If we carefully examine what are the motions we produce in us and in what parts of our Body we can affect them we shall clearly see that God has left us the power of our Body no farther than is necessary to the preservation of Life and the cherishing and upholding civil Society For example the Beating of the Heart the Dilatation of the Midriff the peristaltick motion of the Guts the Circulation of the Spirits and Blood and the diverse motions of the Nerves in the Passions are produc'd in us without staying for the order of the Soul As they ought to be much what the same on all occasions nothing obliges God to submit them now to the will of Man But the motions of the Muscles imploy'd in stirring the Tongue the Arms and Legs being to change every minute according to the almost infinite diversity of good or evil Objects all about us it was necessary these motions should depend on the will of Men. But we are to remember That God acts always by the simplest ways and that the Laws of Nature ought to be general and that so God having given us the power of moving our Arm and Tongue he ought not to take away that of striking a Man unjustly or of slandering or reproaching him For if our natural Faculties depended on our Designs there would be no Uniformity nor certain Rule in the Laws of Nature which however must be most simple and general to be answerable to the Wisdom of God and suitable to Order So that God in pursuance of his Decrees chuses rather to cause the Materiality of Sin as say the Divines or to make use of the Injustice of Men as says one of the Prophets than by changing his Will to put a stop to the Disorders of Sinners But he defers his revenging the injurious Treatment which they give him till the time when it shall be permitted him to do it without swerving from his immutable Decrees that is to say when Death having corrupted the Body of the voluptuous God shall be freed from the necessity he has impos'd on himself of giving them Sensations and Thoughts relating to it OBJECTION against the Eleventh and Twelfth Articles Original Sin not only enslaves Man to his Body and subjects him to the Motions of Concupiscence but likewise fills him with Vices wholly Spiritual not only the Body of the Infant before Baptism being corrupted but also his Soul and all his Faculties stain'd and infected with Sin Though the Rebellion of the Body be the principle of some grosser Vices such as Intemperance and Vncleanness yet it is not the Cause of Vices purely Spiritual as are Pride and Envy And therefore Original Sin is something very different from Concupiscence which is born with us and is more likely the Privation of Grace or of Original Righteousness ANSWER I acknowledge That Children are void of Original Righteousness and I prove it in shewing That they are not born upright and that God hates them For methinks one cannot give a clearer Idea of Righteousness and Vprightness than to say a Will is upright when it loves God and that it is crooked and perverse when it draws towards Bodies But if by Righteousness or Original Grace we understand some unknown Qualities like those which God is said to have infus'd into the Heart of the first Man to adorn him and render him pleasing in his sight it is still evident that the Privation of this is not Original Sin for to speak properly that Privation is not hereditarily transmitted If Children have not these Qualities 't is because God does not give 'em them and if God does not bestow them 't is because they are unworthy to receive them and 't is that Vworthiness which is transmitted and which is the Cause of the Privation of Original Righteousness And so that Vnworthiness is properly Original Sin Now this Unworthiness which consists as I have shewn in this That the Inclinations of Children are actually corrupt and their Heart bent upon the Love of Bodies this I say is really in them 'T is not the Imputation of the Sin of their Father they are actually themselves in a disorder'd State In like manner as those who are justify'd by JESUS CHRIST of whom Adam was the Type are not justify'd by Imputation But are really restor'd to Order by an inward Righteousness different from that of our LORD though it be he that has merited it for them The Soul has but two natural or essential Relations the one to God and the other to her Body Now 't is evident That the Relation or Union which she has with God cannot vitiate or corrupt her and therefore she is neither vicious nor corrupt at the first instant of her Creation but by the relation she has to her Body Thus one of the two must needs be said either that Pride and other which we call Spiritual Vices can be communicated by the Body or that Children are not subject to them at the moment of their Birth I say at the moment of their Birth for I do not deny but these ill Habits are easily acquir'd Though pure Intelligences had no other relation than to God and at the instant of their Creation were subject to no Vice yet they fell into Disorder But the Cause of it was their making a wrong use of their Liberty whereof Infants have made no use at all For Original Sin is not of a free Nature But to come to the Point I am of Opinion That they err who think that the Rebellion
we suppose there are some Fruits whose savour is capable of deceiving the most curious senses and which still retain their Natural perfection yet we ought not to believe this proceeded from Sin But only that from the great simplicity of Natural Laws by vertue of which the sense of Tast is form'd and perfected 't was impossible for it to have sufficient Niceness and Sagacity for all sorts of Eatables Besides that defect of sense would not be remediless because when the Mother had an aversion to dangerous Fruits she would communicate it to her Children not only when unborn but also when come into the World For Children only Eat what is given them by their Mothers and they Machinally and by the Air of their Countenance infuse into them an abhorrence for Fruits that are dangerous to be Eaten So that God has made sufficient Provision by our senses for the preservation of our Life and nothing can be better Order'd For as Order requires that the Laws of Union of our Soul and Body should be most Simple they must be of a very General Nature And God ought not to establish particular Laws for such instancess and emergences as most rarely happen Reason on such occasions must Help out the Senses For Reason may be employ'd in all things But the senses are determin'd to some Natural Judgments which are the most advantageous â—maginable as I have prov'd in the first Book Yet even these Judgments are sometimes fallacious because 't is impossible it should be otherwise without multiplying the most simple Laws of Union of the Body with the Soul If we consider Man as now he is under a State of Sickness we must confess his senses often deceive him even in things that relate to the preservation of his Life For the Oeconomy of his Machine being disturb'd in Proportion to it's disturbance irregular motions must unavoidably be excited in his Brain Nevertheless his senses are not so corrupted as is Ordinarily believ'd And God has so wisely provided for the preservation of Life by the Laws of Union of the Soul and Body that though these laws are extreamly simple they often suffice to restore us to our Health and it is much the surer way to follow them than to employ our Reason or certain Physicians that do not carefully study the disposition of their Patients For as a wound closes and heals up of its self when constantly cleans'd and lick'd as is done by Animals when wounded So Ordinary diseases are speedily dispers'd when we let them alone and exactly observe that course of Life which these Diseases as it were by instinct and Sensation put us upon Wine for example seems bitter to a Man in a Feaver and likewise is prejudicial to him in that Condition This same Man finds it agreeable to the Palate when he is in Health and then too it is Wholesome for him It sometimes even happens that Wine is most useful to the Sick that relish it provided their tast be not an effect of the Habit of drinking it and that their desire of it proceed from the present disposition of their Body That it cannot be doubted but that we are to consult our senses in Sickness for the way we are to take to the recovery of our Health Here follows my Opinion about what we ought to do 'T is requisite that the distemper'd Person should be extreamly attentive to those secret desires which sometimes arise in him on occasion of the actual disposition of his Body but above all take heed lest these desires should be the consequence of some preceding Habit. He must to that intent slacken as I may say the bent of Imagination or thinking on nothing that may determine it observe to what he is inclin'd and examine whether his present Inclination proceeds from the actual disposition of his Body Which done he ought to follow it but with much caution and reserve it being extreamly difficult to be assur'd whether these secret Inclinations are owing to the present State of Body and 't is sometimes good to have the advice of some Experienc'd Person upon it But if the Sick Person thus giving a loose to his Imagination as I have been saying finds nothing offer it self to his Mind he must remain quiet and use abstinence for this likely will quicken him to some desire or spend the humours that distemper him But if the disease increase notwithstanding his Abstinence and Rest 't is then necessary to have recourse to experience and the Physician He must give then an exact account of all to a Skillful one that knows if possible the Constitution of his Body He must clearly explain to Him the beginnings and progress of his Disease and the State of Body he was in before he fell into it that He may consult his Experience and Reason with reference to the Person to be cur'd by him And then though the Physician prescribe bitter Medicines and which are really sorts of Poison yet they must be taken because we Experimentally know that these Poisons stay not in the Body but drive out sometimes along with them the corrupt humours which are the cause of the Disease Here it is that Reason or rather Experience must over-rule the Senses provided the abhorrence of the recommended Potion be not of a fresh date For if this Aversion was Cotemporary with the disease it would rather be a Symptom of the Medicine 's being of the same Nature with the ill humours that caus'd the distemper and so perhaps would be augment and strengthen it Nevertheless I think it advisable before we venture upon strong Medicines and which we are much averse to to begin with those that are more gentle and natural As by Drinking a good quantity of Water or taking an easie Emetick if we have lost our Appetite and are not very hard to Vomit Water may attenuate the too condens'd humours and Facilitate the Circulation of the Blood into all the Parts of the Body And Vomitives cleansing the Stomach hinder the Nourishment we take in from corrupting and feeding any longer intermittent Feavers But I ought not to insist upon these things I am therefore of Opinion that we ought to follow the advise of the wise Physicians who are not too hasty and expeditious who are not too presumptuous upon the Recipe's nor too easie to give their Nostrums and Prescriptions For where one remedy does a Sick Man good there are a great many that do him harm As the suffering Persons are impatient and as it makes not for the Honour of the Physicians nor the profit of the Apothecary to visit the sick without prescribing to them so they visit too seldom and prescribe too often When therefore a Man is Sick he ought to request of his Physician that he would â—azard nothing but follow Nature and strengthen it iâ— he can He ought to let him know that he has more Reason and Patience than to take it ill that he visits him often without
Sensibility of Men the Corruption of the Senses and the Passions dispose them to the desire of being struck with it and provokes them to strike others with it also I am then of Opinion that there is no Author more fit than Seneca to exemplifie that contagious Communication of a great many Men who go by the Name of the Fine and Bold Wits and to shew how these strong and vigorous Imaginations domineer over the Weak and Unenlightened Minds not by the force and evidence of their Reasons which are the Productions of the Mind but by the Turn and lively way of Expression which depend on the Strength of Imagination I know well enough that this Author's Reputation is considerable in the World and ' will be look'd upon as a rash attempt to have treated him as a very Imaginative and Injudicious Author But 't was chiefly upon the Account of his Esteem I have said so much of him here not out of any Envy or ill Humour but because the Estimation he is in will more sensibly touch the Mind of the Reader and more closely apply it to the Consideration of the Errors I have attack'd For we should as far as possible bring the most Eminent Instances when the things we say are important it being sometimes an Honouring a Book to Critizice upon it But yet I am not the only Man that finds fault with the Writings of Seneca for not to mention some Famous Men of our own Age 't is near six hundred Years ago that a most Judicious Author observ'd there was little Exactness in his Philosophy little Judgment and Justice in his Elocution and his Reputation was rather the result of the Heat and indiscreet Inclination of Youth than the Consent of Learned and Judicious Men. Publickly to engage the grossest and most palpable Errors is labour lost there being no contagion in them 'T would be ridiculous to advertise Men that Hypocondriack People are deceiv'd 't is visible to all the World But if those very Men they have the greatest Opinion of should chance to be mistaken 't is a piece of service to admonish them lest they should imitate them in their Errors Now 't is plain that the Spirit of Seneca is a Spirit of Pride and Vanity And whereas Pride according to the Scripture is the Origine of Sin Initium Peccati Superbia The Spirit of Seneca cannot be the Spirit of the Gospel nor his Morals be allied to the Morals of our SAVIOVR the only true and solid Morals True 't is that all the Notions of Seneca are not false nor dangerous And he may be read with profit by such as have an exactness of Thought and are acquainted with the Foundation of Christian Morality Good use has been made of him by Great Men and I have no intent of blaming those who to accommodate themselves to the Weakness of others that had an excessive Esteem for him have drawn Arguments from his Works whereby to defend the Morality of our LORD and oppugn the Enemies of the Gospel with their own Weapons The Alcoran has many good things in it and some true Prophecies are to be found in the Centuries of Nostradamus The Alcoran is made use of to oppose the Religion of Mahomet and Nostradamus's Prophecies may be of use to convince some Fantastick and Visionary People But what is good in the Alcoran can't make it a good Book nor can some true Explications in Nostradamus's Centuries make him ever pass for a Prophet neither can it be said that all who make use of these Authors approve them or have for them any real Esteem A Man ought not to go about to overthrow what I have said about Seneca by alledging abundance of Quotations out of him which contain in them nothing but solid Truths and consonant to the Gospel For I grant many such are met with in that Author and so there are in the Alcoran and other mischievous Books Nor would he be less to blame who should overwhelm me with the Authority of those great Numbers who have made use of Seneca since use may be made of what we think an impertinent Book provided those we speak to judge otherwise of it than our selves But to ruine intirely the Wisdom of the Stoicks we need only know one thing which is sufficiently prov'd by Experience and by what we have already said which is that we are link'd and fasten'd to our Body our Relations our Friends our Prince and our Country by such ties as we neither can break nor could for shame endeavour it Our Soul is united to our Body and by our Body to all things Visible by so potent an Hand that 't is impossible by our own force to loosen the Connection 'T is impossible our Body should be prick'd but we must be prick'd and hurt our selves because the state of Life we are in most necessarily requires this Correspondence between us and the Body which we have In like manner 't is impossible to hear our selves reproach'd and despis'd but we must feel some discontent thereupon because GOD having made us for sociable converse with other Men has given us an Inclination for every thing capable to bind and cement us together which Inclination we have not strength enough of our selves to overcome 'T is Extravagance to say that Pain does not hurt us and that words of Contumely and Contempt are not at all offensive to us as being above such things as these There is no getting above Nature without being assisted by Grace nor was there ever any Stoick who despis'd Glory and the Esteem of Men through the meer Strength of his Mind Men may indeed get the mastery of their Passions by contrary Passions They may vanquish their Fear or their Pain by Vain Glory I mean only that they may abstain from Flying or Complaining when seeing themselves in the midst of a multitude the desire of Glory supports them and stops those motions in their Bodies which put them upon Flight In this manner they may conquer them but this is no Conquest or Deliverance from their slavery 't is possibly to change their Master for some time or rather to put on a longer and an heavier chain 'T is to grow wise happy and free only in appearance but in reality to suffer an hard and cruel bondage The natural union a Man has still with his Body may be resisted by that union he has with Men because Nature may be resisted by the strength of Nature GOD may be resisted by the forces He himself supplies us with but GOD cannot be resisted by the strength of a Man 's own mind Nature can't be perfectly vanquish'd but by Grace because GOD cannot if I may be allow'd so to speak be overcome but by the special auxiliaries of GOD himself And thus that so much celebrated and vaunted Division of all things in such as depend not on us and such as we ought not to depend on is a Division that seems agreeable to Reason
a convenient Staâ—e but the Soul relishes it with great Satisfaction whereas it is never in a State conâ—rary to its Good and Preservation but that she endures it with pain And therefore when we follow the Motions of our Passions and stop not the Course of the Spirits which the View of the Object of the Passion produces in the Body to put in it the most convenient State with relation to that Object the Soul by Nature's Law is affected with a Sensation of Satisfaction and Delight because her Body is in the Disposition it requires whereas when according to the Laws of Reason the Soul stops the Current of the Spirits and withstands those Passions she suffers a Pain proportionable to the Evil that may from thence arise to the Body For as the Reflection that the Soul makes upon her self is necessarily accompanied with the Joy or Sorrow of the Mind and afterwards with the Joy or Sorrow of the Senses when doing her Duty and submitting to the Orders of God she is conscious that she is in a due and convenient state or when having given her self up to her Passions she is afterwards affected with Remorse which teaches her that she is in a corrupt Disposition So the Course of the Spirits raised for the good of the Body is first attended with sensible and afterwards with Spiritual Joy or Sorrow according as the Course of the Animal Spirits is retarded or promoted by the Will There is however this notable difference betwixt the Intellectual Joy that attends the clear Knowledge of the good Estate of the Soul and the sensible Pleasure that accompanies the confused Sensation of the good disposition of the Body that the intellectual Joy is solid and substantial without Remorse and as immutable as its Original Cause the Truth whereas sensible Joy is almost ever followed with the Sorrow of the Mind or the Remorse of the Conscience and is as restless and fickle as the Passion or Agitation of the Blood from whence it proceeds To conclude the first is for the most part attended with an exceeding Joy of the Senses when it is derived from the Knowledge of the great good that the Soul possesses whereas the other is very rarely accompanied with any great Joy of the Mind though it proceeds from a Good considerable for the Body but contrary to the Good or Perfection of the Soul 'T is nevertheless true That without the Grace of our Lord the satisfaction the Soul relishes when she gives her self up to her Passions is more grateful than that which she enjoys when she follows the Rules of Reason which satisfaction is the Source of all the Disorders that have attended the Original Sin and would have made us all Slaves to our Passions had not the Son of God rid us from their Tyranny by the Delectation of his Grace For what I have said on behalf of the Joy of the Mind in opposition to the Joy of the Senses is only true amongst the Christians and was altogether false in the Mouths of Seneca Epicurus and all the most rational of the Heathen Philosophers because the Yoke of Christ is only sweet to those that belong to him and his Burthen only light when his Grace helps us to support the Weight of it CHAP. IV. That the Pleasure and Motion of the Passions engage us in Errours and false Judgments about Good That we ought continually to resist them How to impugn Libertinism ALL those general Qualities and Effects of the Passions that we have hitherto treated of are not free they are in us without our Leave and nothing but the Consent of our Will is wholly in our Power The View or Apprehension of Good is naturally followed with a Motion of Love a Sensation of Love a Concussion of the Brain a Motion of the Spirits a new Commotion of the Soul that encreases the first Motion of Love a new Sensation of the Soul that likewise augments the first Sensation of Love and lastly a Sensation of Satisfaction which recompenses the Soul for the Bodies being in a convenient State All this happens to the Soul and Body naturally and mechanally that is without her having any part in it nothing but her Consent being her own real Work This Consent we must regulate preserve and keep free in spite of all the Struggle and Attempts of the Passions We ought to submit our Liberty to none but God and to yield to nothing but to the Voice of the Author of Nature to inward Evidence and Conviction and to the secret Reproaches of our Reason We ought never to consent but when we plainly see we should make an ill Use of our Liberty in with-holding our Consent This is the principal Rule to be observ'd for the avoiding of Errour God only makes us evidently perceive That we ought to yield to what he requires of us to him alone therefore we ought to devote our Services There is no Evidence in the Allurements and Caresses in the Threats and Frightnings caused in us of the Passions they are only confused and obscure Sensations to which we must never yield up our selves We must wait till all those false Glimpses of the Passions vanish till a purer Light illuminates us till God speaks inwardly to us We must enter within our selves and there seek him that never leaves us that always enlightens us He speaks low but his Voice is distinct his Light is weak but pure But no his Voice is as strong as 't is distinct and his Light is as bright and active as 't is pure But our Passions continually keep us from home and by their Noise and Darkness hinder us from being instructed by his Voice and illuminated by his Light He speaks even to those that ask him no Questions and those whom Passions have carried farthest from him fail not yet many times to hear some of his Words but loud threatning astonishing Words sharper than a two-edged Sword piercing into the inmost Recesses of the Soul and discerning the Thoughts and Designs of the Heart For all things are open to his Eyes and he cannot see the unruly Actions of Sinners without lashing them inwardly with smarting Reproofs We must then re-enter into our selves and approach near him we must interrogate him listen to him and obey him for by always listning to him we shall never be deceived and always obeying him we shall never be subjected to the Inconstancy of the Passions and the Miserie 's due to Sin We must not like some pretenders to Wit whom the Violence of Passion has reduced to the Condition of Beasts who having a long time despised the Law of God seem at last to have retained no Knowledge of any other than that of their infamous Passions We must not I say imagine as do those Men of Flesh and Blood that it is following God and obeying the Voice of the Author of Nature to give up our selves to the Motions of Passions and to comply with the secret Desires
principal part of his Brain Order will'd it so and consequently He whose Will always conforms to Order and who can do nothing against It though He be Almighty Thus Man might on certain Occasions suspend the Natural Law of the Communication of Motions seeing he was not tainted with Concupisence nor did he feel in himself any involuntary and rebellious Motions VII But Adam lost that Power by sinning Order would have it so for it is not reasonable that in Favour of a Sinner and a Rebel there should be any other Exceptions to the general Law of the Communication of Motions than what are absolutely necessary to the Preservation of our Life and Civil Society Therefore the Body of Man being continually shaken by the Action of sensible Objects and his Soul agitated by all the Concussions of the principal part of his Brain he is become a dependent on the Body to which he was only united and over which he had a Sovereignty before his Fall VIII Let us see now how the first Man was capable of sinning It is natural to love Pleasure and to tast it and this was not forbidden Adam The Case is the same with Joy one may rejoice at the sight of his Natural Perfections That is not evil in it self Man was made to be happy and 't is Pleasure and Joy which actually beatifie and content Adam therefore tasted Pleasure in the use of sensible Goods and he felt a Joy upon viewing his own Perfections For 't is impossible to consider ones self as happy or perfect and not be possess'd with it He felt no such Pleasure in his Duty for though he knew God was his Good it was not in a sensible way as I have prov'd in several places So the Joy he might find in his Duty was not very sensible which being suppos'd we conclude That whereas the first Man had not an infinite Capacity of Mind his Pleasure or his Joy weakned its clear sight which gave him to know That God was his Good and that he ought only to love him For Pleasure is in the Soul and the Modification of it and therefore fills up our Capacity of Thought proportionably as it affect and works on us this is a thing which we learn by Experience or rather from that inward Sensation we have of our selves We may then conceive That the first Man having insensibly suffer'd the Capacity of his Mind to be possess'd or divided by the lively Sense of a presumptuous Joy or it may be some Love or sensible Pleasure the Presence of God and the Consideration of his Duty were eras'd from his Mind for neglecting couragiously to pursue his Light in the Search of his True Good so this Distraction made him capable of falling For his principal Grace and strength was his Light and the clear Knowledge of his Duty forasmuch as then he had no need of preventing Delights which are now necessary to oppose to Concupisence IX And it must be observ'd that neither the preventing Sense of Pleasure which Adam felt in the use of the Goods of the Body nor the Joy that possess'd him when reflecting on his own Happiness or Perfection was the true Cause of his Fall for he knew very well that none but God could give him that Sense of Pleasure or Joy and so he in Duty should have lov'd him only forasmuch as none merits our Love save the true Cause of our Felicity As nothing perturbated his Knowledge and Light whilst he strove to keep it pure and incorrupt so he might and ought to have expung'd from his Mind those Sensations which divided it and which endanger'd its falling off and losing sight of him who strengthened and enlightned it He ought to have well remembred that if God offer'd himself not to his Sense but only his Vnderstanding as his Good it was to afford him a readier way to merit his Reward by a continual Exercise of his Liberty Supposing then That Adam and Eve have sinn'd and consequently thereupon felt in themselves involuntary and rebellioâ—s Motions I say That their Children must needs be born Sinners and subject as they were to Motions of Concupiscence See my Reasons for it X. I have prov'd at large in the Chapter that occasion'd this Discourse that there is such a Communication between the Brain of the Mother and that of the Child that all the Motions and Traces excited in the former are stirr'd up in the latter Therefore as the Soul of the Infant is united to its Body at the very instant of its Creation it being the Conformation of the Body which obliges God in consequence of his general Will to inform it with a Soul 't is plain that at the very moment of this Soul's Creation it has corrupt Inclinations and turns towards the Body since it has from that same moment â—nclinations answerable to the Motions that are actually in the Brain it is united to XI But because it is a Disorder That the Mind should propend to Bodies and expend its Love upon them the Infant is a Sinner and in Disorder as soon as out of the Hands of his Maker God who is the Lover of Order hates him in this Estate notwithstanding his Sin is not free and eligible But his Mother conceiv'd him in Iniquity because of the Communication establish'd by the Order of Nature betwixt her Brain and the Brain of her Infant XII Now this Communication is very good in its Institution for several Reasons First Because useful and it may be necessary to the Conformation of the Foetus Secondly Because the Infant by this means might have some Intercourse with his Parents it being but reasonable that he should know to whom he was oblig'd for his Body which he animated Lastly He could not but by help of this Communication know external Occurrences and think of them as he should do Having a Body 't was fit he should have Thoughts relating to it and not be hood-wink'd to the Works of God amongst which he liv'd There are likely many other Reasons for this Communication than those I have given but these are sufficient to justifie it and to cover His Conduct from Censure and Reproach every Will of whom is necessarily conformable to ORDER XIII However there is no Reason that the Infant in spight of his Will should receive the Traces of sensible Objects If the Souls of Children were created but one moment before they were united to their Bodies if they were but an instant in a State of Innocence and Order they would have plenary Right and Power from the necessity of Order or of the Eternal Law to suspend that Communication just as the first Man before his Sin stopt when he pleas'd the Motions which arose in him Order requiring That the Body should be obedient to the Mind But whereas the Souls of Children were never well-pleasing to God it was never reasonable that God on their behalf should dispence with the Law of the Communication of Motions and
the Grace of the Creator XXXVI In the establish'd Order of Nature I can see but two Occasional Causes which shed Light on Minds and so determine the General Laws of the Grace of the Creator one which is in us and depends in some measure on us the other which is found in the Relation we have with surrounding Objects The former is nothing but the diverse Motions of our Will the second is the Occurrence of sensible Objects which act on our Mind in consequence of the Laws of Union of our Soul with our Body XXXVII We are taught by our own inward Consciousness That the Love of Light produces it and that Attention of Mind is a Natural Prayer by which we obtain Instruction of God for all the Enquirers of Truth who apply themselves to Truth discover it in proportion to their Application And if our Prayer were not interrupted nor our Attention disturb'd if we had any Idea of what we ask and should ask it with a competent Perseverance we should not fail to obtain whilst we were capable of receiving it But our Prayers are continually interrupted unless Self-interess'd our Senses and Imagination muddy and confound all our Ideas And â—hough the Truth we consult answers our Enquiries the confus'd Noise of our Passions deafens us to its Answers or makes us speedily forget them XXXVIII If it be consider'd that Man before the Fall was animated with Charity and possess'd with all that was requisite to his Perseverance in Innocence and that by his Perseverance and Application he ought to merit his Reward 't will easily be conceiv'd that the several Desires of his Will were establish'd the Occasional Causes of the Light receiv'd in his Understanding otherwise his Distraction had not been voluntary nor his Attention meritorious But Nature however corrupted is not destroy'd God has not desisted to will what he once will'd And the same Laws still subsist Therefore our manifold Volitions are still the Occasional or Natural Causes of the Presence of Ideas to our Mind But because the Union of the Soul with the Body is chang'd into a Dependence on it by a Natural Consequence of Sin and the immutable Will of God as I have explain'd elsewhere our Body at present disturbs our Ideas and speaks so loud in favour of its respective Goods that the Mind but seldom consults and distractedly listens to Internal Truth XXXIX Moreover Experience daily teaches us that our Conversation with Understanding Persons is capable of instructing us by raising our Attention that Preaching Reading Converse a thousand Occurrences of all sorts may raise some Ideas in us and likewise inspire us with good Thoughts The Death of a Friend is doubtless capable of putting us in Mind of Death unless some great Passion takes us up And when a Preacher of great Natural Endowments undertakes to demonstrate a most simple Truth and convince others of it it must be own'd that he may persuade his Hearers and even move their Conscience give them Fear and Hope and raise in them such other Passions as put them in a less State of Opposition to the Influence of the Grace of Jesus Christ. Men being made for a sociable Life 't was requisite they should mutually communicate their Thoughts and Motions 'T was fit they should be united in Mind as well as Body and that speaking by the Voice to their Ears and by Writing to their Eyes they should infuse Light and Understanding into one anothers Minds XL. But Light whatever way produc'd in us whether by particular Desires or fortuitous Instances as the Occasional Causes of it may be call'd Grace especially when it nearly relates to Salvation though it be but a Consequence of the Order of Nature because since Sin God owes us nothing and all the Good we have is merited for us by Jesus Christ in whom our very Being subsists But this kind of Grace though merited for us by Jesus Christ is not the Grace of our Lord but that of the Creator since Jesus Christ is not usually the Occasional Cause of it but the Cause of it is discoverable in the Order of Nature XLI There are still several other Natural Effects which we might reasonably look upon as Graces For Example Two Persons have at the same time two Desires of Curiosity The one to go see an Opera the other to hear a celebrated Preacher If they satisfie their Curiosity he that goes to the Opera shall find such Objects as according to his present Disposition of Mind shall raise in him Passions that will damn him whilst the other shall find in the Preacher so great Force and Light that the Grace of Conversion working in him at that moment shall be able to save him Which suppos'd Let but a shower of Rain or any other Accident happen that may stay them at home Though the Rain be a Natural Effect as depending on the Natural Laws of the Communication of Motions yet it may be said to be a Grace in respect of him whose Damnation it prevents and a Punishment to him whose Conversion it hinders XLII Grace being conjoin'd to Nature all the Motions of our Soul and Body have some relation to Salvation This Man is sav'd by having in a State of Grace made a false Step which happily broke his Neck and another is damn'd by having on some Occasion misfortunately avoided the Ruines of a falling House We know not what is for our Advantage but we well know there is nothing of it self so indifferent but has some reference to our Salvation because of the Mixture and Combination of Effects depending on the General Laws of Nature with others that depend on the General Laws of Grace XLIII As therefore Light points out to us the True Good the Means to obtain it our Duties to God in a word the Ways we are to follow it is sufficient to cause those who are animated with Charity to do good to merit new Graces and to conquer some Temptations as I shall explain in another Place so I think we may lawfully give it the Name of Grace though Jesus Christ be only the Meritorious Cause of it And whereas External Graces which have no immediate Influence on the Mind come nevertheless into the Order of Predestination of Saints I consider them also as True Graces In a word I see not why we may not give the Name of Grace to all Natural Effects when relating to Salvation subservient to the Grace of Jesus Christ and delivering us from some Hindrances to his Efficacy Yet if others will not agree with me I shall not contend with them about Words XLIV All these Graces if we may be allow'd to call them so being those of the Creator the General Laws of these Graces are the General Laws of Nature For we must still observe that Sin has not destroy'd Nature though it has corrupted it The General Laws of the Communications of Motions are always the same and those of the Union of the Soul
they are united to their Relations their Friends their City their Office and all sensible Goods the Preservation of which seems as necessary and valuable as that of their own Being Thus the Care of their Fortunes and the Desire of increasing them their Passion for Glory and Grandeur busies and imploys them infinitely more than the Perfection of their Soul Even Men of Learning and Dealers in Wit spend more than one half of their Life in Actions purely Animal or such as give us Reason to think their Health their Estates and Reputations are of dearer Concern than the Perfection of their Minds They study more to acquire a Chimerical Grandeur in the Imagination of others than to give their Mind greater Force and Comprehension They make a kind of Wardrobe of their Brain wherein they huddle without Order or Distinction whatever bears a certain Character of Learning I mean whatever can appear but Rare and Extraordinary and provoke others to admire them Their Ambition lies in resembling those Cabinets fill'd with Relicks and Curiosities which have nothing truly Rich or Valuable but derive their Worth from Fancy Passion or Chance and they rarely labour to make their Mind accurate and to regulate the Motions of their Heart Yet it should not be thought from hence that Men are intirely ignorant that they have a Soul and that this their Soul is the Principal part of their Being They have too been again and again convinc'd both by Reason and Experience that 't is no so considerable an Advantage to live in Reputation Affluence and Health the space of a few Years and in general that all Corporeal Goods all that are possess'd by Means and for the sake of the Body are Imaginary and Corruptible Goods They know 't is better to be Just than Rich to be Reasonable than Learned to have a Lively and Penetrating Mind than to have a Brisk and Active Body These are Truths indelibly imprinted on the Mind and infallibly discover'd whenever Men please to attend to them Homer for Instance who extols his Hero for his Swiftness might have perceiv'd if he would that 't was an Elogy fitter for a Race-Horse or a Greyhound Alexander so celebrated in History for his Illustrious Robberies heard sometimes from his most Retir'd Reason the same Reproaches as Villains and Thieves in spight of the confus'd Noise of a surrounding Crowd of Flatterers and Caesar when he pass'd the Rubicon could not help manifesting how these inward Lashes terrified him when at last he had resolv'd to sacrifice the Liberty of his Country to his Ambition The Soul however united very strictly to the Body is nevertheless united to GOD and at that very time of her receiving by her Body the lively and confus'd Sensations her Passions inspite into her she receives from the Eternal Truth presiding over her Understanding the Knowledge of her Duty and Irregularities When her treacherous Body deceives her GOD undeceives her When it indulges He wounds her When it gives her Incense and Applauses He strikes her inward with smarting Remorses and condemns her by the Manifestation of a more Pure and Holy Law than that of the Flesh which she has obey'd Alexander needed not that the Scythians should have come to teach him his Duty in a strange Language He knew from Him who teaches the Scythians and the most Barbarous Nations the Rules of Justice which he ought to follow The Light of Truth which enlightens the World enlightned him also and the Voice of Nature which speaks neither in Greek nor Scythian nor Barbarian Dialect spoke to him as to the rest of the World in a most clear and most intelligible Language In vain did the Scythians upbraid him with his Conduct their Words struck no deeper than his Ears And GOD not speaking home to his Heart or rather GOD speaking to his Heart whilst he heard only the Scythians who but provok'd his Passions and so led him out of himself he heard not the Voice of Truth though loud as Thunder nor saw its Light though it pierc'd him through and through 'T is true our Union with GOD diminishes and weakens proportionably as our other with things sensible strengthens and increases but 't is impossible the former Union should be absolutely lost without the destruction of our Being For however those who are immers'd in Vice and drench'd in Pleasures are insensible to Truth they are notwithstanding united to it It never deserts them 't is they that desert it Its Light shines in Darkness but does not always dispell it as the Light of the Sun surrounds the Blind and those that wink though it enlightens neither The case is the same with the Union of our Mind with the Body That Union decreases as fast as the other we have with God increases but it is never quite dissolv'd but by our Death For though we were as enlightned and as disingag'd from all things sensible as the Apostles themselves yet Adam's Fall would necessitate us to a Dependence on the Body and we should feel a Law of our Flesh constantly opposing and warring against the Law of our Mind Proportionably as the Mind increases its Union with GOD it grows purer and more luminous stronger and more capacious since 't is from this Union it derives all its Perfection On the other side it becomes corrupt blind weak and contracted by the same degrees as its Union with its Body corroborates and increases because this is the Source of all its Imperfection Thus a Man who judges of all things by his Senses who on all accounts pursues the Motions of his Passions who has no other than Sensible Perceptions and loves only Flattering Gratifications is in the most wretched State of Mind imaginable as being infinitely remote from Truth and from his Good But when a Man judges of things but by the pure Ideas of the Mind carefully avoids the confus'd Noise of the Creatures and retiring into himself hears his Sovereign Teacher in the calm Silence of the Senses and Passions he cannot possibly fall into Errour GOD never deceives those who interrogate Him by a serious Application and an entire Conversion of Mind towards Him though He does not always make them hear His Answers But when the Mind by its Aversion from GOD diffuses it self abroad when it consults only its Body to be instructed in the Truth and only listens to its Senses Imaginations and Passions which talk to it everlastingly it must inevitably be engag'd in Errour Wisdom Truth Perfection and Happiness are not Goods to be hop'd for from the Body There is none except ONE that is above us and from whom we receive our Being who can make it perfect This is what we are taught by these admirable Words of St. Austin Eternal Wisdom says he is the Principle of all Intellectual Creatures which persisting immutably the same never ceases to speak to the most secret and inward Reason of his Creatures to convert them
in the Mind is altogether passive and includes no Action at all I call that Faculty or Capacity the Soul has of receiving all these things the UNDERSTANDING Whence we ought to conclude That 't is the Vnderstanding which perceives since 't is only its business to receive the Idea's of Objects For for the Soul to perceive an Object and to receive the Idea which represents it is one and the same thing 'T is also the Vnderstanding which perceives the Modifications of the Soul since I mean by this word Vnderstanding that passive Faculty of the Soul by means of which it receives all the different Modifications it is capable of For it is the same thing for the Soul to receive a mode of existence which we call pain as to perceive Pain since it has no other way of receiving Pain than by the Perception of it whence it may be inferr'd that 't is the Vnderstanding that imagines the Objects that are absent and is sensible of those that are present and that the Senses and Imagination are nothing but the Vnderstanding perceiving Objâ—cts by the Organs of the Body as shall be explain'd hereafter But because in the Sensation of Pain or any thing else Men generally perceive it by the mediation of the Organs of Sense they customarily say they are the Senses which perceive it without knowing distinctly what it is they mean by the word Sense They fancy there is some Faculty distinct from the Soul which renders It or the Body capable of Sensation as believing the Organs of Sense do really participate of our Perceptions They imagine the Body is so assistant to the Mind in its Sensations that if the Mind was separate from the Body it could have no Sensation at all But these thoughts are the effects of Prejudice and because in the State we are in we are sensible of nothing but through the use of the Instruments of Sense as shall be shewn elsewhere more at large 'T is by way of accommodating my self to the ordinary way of Speaking that I say in the Process of my Discourse the Senses perceive but by the word Sense I mean nothing but that passive Faculty of the Soul before-mention'd that is the Understanding perceiving any thing on occasion of what happens in the Organs of her Body according to the Institutions of Nature as shall be explain'd in another place The other Resemblance between the passive Faculty of the Soul and that of Matter is this That as Matter receives no real alteration by the change which happens in its Figure I mean for instance that as Wax receives no considerable change by becoming Round or Square so the Mind receives no change by the diversity of Idea's it contains I would say the Mind receives no considerable change though it receives the Idea of a Square or a Circle in perceiving a Square or a Circle Again As it may be said that Matter receives considerable Changes when it loses the Configuration peculiar to the parts of Wax to take that which is proper to those of Fire and Smoak when the Wax is chang'd into Fire and Smoak so it may be said that the Soul undergoes very considerable Changes when it alters its Modifications and suffers Pain after it has felt Pleasure Whence we ought to conclude That Idea's are to the Soul in a manner what Figures are to Matter and that Configurations are to Matter almost what Sensations are to the Soul There are still other Corrsepondencies betwixt the Figures and Configurations of Matter and the Idea's and Modifications of the Mind for Matter seems to be an Image or Representative of the Mind I mean only that there are Properties in Matter which have some mutual Respects between them not unlike those which we find between the Properties belonging to the Mind though the Nature of the Mind is very different from that of Matter as we shall clearly see in that which follows From what I have said I would have it well remember'd That by Vnderstanding I mean that passive Faculty the Soul has of Perceiving that is of receiving not only different Idea's bat also an abundance of different Sensations as Matter has a capacity of receiving all sorts of external Figures and internal Configurations The other Faculty of Matter is that of its being capable of receiving many Motions and the other Faculty of the Soul is that Power it has of receiving many Inclinations Let us make the Comparison between them As the Author of Nature is the Universal Cause of all those Motions which we find in Matter so also he is the general Cause of all those natural Inclinations which are found in the Mind And as all Motions proceed in a right line unless otherwise determin'd by the Rencounter of some foreign and particular Causes which by their Opposition put them into a Circular course so all the Inclinations we receive from God have a direct tendency and could only aim at the possession of Good and Truth were there not some extraneous cause which biass'd that natural Impression towards corrupt and mischievous Ends Now 't is that foreign Cause which is the cause of all our Evils and depraves all our Inclinations To understand this rightly we must know there 's a very considerable difference between the Impression or Motion the Author of Nature produces in Matter and the Impression or Motion towards Good in general wherewith the same Author of Nature continually influences our Soul For Matter is wholly inactive it has no power of retarding or stopping its Motion or determining and turning it one way rather than another It s Motion as I have said proceeds always in a right line and if at any time it is hindred from continuing it in that manner it describes the greatest circular Line it can and consequently that which comes nearest to a right because 't is God that impresses its Motion and rules its Determination But 't is not so with the Will which may in one sense be said to be Active and to have a Power in it self of giving a different Determination to the Inclination or Impression it receives from God for though it cannot stop this Impression it may in one sense cause a Deviation to what side it pleases and thereby produce all those Disorders which happen in its Inclinations and all the Miseries which are the certain and necessary Consequents of Sin So that by the Word WILL I would be conceiv'd to design That natural Motion or Impression which carries us towards Good universal and undetermin'd And by that of LIBERTY I mean nothing more than The Power the Mind has of turning that Impression towards agreeable Objects and terminating our natural Inclinations upon some particular Object which before were loose and undetermin'd except towards general or universal Good that is to say towards God who is alone universal Good since 't is he alone who comprehends in himself all Goods Whence it is easie to discover That
and likewise those that use them have Bodies diversly dispos'd Two Persons after Dinner though rising from the same Table must sensibly perceive in their Faculty of Imagining so great a Variety of Alterations as is impossible to be describ'd I confess those who are in a perfect state of Health perform Digestion so easily that the Chyle flowing into the Heart neither augments nor diminishes the Heat of it and is scarce any Obstruction to the Blood 's fermenting in the very same manner as if it enter'd all alone So that their Animal Spirits and consequently their Imaginative Faculty admit hardly any Change thereby But as for Old and Infirm People they find in themselves very sensible Alterations after a Repast They generally grow dull and sleepy at least their Imagination flags and languishes and has no longer any Briskness or Alacrity They can conceive nothing distinctly and are unable to apply themselves to any thing In a word they are quite different and other sort of People from what they were before But that those of a more sound and robust Complection may likewise have sensible proofs of what I have said they need only make reflection on what happens to them in Drinking Wine somewhat more freely than ordinary or on what would fall out upon their drinking Wine at one Meal and Water at another For it is certain that unless they be extreamly stupid or that their Body be of a make very extraordinary they will suddainly feel in themselves some Briskness or little Drousiness or some such other accidental thing Wine is so spirituous that it is Animal Spirits almost ready made But Spirits a little too libertine and unruly that not easily submit to the orders of the Will by reason of their Solidity and excessive Agitation Thus it produces even in Men that are of a most strong and vigorous Constitution greater Changes in the Imagination and in all the parts of the Body than Meats and other Liquors It gives a Man a Foil in Plautus's Expression and produces many Effects in the Mind less advantagious than those describ'd by Horace in these Lines Quid non Ebrietas designat operta recludit Spes jubet esse ratas in praelia trudit inermem Sollicitis animis onus eximit addocet artes Foecundi calices quem non fecere disertum Contractâ quem non in paupertate solutum It would be no hard matter to give a Reason for all the Principal Effects produc'd in the Animal Spirits and thereupon in the Brain and in the Soul it self by this Commixture of the Chyle and Blood as to explain how Wine exhilarates and gives a Man a certain Sprightliness of Mind when taken with Moderation why it Brutifies a Man in process of time by being drunk to excess why a Man is drousie after a good Meal and a great many others of like Nature for which very ridiculous Accounts are usually given But besides that I am not writing a Tract of Physicks I must have been necessitated to have given some Idea of the Anatomy of the Brain or have made some Supposition as Monsieur Des-Cartes has done before me in his Treatise concerning Man without which it were impossible to explain ones self But finally if a Man shall read with Attention that Discourse of Monsieur Des-Cartes he will possibly be satisfy'd as to all these particular Inquiries because that Author explains all these things at least he furnishes us with sufficient Knowledge of them to be able of our selves to discover them by Meditation provided we are any whit acquainted with his Principles CHAP. III. That the Air imploy'd in Respiration causes some Change in the Animal Spirits THE second general Cause of the Changes which happen in the Animal Spirits is the Air we breath For though it does not forthwith make such sensible Impressions as the Chyle yet it causes at long run what the Juices of Meats do in a much shorter time This Air passes out of the Branches of the Trachea into those of the Arteria Venosa Hence it mingles and ferments with the rest of the Blood in the Heart and according to its own particular Disposition and that of the Blood it produces very great Changes in the Animal Spirits and consequently in the Imaginative Faculty I know there are some Persons who will not be persuaded that the Air mixes with the Blood in the Lungs and Heart because they cannot discover with their Eyes the Passages in the Branches of the Trachea and in those of the Arteria Venosa through which the Air is communicated But the Action of the Intellect ought not to stop when that of the Senses can go no farther It can penetrate that which to them is impenetrable and lay hold on things which have no handle for the Senses 'T is not to be question'd but some parts of the Blood continually pass through the Branches of the Vena Arteriosa into those of the Trachea The Smell and Moisture of the Breath sufficiently prove it and yet the Passages of that Communication are imperceptible Why then may not the subtil parts of Air be allow'd to pass through the Branches of the Trachea into the Arteria Venosa though the Passages of this Communication be undiscernible In fine a much greater quantity of Humours transpire through the imperceptible Pores of the Arteries and the Skin than escape through the other Avenues of the Body and even the Pores of the most solid Metals are not so close but there are found Bodies in Nature little enough to find a free passage through them since otherwise these Pores would quickly be entirely stopt It is true that the course and ragged parts of the Air cannot penetrate through the ordinary Pores of Bodies and that Water it self though extreamly gross can glide through those crannies which will not give admittance to them But we speak not here of the course or branch'd and ragged Parts of Air they seem to be of little use to Fermentation We only speak of the little stiff and pungent Parts and such as have none or very few Branches to impede their passage because these are the fittest for the Fermentation of the Blood I might notwithstanding affirm upon the Testimony of Silvius that even the coursest Air passes from the Trachea to the Heart who testifies he has seen it pass thither by the Art and Ingenuity of Mr. de Swammerdam For 't is more reasonable to believe a Man who says he has seen it than a thousand others who talk at random It is certain then that the most refin'd and subtil Parts of Air which we breath enter into the Heart and there together with the Blood and Chyle keep up the Fire which gives Life and Motion to our Body and that according to their different Qualities they introduce great Changes in the Fermentation of the Blood and in the Animal Spirits We daily discover the Truth of this by the various Humours and the different Characters of
not the greatest that is possible Children in their Mother's Womb whose Bodies are not yet compleatly form'd and who are of themselves in a state of the greatest Weakness Impotency and Want that can possibly be conceiv'd ought to be united likewise to their Mothers in the strictest manner imaginable And though their Soul be separate from that of their Mothers yet since their Body is not loos'd and disengaged from her's it ought to be concluded they have the same Sentiments and the same Passions in a word all the same Thoughts as are excited in the Soul on occasion of the Motions which are produc'd in the Body Thus Infants see what their Mothers see they hear the same Cries they receive the same Impressions of Objects and are agitated with the same Passions For since the Air of the Face of a Man in a Passion pierces those which look upon him and Naturally impresses in them a Passion resembling that with which he is possess'd though the Union of that Man with those that consider him be not very great and binding one would think there were good Reason to believe the Mothers capable of imprinting on their Infants all the same Sentiments they are touch'd with and all the same Passions themselves are acted withal For in short the Body of an Infant in the Womb is all of a piece with the Body of the Mother the Blood and the Spirits are common to them both the Sensations and Passions are the Natural Result and Consequents of the Motions of the Blood and Spirits and these Motions are necessarily communicated from the Mother to the Child Therefore the Passions and Sensations and generally all the Thoughts occasion'd by the Body are common to the Mother and the Child These things seem to me beyond exception true for several Reasons which yet I advance not here but as a Supposition which I think will be sufficiently demonstrated by what follows For every Supposition that can stand the shock of all the Difficulties possible to be rais'd against it and repel them ought to pass for an indisputable Principle The invisible Bonds and Cements wherewith the Author of Nature has united all his Works are worthy of the Wisdom of GOD and the Admiration of Men there is nothing in the World at once more surprizing and instructing than this but we are too inconsiderate to regard it We leave our selves to be conducted without considering who conducts us or how he does it Nature is conceal'd from our Eyes as well as its Author and we feel the Motions that are produc'd in us without considering from what Springs they are And yet there are few things more necessary to be known by us since upon the Knowledge of them it is that the Explication of all things relating to Man depends There are certainly in our Brain some secret Springs and Movements which naturally incline us to Imitation for this is necessary to Civil Society It is not only necessary for Children to believe their Fathers for Disciples to believe their Masters and Inferiours their Superiours It is moreover necessary that all Men should be inclinable to take up the like Exteriour Manners and to do the same Actions as those with whom they mean to live For to the intent that Men should have a Connexion and Dependance on each other 't is necessary they come near to one another in the Characters hoth of Body and Mind This is the Fundamental Principle of Abundance of things we shall treat of in the following Discourse But as to what we have to say in this Chapter it is farther necessary to know that there are in the Brain some Natural Dispositions which incline us to Compassion as well as to Imitation It ought to be known then That the Animal Spirits do not only Naturally convey themselves into the Parts of our Body for the performing the same Actions and the same Motions which we see others do but farther for the Receiving after a manner their Hurts and Injuries and participating of their Miseries For Experience teaches us that when we very attentively consider a Man violently struck or dangerously wounded the Spirits impetuously hasten to the Parts of our Body correspondent to those we see wounded in another provided we turn not the current of them another way by a voluntary and forcible Titillation of a different Part from that which we see hurt or wounded Or that the Natural Course of the Spirits towards the Heart and Viscerous parts which is usual in sudden Commotions changes not the Determination of the Flux of the Spirits we are speaking of and hurries them along with them Or lastly unless some extraordinary Connection of the Traces of the Brain with the motions of the Spirits effects the same thing This Translation of the Spirits into the Parts of our Body which are Analogous to those we see injuriously treated in others makes a very sensible Impression on Persons of a fine and delicate Constitution who have a lively Imagination and very soft and tender Flesh. For they feel for instance a kind of shivering or trembling in their Legs by an attentive beholding any one that has a Sore there or actually receives a blow in them For a confirmation of this take what a Friend of mine wrote to me to the same purpose An Old Gentleman that liv'd with one of my Sisters being sick a Young Maid held the Candle whil'st he was Blooded in the Foot But as she saw the Surgeon strike in the Lancet she was seiz'd with such an Apprehension as to feel three or four days afterwards such a piercing Pain in the same part of her Foot as forc'd her to keep her Bed all that time The Reason whereof is this That the Spirits impetuously diffuse themselves into these parts of our Body that by keeping them more intense they may render them more Sensible to the Soul and may put her upon her guard and make her solicitous to avoid those Evils which we behold in others This Compassion in Bodies produces another Compassion in Minds It induces us to Condole and Comfort others in their Troubles because in so doing we Comfort and Solace our selves In fine it gives a check to our Malice and Cruelty For the horrour of Blood and the fear of Death in a word the sensible impression of Compassion often prevents those Persons from Butchering beasts who are the most convincingly perswaded they are meer Machines Because a great many Men are unable to Kill them without Wounding themselves by a Repercussive stroke of Compassion But that which here is most especially remarkable is That the Sensible View of a Wound receiv'd by another produces in those which behold it a so much greater Wound as their Constitution is more weak and delicate Because that sensible View impetuously throwing the Animal Spirits into the Parts of the Body which are correspondent to those they see hurt or wounded they must needs make a greater Impression in the Fibres
Concupiscence is what we call Original Sin in Infants and Actual Sin in Men that have liberty of Acting It only seems as if one might conclude from the Principles I have establish'd a thing repugnant to Experience to wit that the Mother must always communicate to her Infant Habits and Inclinations like those she has her self and the facility of Imagining and learning the same things she understands For all these things depend only as have been said on the Traces and Impresses of the Brain And it is certain that the Traces and Impresses of the Mother's Brain are communicated to her Children This has been Experimentally prov'd by the Instances that have been related concerning Men and has been farther confirm'd from the Example of Animals whose young ones have their Brain fill'd with the same Impresses as those they proceeded from Which is the Reason that all those of the same Species have the same Voice the same way of moving their Limbs in short the same Stratagems for seizing their Prey and of defending themselves against their Enemies From hence it must follow that since all the Traces of the Mother are engraven and imprinted on the Brain of the Child the Child must be born with the same Habits and the other Qualities of the Mother And also must preserve them generally through the course of his Life since the Habits which have been contracted in our more tender Age are more lasting than the other which notwithstanding contradicts Experience In Answer to this Objection we must understand that there are two kinds of Traces in the Brain The one Natural or peculiar to the Nature of Man the other Acquired The Natural are Extraordinary deep and 't is impossible they should be quite effaced The Acquired on the contrary may be easily lost because ordinarily they are not so deep Now though the Natural and Acquired differ only in Degree of more or less and often the former are less forcible than the latter since we daily accustom Animals to the doing those things which are quite contrary to those their Natural Traces lead them to A Dog for instance has been train'd up not to touch the Bread before him and not to pursue a Partridge which he is in scent and sight of Yet there is this Difference between these Traces that the Natural are as one may say connected with imperceptible Ties to the other parts of our Body For all the Wheels and Contrivances of our Machine are assistant to each other to their continuing in their Natural state All the parts of our Body mutually contribute to all things necessary to the Preservation or Restauration of these Natural Traces thus they can never be wholly abolish'd and they begin to revive again when we thought them quite destroy'd On the contrary the Acquired Traces though greater and deeper and stronger than the Natural are lost and vanish by degrees unless care be taken to preserve them by a perpetual application of the Causes which produce them because the other parts of the Body lend no assistance to their Preservation but contrariwise continually labour to expunge and blot them out We may compare these Traces to the ordinary wounds of a Body they are hurts which our Brain has receiv'd which close up of themselves as other wounds do by the Admirable Construction of the Machine As then there is nothing in the whole Body but what is friendly and conformable to these Natural Traces they are delivered down to the Children in all their force and strength Thus Parrots breed their young with the same cries and the same Natural Notes with themselves But because the Acquired Traces are only in the Brain and make no Radiations into the rest of the Body or very little as suppose when they are imprest on it by the Motions which accompany violent Passions they ought not to be transmitted to their Infants Thus a Parrot who bids his Master Good Morrow and Good Night produces not a Young one so expert as himself nor do Men of Sense and Learning beget Children answerable to their Fathers So that though it be true that all that happens in the Mother's Brain happens likewise at the same time in the Brain of her Infant and that the Mother can neither see nor feel nor imagine but the Infant must see and feel and imagine the same thing And lastly that all the illegitimate Traces of the Mother Corrupt the Imagination of the Child yet these Traces being not Natural in the Sense we have just explain'd it 't is no wonder if they usually close up as soon as the Child proceeds from the Mother 's Womb. For then the Cause which delineated these Traces and fed and nourish'd them subsists no longer the Natural Constitution of the whole Body lends an hand to their Destruction and Sensible Objects produce a new Set extraordinary deep and numerous which efface the greatest part of those the Child had in its Mother 's Womb. For it daily happening that a great Pain makes us forgetful of those that have preceded it 't is not imaginable but such lively Sensations as are those of Infants when first the delicate Organs of their Senses receive the Impressions of External objects must destroy the greatest part of those Traces which they only receiv'd before from the same Objects by a kind of rebound from their Mother when they lay as it were sheltred from them by the inclosing of the Womb. Notwithstanding when these Traces are form'd upon a strong Passion and are accompany'd with a most violent Agitation of the Blood and Spirits in the Mother they act so forcibly on the Brain of the Child and the rest of its Body as to imprint therein Characters as deep and durable as the Natural Traces As in the instance of Sir Kenelm Digby in that of the Child who was born an Ideot and a Cripple in whose Brain and all his Members such ravage was made by the Imagination of the Mother and lastly in the instance of the general Corruption of the Nature of Mankind And we need not wonder that the King of England's Children were not subject to the same Infirmity as their Father First Because this sort of Traces diffuse not their Impression so far into the Body as the Natural Secondly Because the Mother having not the same Infirmity as the Father by her good Constitution prevented its descending to her Children And lastly Because the Mother acts infinitely more on the Brain of the Child than the Father as is evident from what has been already said But it must be observ'd That all these Reasons which shew that King James's Children might escape the Infirmity of their Father make nothing against the Explication of Original Sin or of that predominant Inclination towards things sensible nor of that great Alienation from GOD which we derive from our Parents because the Traces which sensible Objects have imprinted on the Brain of the first Founders of Mankind were stamp'd extreamly deep were
the Christians is quite different from that they deny not but Pain is an Evil and that it is hard to be separated from those things to which Nature has united us or to rid our selves from the Slavery Sin has reduc'd us to They agree that it is a Disorder that the Soul shall depend upon her Body but they own withall that she depends upon it and even so much that she cannot free her self from that Subjection but by the Grace of our Lord. I see saith St. Paul another Law in my Members warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into Captivity to the Law of Sin which is in my Members O wretched Man that I am who shall deliver me from the Body of this Death the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord shall do it The Son of God his Apostles and all his true Disciples command us above all to be Patient because they know that Misâ—ry must be the Expectâ—tion and Portion of the Righteous In short true Christians or true Philosophers say nothing but what is agreeable to sound Reason and Experience whereas all Nature continually impugns the proud Opinion and presumption of the Stoicks The Christians know that to free themselves in some manner from the Subjection they are under they must endeavour to deprive themselves of all those things that they cannot enjoy without Pleasure nor want without Pain it being the only means to preserve that Peace and Liberty of Mind which they owe to their Deliverer's Beneficence On the contrary the Stoicks following the false Notions of their Chimerical Philophy imagine that they are wise and happy and that they need but think upon Vertue and Independency to become Vertuous and Independent Sound Reason and Experience assure us that the best way not to feel the smart of stinging is to shun the Nettle but the Stoicks say Sting me never so much I shall by the strength of my Mind and the help of my Philosophy raise my self so high above my Body that all your pricking shall not reach me I can demonstrate that my Happiness depends not upon it and that Pain is not an Evil and you shall see by the Colour of my Face and by the whole deportment of my Body that my Philosophy has made me invulnerable Their Pride bears up their Courage however it hinders not but that they should suffer Pain with Vexation and be really miserable so that their Union with their Body is not destroyed nor their Pain vanished but all this proceeds from their Union with other Men strengthened by the desire of their Esteem which in some manner withstands the Union of their Soul with their Body The sensible view of the Spectators to whom they are united stops the Course of the Animal Spirits that should follow upon the pain and blots out the Impression they would make upon their Face for was there no body to look on them that Phantasm of Constancy and Liberty of Mind would presently vanish So that the Stoicks do only in some degree withstand the Union of their Soul to their Body by making themselves greater Slaves to other Men to whom they are united by a drift of Glory And 't is therefore an undoubted truth that all Men are united to all sensible things both by Nature and their Concupiscence which may sufficiently be known by Experience and of which all the Actions of Mankind are sensible demonstrations though Reason seems to oppose it Though this Union be common to all Men 't is not however of an equal Extent and Strength in all for as it proceeds from the Knowledge of the Mind so it may be said that we are not actually united to unknown Objects A Clown in his Cottage does not concern himself with the Glory of his Prince and Country but only with the honour of his own and the Neighbouring Villages because his Knowledge does not extend farther The Union with such Objects as we have seen is stronger than the Union to those we have only imagin'd or heard relation of because by Sensation we are more strictly united to sensible things as leaving deeper Impressions in our Brain and moving the animal Spirits in a more violent manner than when they are only imagin'd Neither is that Union so strong in those that continually oppose it that they may adhere to the Goods of the Mind as it is in those who suffer themselves to be carried away and inslav'd by their Passions since Concupiscence increases and strengthens that Union Last of all the several Employments and States of this Life together with the various dispositions of divers Persons cause a considerable difference in that sensible Union which Men have with Earthly Goods Great Lords have greater Dependencies than other Men and their Chains as I may call them are longer The General of an Army depends on all his Souldiers because all his Souldiers reverence him This Slavery is often the Cause of his Valour and the desire of being esteem'd by those that are Witnesses of his Actions often drives him to Sacrifice to it more sensible and rational desires The same may be said of all Superiours and those that make a great Figure in the World Vanity being many times the Spur of their Vertue because the love of Glory is ordinarily stronger than the love of Truth I speak here of the love of Glory not as a simple Inclination but a Passion since that love may become sensible and is often attended with very lively and violent Commotions of the Animal Spirits Again the different Ages and Sexes are primary Causes of the difference of Passions Children love not the same things as adult and old Men or at least love them not with that Force and Constancy Women depend only on their Family and Neighbourhood but the dependencies of Men extend to their whole Country because 't is their part to defend it and that they are mightily taken up with those great Offices Honours and Commands that the State may bestow upon them There is such a variety in the Employments and Engagements of Men that it is impossible to explain them all The disposition of Mind in a Married Man is altogether different from that of a single Person for the former is in a manner wholly taken up with the care of his Family A Fryar has a Soul of another make and depends upon fewer things than the Men of the World and even than Secular Ecclesiasticks but he is stronger fastned to those few things One may argue in the same manner concerning the different States of Men in general but the little sensible engagements cannot be explain'd because they differ almost in every private Person it often hapning that men have particular Engagements altogether opposite to those that they ought to have in reference to their condition But though the different Genius and Inclinations of Men Women Old Men Young Men Rich Poor Learned and Ignorant in short of all the different Sexes Ages and
no Pain in discharging his Duty But God is withdrawn from us since the Fall of Adam he is no more our Good by Nature but only by Grace we feel now no Delight and Satisfaction in the Love of him and he rather thrusts us from than draws us to him If we follow him he gives us a Rebuff if we run after him he strikes us and if we be obstinate in our Persuit he continues to handle us more severely by inflicting very lively and sensible Pains upon us And when being weary of walking through the rough and stony Ways of Vertue without being supported by the Repast of Good or strengthned by any Nourishment we come to feed upon sensible Things he fastens us to them by the relish of Pleasure as though he would reward us for turning back from him to run after counterfeit Goods In short since Men have sinn'd it seems God is not pleas'd that they should love him think upon him or esteem him their only and sovereign Good It is only by the delectable Grace of Christ our Mediator that we sensibly perceive that God is our proper Good For Pleasure being the sensible Mark of Good we then perceive God to be our Good when the Grace of our Redeemer makes us love him with Pleasure Thus the Soul not knowing her own Good either by a clear View or by Sensation without the Grace of Jesus Christ she takes the Good of the Body for her own she loves it and closes to it with a stricter Adhesion by her Will than ever she did by the first Institution of Nature For Corporeal Good being now the only one left that is sensible must needs operate upon Man with more Violence strike his Bâ—ain livelier and consequently be felt and imagined by the Soul in a more sensible manner And the Animal Spirits receiving a more vehement Agitation the Will by consequence must love it with a greater Ardency and Pleasure The Soul might before Sin blot out of her Brain the too lively Image of Corporeal Good and dissipate the sensible Pleasure this Image was attended with The Body being subject to the Mind the Soul might on a sudden stop the quavering Concussion of the Fibres of the Brain and the Commotion of the Spirits by the meer Consideration of her Duty But she lost that Power by Sin Those Traces of the Imagination and those Motions of the Spirits depend no more upon her whence it necessarily follows that the Pleasure which by the Institution of Nature is conjoin'd to those Motions and Traces must usurp the whole Possession of the Heart Man cannot long resist that Pleasure by his own Strength 't is Grace that must obtain a perfect Victory Reason alone can never doe it None but God as the Author of Grace can overcome himself as the Author of Nature or rather exorate himself as the Revenger of Adam's Rebellion The Stoicks who had but a confused Knowledge of the Disorders of Original Sin could not answer the Epicures Their Felicity was but Ideal since there is no Happiness without Pleasure and no Pleasure to be sensibly perceiv'd by them in Vertuous Actions They might feel indeed some Joy in following the Rules of their phantastick Vertue because Joy is a natural Consequence of the Consciousness our Soul has of being in the most convenient State That Spiritual Joy might bear up their Spirits for a while but was not strong enough to withstand Pain and overcome Pleasure Secret Pride and not Joy made them keep their Countenance for when no body was present all their Wisdom and Strength vanished just as Kings of the Stage lose all their Grandeur in a Moment It is not so with those Christians that exactly follow the Rules of the Gospel Their Joy is solid because they certainly know that they are in the most convenient State Their Joy is great because the Good they possess through Faith and Hope is Infinite for the Hope of a great Good is always attended with a great Joy and that Joy is so much livelier as the Hope is stronger because a strong Hope representing the Good as present necessarily produces Joy as also that sensible Pleasure which ever attends the Presence of Good Their Joy is not restless and uneasie because grounded on the Promises of God confirm'd by the Blood of his Son and cherished by that inward Peace and unutterable Sweetness of Charity which the Holy Ghost sheds into their Hearts Nothing can separate them from their true Good which they relish and take Complacency in by the Delectation of Grace The Pleasures of Corporeal Good are not so great as those they feel in the Love of God They love Contempt and Pain They feed upon Disgraces and the Pleasure they find in their Sufferings or rather the Pleasure they find in God for whom they despise all the rest to unite themselves to him is so ravishing and transporting as to make them speak a new Language and even boast as the Apostles did of their Miseries and Abuses when they departed from the presence of the Council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the Name of JESUS Such is the Disposition of Mind in true Christians when they are most basely affronted for the Defence of Truth CHRIST being come to restore the Order which Sin had overthrown and that Order requiring that the greatest Goods be accompanied with the most solid Pleasures it is plain that things ought to be in the manner we have said But we may farther confirm and strengthen Reason by Experience for 't is known that as soon as any Person has formed but the bare Resolution to despise all for God he is commonly affected with a Pleasure or internal Joy that makes him as sensibly and lively perceive that God is his Good as he knew it evidently before The true Christians assure us every Day that the Joy they feel in an unmixt loving and serving God is inexpressible and 't is but reasonable to believe the Relation they make of what happens within them On the contrary the Impious are perpetually vexed with horrible Disquietudes and those that are shar'd betwixt God and the World partake of the Joys of the Just and of the Vexations of the Impious They complain of their Miseries and 't is reasonable to believe that their Complaints are not groundless God strikes Men to the Quick and through the very Heart when they love any thing besides him and 't is this Stroke that causes a real Misery He pours an exceeding Joy into their Minds when all their Adherencies are to him only and that Joy is the Spring of true Felicity The Abundance of Riches and Elevation to Honours being without us cannot cure us of the Wound God makes and Poverty and Contempt that are likewise without us cannot hurt us under the Almighty's Protection By what we have said 't is plain That the Objects of the Passions are not our Good that we must not follow their
a poor weak and languishing Wretch who though he have the same Spirit and Principles yet because he is Master of Nothing imagines he is almost Nothing himself However our Retinue is not our self and so far is the plenty of the Blood and Animal Spirits the vigour and impetuousness of the Imagination from leading us to the Truth that on the contrary nothing carries us so far from it whereas 't is the Dull if I may so call them that is the cool and sedate Minds that are the fittest for the Discovery of solid and hidden Truths Their Passions being silent and quiet they may listen in the Recess of their Reason to the Truth that teaches them but most unhappily they mind not its Words because it speaks low without a forcible sound and that nothing wakens them but a mighty Noise Nothing convinces them but what glitters to appearance and is judg'd great and magnificent by the Senses they love to be dazled with Brightness and rather chuse to hear those Philosophers who tell them their Stories and Dreams and assert as the false Prophets of former times that the Truth has spoken to them though it has not than to listen to Truth it self For they have already suffer'd four thousand Years and that without opposition humane Pride to entertain them with Lies which they reverence and keep to as to Holy and Divine Traditions It seems the God of Truth is wholly gone from them they think on him and consult him no more they meditate no more and cover their neglect and laziness with the delusive pretences of a sacred Humility 'T is true that we cannot of our selves discover the Truth but we can doe it at all times with the assistance of him that enlightens us and can never doe it with that of all the Men in the World Those that know it best cannot shew it to us unless we ask it of him to whom they have made their Application and unless he be pleased to answer our Questions that is our Attention as he has done theirs We are not therefore to believe because Men say this or that for every Man is a Liar but because he that cannot deceive speaks to us and we must perpetually interrogate him for the solution of our Difficuties We ought not to trust to them that speak only to the Ears instruct but the Body or at the utmost move but the Imagination But we ought attentively to listen unto and faithfully believe him who speaks to the Mind informs the Reason and piercing into the most abstruse Recesses of the inward Man is able to enlighten and strengthen him against the outward and sensible Man that continually labours to seduce and corrupt him I often repeat these things because I believe them most worthy of a serious Consideration God alone is to be honour'd because he only can endue us with Knowledge as 't is he alone that can fill us with Pleasure There is sometimes in the animal Spirits and the rest of the Body a Disposition that provokes to Hunting Dancing Running and other Corporeal Exercises wherein the Force and Activity of the Body are most conspicuous Which Disposition is very ordinary to young Men especially before their Body be in a State of Consistency Children cannot stay in one place and will always be moving if they follow their humour For whereas all their Muscles are not yet strengthened nor perfectly finisht therefore God who as the Author of Nature regulates the Pleasures of the Soul with reference to the Good of the Body causes them to be delighted with such Exercises as may invigorate it Thus whilst the Flesh and Fibres of their Nerves are yet soft the Channels through which the animal Spirits must necessarily flow to produce all sorts of Motion are wore and kept open Humours have no time to settle and all Obstructions and Causes of Corruption are removed The confused Sensation that young Men have of that Disposition of their Body makes them pleased with the thoughts of their Strength and Dexterity They admire themselves when they know how to measure their Motions and to make extraordinary ones and are ambitious of being in the presence of Spectators and Admirers Thus they strengthen by degrees their Inclination to Corporeal Exercises which is one of the principal Causes of Ignorance and Brutishness For besides the time that is by that meanes lavisht away the little use they make of their Understanding causes the chief part of the Brain in whose tractableness the force and quickness of the Mind especially consists to become altogether inflexible and the animal Spirits through disuse are difficultly dispers'd in the Brain in a manner requisite to think of what they please This incapacitates most part of the Nobility and Gentry especially such as follow the War to apply themselves to any thing They answer with a Word and a Blow as the Proverb says for if you speak any thing that they don't willingly hear instead of thinking upon a suitable Reply their Animal Spirits insensibly flow into the Muscles that raise the Arm and make them answer without Consideration with a Blow or a Threatning Gesture because their Spirits agitated by the Words they hear are conveyed to such Places as are most open through Habit and Exercise The sense of their Corporeal Strength confirms them in those insulting Manners and the submissive Aspect of their Hearers puffs 'em up with such an absurd Confidence as makes them believe they have said very fine things when they have but haughtily and brutishly uttered Impertinencies being flater'd by the Fear and Caution of the Standers by It is not possible to have applied our selves to any Study or to make actual profession of any Science to be either Author or Doctor without being conscious of it But that very Consciousness naturally produces in some Men such a vast Number of Imperfections that it would be better with them if they wanted those Honourable Qualities As they look upon them as their most considerable Perfections so they are extreamly pleased with that Contemplation they set them before the Eyes of others with all the possible Dexterity and conceive they have thereby right to judge of every thing without Examination If any be so couragious as to contradict them they at first endeavour skillfully and with a sweet and obliging Countenance to insinuate what they are and what right they have to determine of such Matters And if any still presume to oppose them and that they be at a loss for an Answer they do not stick openly to declare what they think of themselves and of their Adversaries Every inward Sense of any Qualification we enjoy naturally swells up the Courage A Trooper well mounted and accoutred who neither wants Blood nor Spirits is ready to undertake any thing that Disposition inspiring him with an undaunted Boldness So it goes with a Man of Letters when he fansies himself to be Learned and that the Haughtiness of his Heart has
corrupted his Mind he becomes if I may so speak bold and fierce against Truth Sometimes he rashly impungs it without knowing it at other times he consciously betrays it and relying upon his imaginary Learning is always ready to assert either the Affirmative or Negative according as he is possessed with a Spirit of Contradiction It goes quite otherwise with those that make no Ostentation of Learning they are not positive neither do they speak unless they have something to say and it even often happens that they remain silent when they should speak They have neither that Fame nor those outward Characters of Learning which spur Men on to speak without Knowledge and so may decently hold their Peace but the Pretenders are afraid to make a stop since they are sensible they shall be despis'd for their Silence even when they have nothing to say and that they are not always in danger of falling into Contempt though they speak but Impertinencies provided they utter them with a Scientifick Confidence What makes Men capable of thinking enables them to know the Truth but neither Honours Riches University-Degrees nor Chimerical Erudition makes them capable of thinking It 's their own Nature for they are made to think because they are created for the Truth Even bodily Health qualifies them not for thinking well but only is a less Hinderance than Sickness Our Body assists us in some manner in perceiving by Sense and imagining but not at all in conceiving For though without its Help we cannot attentively meditate nor oppose the continual Impression of the Senses and Passions which endeavour to perplex and obliterate our Ideas because in this present State we cannot overcome the Body but by the Body yet 't is plain that the Body cannot illuminate the Mind nor produce in it the Light of Understanding since every Idea that discovers the Truth proceeds from Truth it self All that the Soul receives from the Body relates only to it and when she follows those Glimpses she sees nothing but Phantasms and Dreams that is to say she sees not things as they are in themselves but only as they have relation to her Body As the Idea of our own Greatness or Littleness is a frequent occasion of Errour so likewise the Ideas of outward things that have refference to us make no less dangerous an Impression We have already observ'd that the Idea of Greatness is always attended with a great Motion of Spirits and a great Motion of the Spirits is ever accompanied with the Idea of Greatness and that on the contrary that of Littleness is always followed with a small Motion of Spirits which is in its turn accompanied with the Idea of Meanness From that Principle 't is easy to infer that such things as produce in us great Motions of Spirits must naturally appear greater stronger and more real and perfect than others for in the word Greatness I comprehend all those Qualifications and such like So that sensible Good must needs seem to us more considerable and solid than that which cannot be felt if we judge of it by the Motion of the Spirits and not by the pure Idea of Truth A great House a sumptuous Retinue a fine Furniture Offices Honour Riches will then appear to us to have more greatness and reality in them than Justice and other Vertues When we compare Vertue to Riches by the pure Eyes of the Mind we prefer Vertue but if we make use of our Corporeal Eyes and Imagination and judge of those things by the Motion of the Spirits which they raise in us we shall doubtless chuse Riches rather than Vertue 'T is from the same Principle that we imagine that spiritual and insensible things are almost nothing that the Ideas of our Mind are less noble than the Objects they represent that there is less reality and substance in the Air than in Metalls and in Water than in Ice that those vast Spaces that reach from the Earth to the Firmament are empty or that the Bodies that fill them have not so much reality and solidity as the Sun and Stars In short our reasoning upon that false Principle induces us into an infinite number of Errours concerning the Nature and Perfection of every thing A great Motion of Spirits and by consequence a strong Passion always attending the sensible Idea of Grandeur and a small Motion and consequently a weak Passion still accompanying the sensible Idea of Meanness we are very attentive to and bestow a great deal of our time on the study of such things as raise the sensible Idea of Grandeur whereas we neglect those which afford but the sensible Idea of Meanness Those great Bodies for instance which make their Circumvotions over our Heads have ever made a great Impression upon Men who at first ador'd them because of their Light and Brightness or sensible Idea of Grandeur some bolder Wits presum'd to examine their Motions so that the Stars have been in all Ages the Object either of the Study or of the Veneration of the greatest part of Mankind It may even be said that the fear of their Phantastick Influences which still fright Astrologers and weak Persons is a sort of Adoration paid by a Brain-sick Imagination to the Idea of Greatness that represents Celestial Bodies But the Body of Man on the contrary that is infinitely more admirable and deserves more our Application than whatever we can know of Saturn Jupiter and other Planets has remained a long time almost unknown The sensible Idea of dissected parts of Flesh having nothing great but being rather distastful and noisome it is but a few years since Men of Parts have looked upon Anatomy as a Science that deserved their study There have been Princes and Kings that boasted of being Astronomers the height and magnitude of the Stars seem'd to suit their Dignity and Grandeur but I know not of any that were ever ambitious of knowing Anatomy and skilfully dissecting a Heart or a Brain The same may be said of several other Sciences Rare and extraordinary things incite in Mens Minds greater and more sensible Motions than such as are seen every day we admire them and by a natural Consequence we fix on them an Idea of Greatness that is followed with Passions of Esteem and Reverence This perverts the Reason of several Persons who are so very respectful and curious of all the Remains of Antiquity and whatever comes from far or is rare and extraordinary that they are as Slaves to them because the Mind dares not sit and pronounce upon the Objects of its Veneration I grant Truth is in no great danger because some Men are taken up with the Medals Arms and Habits of the Ancients or with the Dress of the Chinese and Savages It is not altogether unserviceable to know the Map of Ancient Rome nor the ways from Tomquin to Nanquin though it be more useful to us to know those from London to Oxford or from Paris to St. Germain or Versailles
certain and undeniable Principles We must then look upon Geometry as a sort of universal Science which opens and enlarges the Mind makes it attentive and affords it so much Skill as to regulate its Imagination and to draw from it all the possible Succours For by the assistance of Geometry the Mind regulates the Motion of the Imagination and the Imagination regulated keeps up the View and Application of the Mind But that we may learn to make a good use of Geometry we must observe that all the things that fall under the Imagination are not as easily imaginable one as the other since all the Images do not equally fill the Capacity of the Mind 'T is more difficult to imagine a Solid than a Plain and this than a simple Line because the clear perception of a Solid requires a greater thought than that of a Plain and a Line Even Lines differ as to this amongst themselves a Parobolick Elliptick or some other very composed Line requires more thinking that is takes up the Mind more than the Figure of a Circle and this than a right Line because 't is harder to imagine Lines that are described by very composed Motions and have several different Relations than those that are drawn by Motions very simple and have but a few Relations For Relations cannot be clearly perceived without the Attention of the Mind to several things and as their number is greater so must the thought or the perception be more extended Hence it happens that there are Figures so much composed that they extend beyond the reach of a distinct Imagination whereas others may be imagin'd with great facility Amongst the three sorts of Right-lined Angles viz. the acute the right and the obtuse none but the Right raises a very distinct and determinate Idea For as there are an Infinity of either acute or obtuse Angles that differ all from one another so we can imagine nothing nicely nor distinctly when we imagine an acute or obtuse Angle But we cannot be mistaken in imagining a right Angle the Idea of it is so very distinct and its Image which it raises in the Brain so very neaâ— and just True it is that we may determine the general and indefinite Idea of an acute Angle to the particular Idea of an Angle of 30 degrees which Idea is as accurate as that of an Angle of 90 that is or a right Angle but the Image of it which we may endeavour to imprint on the Brain will never â—e so very exact as that of a right Angle being not used to describe that Image we cannot draw it but by thinking on a Circle or on the determinate Portion of a Circle divided into equal Paâ—â—s But to imagine a right Angle we need not think on that division of a Circle the bare Idea of a Perpendicular is sufficient for the Imagination to draw the Image of that Angle and we can â—â—present Perpendiculars without trouble being used to see all things standing upright Hence it is easie to judge That to have a simple distinct and well-determin'd Object apt to â—e easily imagin'd and consequently to make the Mind attentive and to promote its Evidence in the Truths it is in quest of we must reduce all the Magnitudes we consider to plain Superficies termin'd by Lines and right Angles as are perfect Squares and other right Angled Figures or to bare right Lines for these are the Figures whose nature is the most easily known We pretend not however that all the Subjects of our Knowledge and Enquiry may be represented by Geometrical Lines and Figures There are many which neither can nor ought to be brought under that Rule For Instance the Knowledge of a God Allmighty All-just on whom all things depend all manner of ways who commands his Creatures to obey his Orders that they may be capable of Happiness that Knowledge I say is the Principle of all Morality and of an infinite number of certain and undoubted Consequences yet neither the Principle nor the Consequences can be represented by Geometrical Figures Neither is it possible to figure and represent by Lines many Notions of Natural Philosophy which yet may evidently discover to us several Truths However it may be truly said that an Infinity of things may be examin'd and learn'd by that Geometrical Method which is ever advantageously imploy'd since it accustoms the Mind to Attention by causing it to make a regular use of its Imagination and that things which are learn'd that way are more clearly demonstrated and easier retain'd than others I might have ascribed to the Senses the Assistances we derive from Geometry to preserve the Attention of the Mind but though Lines be something sensible yet I thought Geometry belongs rather to the Imagination than to the Senses It would be unprofitable to set down my Reasons for it which could only justifie the order I have observed in this Treatise and that 's a thing not very material to our purpose I have not yet spoken of Arithmetick and Algebra because the Cyphers and Letters of the Alphabet that are used in those Sciences are not so serviceable to strengthen the Attention of the Mind as to encreaâ—e its Extent as we shall explain it in the following Chapter These are the general Helps to improve the Attention of the Mind I know of no other besides a firm Resolution of being attentive of which we forbear to speak because we suppose it in those that give up themselves to study There are however some others particular to some Persons as some Meats some Drinks some Places some Dispositions of the Body and the like which every one must learn from Experience observing the State of his Imagination after the Meal and what Things best preserve or most dissipate the Attention of the Mind This only may be said in general That the moderate Use of such Aliments as make many Animal Spirits is very fit to improve the Attention of the Mind and the Strength of the Imagination when 't is weak and languishing CHAP. V. Of the Means to improve the Extent and Capacity of the Mind That Arithmetick and Algebra are of absolute Necessity to it WE ought not hastily to imagine that the Extent and Capacity of the Mind can really be increased The Humane Soul is if I may so speak a determined Quantity or a Portion of Thought contained within some certain Bounds which she cannot pass She cannot grow greater or more capacious than she is She neither swells up nor dilates as 't is commonly believed of Liquors and Metals and perceives never more at one time than another This I confess seems contrary to Experience since sometimes we think upon many Objects and sometimes but upon one and even we often suppose that we think upon nothing However if it be consider'd that Thought is to the Soul what Extension is to Matter it will plainly appear that as a Body cannot truly be more extended at one time than another so if
have two contrary Motions viz. the circular and the ascending which is impossible If the Heavens be some other Body which moves not circularly by its own Nature they will have some other natural Motion which cannot likewise be for if that Motion be ascending they will be Fire or Air and if descending Water or Earth Therefore c. I shall not insist upon shewing the particular Absurdities of those Reasonings but only observe in general that all that which this Philosopher here says has no signification and that there is neither Truth nor Inference well drawn His third Reason is as follows The first and most perfect of all simple Motions must be that of a simple Body and of the first and most perfect among simple Bodies But the circular Motion is the first and most perfect amongst simple Motions because every circular Line is perfect and that no right Line is so For if it be finite something may be added to it if infinite it is not yet perfect since it has no end and that things are not perfect but when they are finished and therefore the circular Motion is the first and most perfect of all and a Body moving circularly is simple and the first and most Divine amongst simple Bodies Here you have his fourth Reason Every Motion is either natural or not but every Motion which is not natural to some Bodies is natural to some others For we see that the ascending and descending Motions which are not natural to some Bodies are so to others for Fire naturally descends not but Earth does Now the Circular Motion is not natural to any of the Four Elements there must then be a simple Body to which that Motion is natural and therefore the Heavens which move Circularly are a simple Body distinguished from the Four Elements Lastly The Circular Motion is either natural or violent to some Body or other If it be natural 't is evident that Body must be one of the most simple and perfect But if it be against Nature 't is strange how that Motion endures for ever since we see that all Motions against Nature are of a short continuance And therefore we must believe after all those Reasons that there is some Body separated from all those that environ us whose Nature is the more perfect as it lies at a greater distance Thus argues Aristotle but I defie the best and most intelligent of his Interpreters to fix distinct Ideas to his Words and to shew that this Philosopher begins with the most simple Things before he speaks of the more composed which is however altogether necessary to exact Reasonings as I have already proved If I were not afraid of being tedious I would be at the pains to translate some Chapters of Aristotle But besides that none who can understand him care to read him in English or in any other vulgar Tongue I have sufficiently shewn by what I have related from him that his Way of Philosophizing is wholly unserviceable to the Discovery of Truth For he says himself in the Fifth Chapter of this Book That those that mistake at first in any thing mistake ten thousand times more if they proceed So that it being apparent that he knows not what he says in the two first Chapters of his Book we may reasonably believe that it is not safe to yield to his Authority without examining his Reasons But that we may be the more persuaded of it I proceed to shew that there is no Chapter in this First Book but has some Impertinency In the Third Chapter he says That the Heavens are incorruptible and uncapable of Alteration of which he alledges several Childish Proofs as that they are the Habitation of the Immortal Gods and that no Change was ever observed in them This last Proof would be good enough could he say that ever any Body was come back from thence or that he had approached Celestial Bodies sufficiently near to observe their Alterations And yet I doubt whether at this time any one should yield to his Authority since Telescopes assure us of the contrary In the Fourth Chapter he pretends to prove That the Circular Motion has no Opposite though it be plain that the Motion from East to West is contrary to that which is made from West to East In the Fifth Chapter he very weakly proves That Bodies are not Infinite drawing his Arguments from the Motion of simple Bodies For what hinders but there may be above his Primum mobile some unmovable Extension In the Sixth he loses time in shewing That the Elements are not Infinite For who can doubt of it when he supposes with him that they are included within the surrounding Heavens But he ridicules himself by drawing his Proofs from their Gravity and Lightness If Elements says he were Infinite there would be an Infinite Heaviness and Lightness which cannot be Ergo c. Those that desire to see his Arguments at length may read them in his Books for I reckon it a loss of Time to relate them He goes on in the Seventh Chapter to prove That Bodies are not Infinite and his first Argument supposes it necessary for every Body to be in Motion which he neither does nor can demonstrate In the Eighth he asserts That there are not many Worlds of the same Nature by this ridiculous Reason That if there were another Earth besides this we inhabit the Earth being ponderous of its own nature it would fall upon ours which is the Centre of all ponderous Bodies Whence has he learned this but from his Senses In the Ninth he proves That it is not so much as possible that there should be several Worlds because if there was any Body above the Heavens it would be simple or composed in a natural or violent State which cannot be for Reasons which he draws from the Three sorts of Motions already spoken of In the Tenth he asserts That the World is Eternal because it cannot have had a Beginning and yet last for ever because we see that whatever is made is corrupted in Time He has learned this likewise from his Senses But who has taught him that the World will always endure He spends the Eleventh Chapter in explaining what Incorruptible signifies as though Equivocation was here very dangerous or that he was to make a great Use of his Explanation However that Word Incorruptible is so clear of it self that Aristotle needed not have troubled himself with explaining in what Sense it must be taken or in what Sense he takes it It had been more convenient to define an infinite Number of Terms very usual with him which raise nothing but sensible Ideas for so perhaps we should have learned something by the reading of his Works In the Last Chapter of this First Book of the Heavens he endeavours to shew That the World is incorruptible because 't is impossible it should have had a Beginning and yet last eternally All Things says he subsist either for a
which two Principles of Errour I remember to have been often seduc'd For to return to the Difficulty in hand 't is not possible to conceive how those little Fetters should be indivisible by their own Essence and Nature nor consequently how they should be inflexible since on the contrary I conceive them most divisible nay necessarily divisible by their own Essence and Nature For the Part A is most certainly a Substance as well as B and consequently 't is plain that A may exist without B since Substances may exist without one another otherwise they would be no Substances It cannot be said that A is no Substance for 't is plain that that is not a bare Mode whereas every Being is either a Substance or the Mode of a Substance And therefore since A is not a Mode it is a Substance and may exist without B and much more the Part A exists separately from B so that this Fetter is divisible into A and B. Moreover if this Fetter were indivisible or crooked by its own Nature and Essence there would happen a thing quite contrary to what we see by Experience for not one Body could be broken Let us suppose as before a Piece of Iron composed of many Fetters perplexed within one another and A a B b to be two of them I say it will not be possible to disintangle them and consequently to break the Iron For to break it the Fetters that make it up must be bent which however are supposed inflexible by their own Nature and Essence If they be not supposed inflexible but only indivisible by their own Nature the Supposition would be unserviceable for solving the Question For then the Difficulty will be Why those little Fetters obey not the Force that is used to bend a Bar of Iron Neither must they be supposed indivisible if they be not supposed inflexible For if the Parts of those Fetters could change their situation in reference to one another 't is visible that they might be separated since there is no Reason why if one part may be somewhat removed from the other it could not be entirely removed And therefore whether these little Fetters are supposed indivisible or inflexible the Question cannot be solved by that means for if they be only supposed indivisible a Piece of Iron must be broken without trouble and if they be supposed inflexible it will be impossible to break it since the little Fetters that make up the Iron being intricated within one another it will be impossible to disintangle them Let us therefore solve the Difficulty by clear and undeniable Principles and find the Reason why that little Band has two Parts A B so firmly united to one another 'T is needful I perceive to divide the Subject of my Meditation into Parts that I may examine it the more exactly and with less Intention of Thought since I could not at first at a single view and with the whole Attention I am capable of discover what I enquired after This I might have done at the beginning for when the Subjects of our Meditation are somewhat abstruse 't is always the best way to consider them by parts and not fruitlessly weary our selves with the vain Hopes of meeting happily with the Truth What I enquire after is The Cause of the strict Union betwixt the minute Parts that make up the little Fetter A B. Now I conceive only distinctly three Things that can be the Cause sought for viz. The very Parts of that little Fetter or the Will of the Author of Nature or lastly invisible Bodies surrounding such little Bands I might yet alledge as the Cause of these things the Form of Bodies the Qualities of Hardness or some occult Quality the Sympathy betwixt Parts of the same Species c. but since I have no distinct Idea of those fine things I neither must nor can ground my Reasonings thereupon so that if I find not the Cause I search after in those things of which I have distinct Ideas I will not fruitlessly trouble my self with the Contemplation of such rambling and general Notions of Logick and shall forbear speaking of what I understand not But let us examine the first of these things that may be the Cause why the Parts of that small Band are so firmly joined viz. the very Parts of which it is made up When I only consider the Parts of which hard Bodies are composed I am inclined to believe That no Cement which unites the Parts of that Fetter can be imagin'd besides themselves and their own Rest for of what Nature could it be It cannot be a thing subsisting of it self since all those minute Parts being Substances for what Reason should they be united by other Substances but themselves Neither can it be a Quality different from Rest because there is no Quality more contrary to Motion that may separate those Parts but their own Rest but besides Substances and their Qualities we know not any other sorts of things 'T is true that the Parts of hard Bodies remain united as long as they are in Rest one by another and that when they are once in Rest they remain of themselves in the same state as long as they can but this is not what I enquire after and I know not how too I came to mistake the Subject I endeavour here to discover why the Parts of hard Bodies have so great a strength to remain in Rest one by another that they withstand the Force that is used to move them I might however answer my self that every Body has truly Force of continuing fix'd in its present state and that this Force is equal whether in Motion or Rest But that the Reason why the parts of hard Bodies remain in Rest by one another and that we can difficultly move and separate them is our not imploying sufficient Motion to overpower the Rest. This is probable but I am seeking Certainty if it be to be found and not bare Probability And how can I know with Certainty and Evidence that each Body has this Force to continue in the state it 's in and that this Force is equal both as to Motion and Rest since Matter on the contrary seems indifferently passive to either and altogether destitute of Force Let us have recourse then with M. des Cartes to the Will of the Creatour which is it may be that Force which Bodies seem to have in themselves which is the second thing above mention'd suppos'd capable of preserving the Parts of this little Fetter we speak of so closely link'd to one another Certainly 't is possible that God may will every Body should remain in its present state and that his Will should be the Force which unites their Parts to one another as I otherwise know his Will to be the Moving Force which puts Bodies in Motion For since Matter is incapable of moving it self I have Reason methinks to conclude it is a Spirit and even the Author
of Nature which puts it and preserves it in Motion by preserving it successively in different places by his bare Will in as much as an Almighty Being acts not with Instruments and his Will is necessarily follow'd by Effects I acknowledge then it 's possible that God may will that every thing remain in its present state whether it be Motion or Rest and that his Will may be the natural Power which Bodies have of remaining in the state they once have obtain'd And if so we must like M. des Cartes measure that Power conclude what ought to be the Effects of it and give Rules for the Force and Communication of Motions upon the Collision of different Bodies in proportion to their Magnitude since we have no other way of coming to the knowledge of that general and immutable Will of God who makes the different Power these Bodies have of acting upon and resisting one another consist in their different Magnitude and Swiftness But however I have no infallible proof that God wills by a positive Will that Bodies remain in Rest and one would think it sufficient for God to will the Existence of Matter not only to cause it to exist but to exist in Rest. The case is not the same with Motion since the Idea of a Matter mov'd certainly includes two Powers to which it is related viz. that which created and also that which mov'd it But the Idea of a Matter in Rest includes only the Idea of a Power which has created it whilst there is no necessity of any other Power to put it in Rest since if we barely conceive Matter without thinking on any Power we shall necessarily conceive it in Rest. Thus it is I conceive things for I am to judge by my Ideas and my Ideas tell me Rest is but the privation of Motion For God need but cease to will the Motion of a Body to make its Motion cease and to cause it to Rest. But I remember I have heard from many very ingenious Persons that Motion seem'd to them as much the privation of Rest as Rest the privation of Motion And some will not doubt to affirm for Reasons I can't comprehend that Motion seems rather a privation than rest I do not distinctly call to Mind the Reasons they alledge however this ought to make me suspicious lest my Ideas should be false For though most Men say what they please upon Subjects that seem of little moment yet I have Reason to believe the Persons I speak of were pleas'd to speak what they thought wherefore I must still examine my Ideas more carefully To me it seems a thing of undoubted Certainty and the Gentlemen before mention'd won't deny it that 't is the Will of God which moves Bodies The Force then which that Bowl I see in Motion has is the Will of God that moves it what now is God requir'd to do to stop it Must he Will by a positive Will that it should Rest or is it sufficient to cease to will its Motion 'T is plain that if God but cease to will the Motion of this Bowl the cessation of its Motion and consequently Rest will succeed the cessation of the Will of God For the Will of God which was the Force that moved the Bowl desisting that Force desists and the Bowl will be no longer mov'd Therefore the cessation of the moving Force produces Rest Rest then has no Force to cause it but is a bare privation that supposes no positive Will in God Thus we should admit in God a positive Will without any Reason or Necessity if we ascribed to Bodies any Force to remain in Rest. But to overthrow this Argument if possible Let us now suppose a Bowl at Rest as before we suppos'd it in Motion what must God do in order to agitate it Is it enough that he ceases to will its repose if so I have hitherto made no advance for that Motion will be equally the privation of Rest as Rest of Motion I suppose then that God desists to will the Rest of this Bowl but supposing it I see it not put in Motion and if any others do I desire them to inform me with what degree of Motion it is carried Certainly 't is impossible it should be mov'd or have any degree of Motion and 't is impossible to conceive any degree of Motion in it barely from our conceiving that God ceases to will it should be at Rest because it goes not with Motion as it does with Rest. Motions are infinitely various and are susceptible of more and less but Rest being nothing one cannot differ from another One and the same Bowl which moves twice as fast at one time as at another has twice as much Force or Motion at one time as at another But it cannot be said that the same Bowl has Rest double at one time to its Rest at another There must therefore be a positive Will in God to put a Bowl in Motion or to give it such a Force as it may move it self with But he need only cease to will it should be mov'd to cause its Motion to desist that is to make it Rest. Just as to the creating a World it is not enough that God cease to will its non-existence unless he likewise positively will the manner it shall exist in But in order to annihilate it there is no need of God's willing it should not exist since God cannot will Nothingness by a positive Will but barely that he cease to will its Being I consider not here Motion and Rest according to their relative Capacity for 't is manifest that resting Bodies have as real Relations to those about them as Bodies in Motion I only conceive that Bodies mov'd have a moving Force and that others at Rest have no Force at all to persevere in it because the Relations of mov'd to the circumambient Bodies perpetually changing they need a continual Force to produce these Changes it being indeed nothing but these Changes that cause all that Novelty we observe in Nature but there is no need of Force to do nothing When the Relation of a Body to those surrounding it is constantly the same there is nothing done and the Continuance of that Relation I mean the Action of the Will of God which preserves it is not different from that which preserves the Body it self If it be true as I conceive That Rest is but the Privation of Motion the least Motion or that of the least Body mov'd will include a greater Force or power than the Rest of the greatest Body and so the least Force and the least Body suppos'd to be mov'd in a Vacuum against another never so great and bulky will be capable of moving it since the largest Body at Rest will have no power of resisting the least Body that shall strike against it Therefore the Resistance which is made by the Parts of hard Bodies to hinder their Separation necessarily proceeds from
something else than their Repose But 't is necessary to demonstrate by sensible Experiments what we have been proving by abstracted Reasonings to see whether our Ideas comport with the Sensations we receive from Effects For it often happens that such Reasonings deceive us at least will not convince others and especially such as are prejudiced to the contrary M. Des Cartes's Authority has such an influence upon some Mens Reason that unless we prove all imaginable ways that great Man in an Errour we cannot disabuse them What I have said will be readily admitted by such as are not prepossess'd with a contrary Opinion and I perceive that I shall even be blam'd by them for proving things which seem to them indisputable However the Cartesians well deserve our endeavours to content them The others may pass over this Discourse if they think it tedious Here then are some Experiments which sensibly demonstrate that Rest has no power to resist Motion and which consequently evince that the Will of the Author of Nature which constitutes the Power and Force every Body has to continue in its present state respects not Rest but Motion only since Bodies consider'd in themselves have no Force at all We daily see great Ships whilst floating in the Water mov'd with little Bodies striking against them From which Experience I conclude notwithstanding all the subterfuges of Monsieur des Cartes and the Cartesians that if these great Bodies were in a Vacuum they might be moved with much greater facility since the Reason of a Vessel 's being mov'd in the Water with some difficulty is the resistance the Water makes to the imparted Motion which in a void space will not be found Now that which manifestly shews that Water resists the Motion impressed on the Vessel is the cessation of its Motion some time after the Impulsion which certainly would not happen did not the Vessel lose its Motion by communicating it to the Water or if the Water yielded to its passage without any opposition or lastly imparted to it some of its own Motion Therefore since a Vessel agitated in the Water ceases by degrees to move 't is an infallible sign that the Water instead of forwarding as Monsieur des Cartes pretends withstands its Motion and consequently it would be infinitely easier to move a great Body in a Vacuum than in Water since there would be no resistance on the part of surrounding Bodies 'T is evident therefore that Rest has no Force to resist Motion and that the least Motion contains more Power and Force then the greatest Rest or at least that we ought not to measure the Force of Motion and Rest by the Proportion we find between the Magnitude of Bodies in those two States as Monsieur des Cartes has done 'T is true there is some reason to believe that the Vessel is mov'd whilst in the Water by reason of the continual change which happen in the watery parts about it though to us it seems not to change its place And this has been an inducement to M. Des Cartes and some Persons to believe that 't is not the bare Force of the impelling Agent which makes it advance in Water but that having before receiv'd a great deal of Motion from the little parts of the surrounding Liquid which press it equally on all sides this Motion is only determin'd by the adventitious Motion of the impelling Body so that what moves a Body in Water could not do it in a Vacuum And thus it is that M. Des Cartes and his Followers defend the Rules of Motion they have given us Let us suppose for Example a Piece of Wood of a Foot square plac'd in a liquid Body all the little parts whereof act and move against it and because they press it equally on all sides as well towards A as B the piece of Wood stirs neither one way nor another Now if I drive another Piece of Wood of half a Foot against the former on the side A I see it advance forward hence I conclude that it might be mov'd in a Vacuum with less Force than that of the Piece that drives it for the foregoing Reasons But the Persons I speak of deny it and answer that the reason of the greater Piece's advancing when urg'd by the little one is that the latter unable to move it singly being joyn'd with the parts of the agitated Liquid determines them to drive it by imparting some of their Motion to it But 't is manifest that by this Answer the Piece of Wood when once mov'd could never diminish its Motion but must on the contrary perpetually increase it For according to this Answer the Piece of Wood is more driven by the Water to the side of A than B therefore it must perpetually proceed and because this Impulsion is continual its Motion must constantly increase But as I have said the Water is so far from facilitating its Motion that it continually resists it which resistance still lessening it more and more at last makes it altogether insensible But I am now to prove that the Piece of Wood which is equally push'd by the little parts of the encompassing Water has no Motion or Force at all capable of moving it though it continually changes its immediate place and the Surface of the Water round it is different at different times For if it be so that a Body equally press'd on all sides as a Piece of Wood be destitute of Motion undoubtedly that foreign Force that strikes against it must communicate it since at the time of this Force's urging it on the Water resists and insensibly dissipates the impress'd Motion causing it by little and little at last to cease It is certain at least to those I speak to that there is no more Motion in Nature at one time than another and that Bodies at rest cannot be put in Motion but by the Collision of some agitated Bodies which communicate their Motion to them Whence I conclude that a Body which I suppose created perfectly at Rest in the midst of Water will never receive any degree of Motion from the little parts of the Water which surround it and which strike continually against it provided their Force be equal on all sides because all these little parts which dash equally against it on all sides rebounding again with their whole Motion communicate none of it and consequently this Body ought to be consider'd as at Rest and without any moving Force though it continually changes its Situation Now the proof I have for the rebounding of these little parts together with their whole Motion is this That otherwise the Water which touches this Body must grow very cold or even congeal'd and become almost as hard as the Wood upon its Surface since the Motion of the watry parts ought to be equally diffus'd into the little parts of the Body they encompass But that I may accommodate my self to the Patrons of M. Des Cartes's Opinion I am willing
two parts as close as they are yet the Air cannot get in and therefore 't is that which compresses and constringes the two parts together and makes them so difficult to be disunited unless we glide them over one another For all this it is manifest that the Continuity Contiguity and Union of two Marbles would be one and the same thing in a vacuum for neither have we different Ideas of them so that it would be to talk without understanding our selves to make them differ absolutely and without any regard to the surrounding Bodies I now come to make some Reflexions upon M. Des Cartes's Opinion and the Original of his Errour I call his Opinion an Errour because I can find no sincere way of defending what he has said upon the Rules of Motion and the Cause of the Hardness of Bodies towards the end of the second Part of his Principles in several places and that he seems to have evidently prov'd the Truth of the contrary Opinion This great Man most distinctly conceiving that Matter could not naturally move it self but that the moving Force of all Bodies was nothing but the general Will of the Author of Nature and that therefore the Communications of their Motion upon their mutual Collision must come from the same Will yielded to be carry'd away with this Notion That the Rules of the different Communication of Motions must be fetch'd from the Proportion found between the different Magnitudes of Colliding Bodies it being impossible to penetrate into the Designs and Will of God And whereas he concluded that every thing had the Force to persevere in its present State whether it were in Motion or Rest because God whose Will constituted this Force acts always in the same manner he inferr'd that Rest had an equal Force with Motion Thus he measur'd the Effects of the Power of Rest by the Greatness of the Body it resided in as well as those of Motion And hence he gave the Rules of the Communication of Motion which are seen in his Principles and the Cause of the Hardness of Bodies which I have endeavour'd to refute 'T is a hard matter not to submit to the Opinion of Monsieur des Cartes when we contemplate it on the same side For once more since the Communication of Motions proceeds only from the Will of the Author of Nature and that we see all Bodies continue in the State they have once been put in whether it be Motion or Rest it seems that we ought to seek for the Rules of the different Communications of Motion upon the Concourse of Bodies not in the Will of God which is unknown to us but in the Proportion that is found between the Magnitudes of these same Bodies I do not therefore admire that Monsieur des Cartes should light upon this Notion but I only wonder he did not correct it when having push'd on his Discoveries he found out the Existence and some Effects of the subtile Matter which surrounds all Bodies I am surpriz'd to find him in the 132d Article of the Fourth Part attribute the Elastick Force of certain Bodies to the subtile Matter and yet not ascribe to it their Hardness and the Resistance they make to our Endeavours to bend and break them but only to the Rest of their Parts For I think it evident that the Cause of the Elasticity and Stiffness of some Bodies is the same with that which impowers them to resist the Violence that is us'd to break them For indeed the Force which is employ'd in breaking a piece of Steel has but an insensible Difference from that which is us'd to bend it I mean not to multiply Reasons here which one might give for the proving these things nor to answer some Difficulties possible to be urg'd about Bodies which are not sensibly springing and yet are difficultly bent For all these Difficulties vanish if we consider that the subtile Matter cannot easily make new Tracks in Bodies which break in bending as in Glass and temper'd Steel which it can easier do in such Bodies as are compos'd of branchy Parts and that are not brittle as in Gold and Lead And Lastly that there is no hard Body but has some kind of Elaterium 'T is a hard matter to persuade one's self that Monsieur des Cartes did positively believe the Cause of Hardness to be different from that which makes the Elasticity and what looks most likely is that he made not sufficient Reflexion on that matter When a Man has for a long time meditated on any Subject and is well satisfied about that of his present Enquiry he commonly thinks no farther on it he believes that the Conceptions he had of it are undeniable Truths and that it is needless to examine them any more But a Man has so many Things in him which disrelish his Application provoke him to precipitate Judgments and subject him to Errour that though his Mind remains apparently satisfied yet it is not always well instructed in the Truth Monsieur des Cartes was a Man like us No greater Solidity Accuracy Extent and Penetration of Thought is any where to be met with than in his Works I confess but yet he was not infallible Therefore 't is very probable he remain'd so settl'd in his Opinion from his not sufficiently reflecting that he asserted something in the Consequence of his Principles contrary to it He grounded it on very specious and probable Reasons but such notwithstanding as being not capable of themselves to force his Consent he might still have suspended his Judgment and consequently as a Philosopher he ought to have done it It was not enough to examine in a hard Body what was in it that might make it so but he ought likewise to have thought on the invisible Bodies which might give it Hardness as he did at the End of his Philosophical Principles when he ascrib'd to them the Cause of their Elasticity He ought to have made an exact Division and comprehensive of whatever might contribute to the Hardness of Bodies It was not enough to have sought the Causes of it in the Will of God he ought also to have thought on the subtile Matter which surrounds these Bodies For though the Existence of that violently agitated Matter was not yet proved in the place of his Principles where he speaks of Hardness it was not however rejected he ought therefore to have suspended his Judgment and have well remember'd that what he had written concerning the Cause of Hardness and of the Rules of Motion was fit to be revis'd which I believe was neglected by him or at least he has not sufficiently consider'd the true Reason of a thing very easie to be discover'd and which yet is of greatest Consequence in Natural Philosophy I thus explain my self Monsieur des Cartes well knew that to the Support of his System the Truth of which he could not reasonably suspect it was absolutely necessary that great Bodies should always communicate some
so it is just that Infants should be born Sinners and in Disorder And the Order of Nature which is just and equitable was not the Cause of their Sin but the Sin of their Progenitors In which sence it is not just and reasonable that a sinful Father should procreate Children perfecter than himself or that they should have a Dominion over their Bodies which their Mother has not over her own XIV 'T is true That after the Sin of Adam which ruin'd and corrupted all things God might by changing something in the Order of Nature have remedied the Disorder which that Sin had caus'd But God changes not his Will in that manner He wills nothing but what is just and what He once wills He ever wills He never corrects himself nor repents of what he does but his Will is constant and immutable His Eternal Decrees depends not on the inconstant Will of Man nor is it just they should be submitted to it XV. But if it may be permitted to dive into the Councels of the Almighty and to speak our Thoughts upon the Motives which might determine him to establish the Order now explain'd and permit the Sin of Adam I can't see how we can conceive a Notion more worthy the Greatness of God and more consonant to Reason and Religion than to believe his principal Design in his External Operations was the Incarnation of his SON That God establish'd the Order of Nature and permitted the Disorder which befel it to help forward his Great Work that He permitted all Men to be subject to Sin that none might glory in himself and suffer'd Concupiscence in the Perfectest and Holiest of Men lest they should take a vain Complacency in their own Persons For upon considering the Perfection of one's Being 't is difficult to despise it unless at the same time we contemplate and love the Supreme Good before whom all our Perfection and Greatness dissolves and falls to nothing I own That Concupiscence may be the occasion of our Merit and that 't is most just the Mind should for a Season follow Order with Pain and Difficulty that it may merit to be eternally subject to it with Ease and Pleasure I grant That upon that Prospect God might have permitted Concupiscence when he foresaw the Sin But Concupiscence not being absolutely necessary to our Meriting if God permitted it it was That Man might be able to do no good without the Aids which JESUS CHRIST has merited for him and that he might not glory in his own strength For 't is visible That a Man cannot encounter and conquer himself unless animated by the Spirit of Christ who as Head of the Faithful inspires them with quite opposite Sentiments to those of Concupiscence deriv'd to them from the Original Man XVI Supposing then That Infants are born with Concupiscence 't is plain they are effectively Sinners since their Heart is set upon Bodies as much as it is capable there is as yet in their Will but one Love and that disorder'd and corrupt and so they have nothing in them that can be the Object of the Love of God because he cannot love Disorder XVII But when they have been regenerated in JESUS CHRIST that is when their Heart has been converted to God either by an actual Motion of Love or by an internal Disposition like that which remains after an Act of Loving God then Concupiscence is no more a Sin in them because it does not solely possess the Heart nor domineer any longer in it Habitual Love which remainâ— in them through the Grace of Baptism in our LORD is more free or more strong than that which is in them through the Contagion of Concupiscence deriv'd from Adam They are like the Just who in their Sleep obey the Motions of Concupiscence yet lose not the Grace of their Baptism because their Consent to these Motions is involuntary XVIII It should not be thought strange That I believe it possible for Children to love God with a Love of Choice at the time of their Baptism For since the Second Adam is contrary to the First why should he not at the time of Regeneration deliver Children from the Servitude of their Body whereunto they are subjected by the First That being enlightned and quickned by a lively and efficacious Grace to the loving of God they may love him with a free and rational Love without being obstructed by the first Adam You say it is not observable that their Body for a moment leaves acting on the Mind But is that such a Wonder that we can't see what is not visible One single Instant is sufficient for the Exercise of that Act of Love And as it may be perform'd in the Soul without imprinting any Footsteps in the Brain 't is no more to be admir'd that the Adult in their Baptism do not always mind it for we have no Memory of things which are not registred in the Traces of the Brain XIX St. Paul teaches us That the Old Man or Concupiscence is crucify'd with JESUS CHRIST and that we are dead and buried with him by Baptism What means this but that then we are deliver'd from the Warring of the Body against the Mind and that Concupiscence is as it were Mortify'd in that moment 'T is true it revives but having been destroy'd and thereby left Children in a State of loving God it can do them no harm by its reviving For when there are two Loves in the Heart a Natural and a Free Order will that the Free be only respected But if Infants in Baptism lov'd God by an Act in no wise free and afterwards lov'd Bodies by many Acts of the same Species God could not perhaps according to Order have more respect to one single Act than to many which were all natural and without Liberty Or rather if their contrary Loveâ— were equal in force he must have respect to that which was last by the same Reason that when there has been successively in an Heart Two Free-Loves contrary to each other God has always respect to the Last since Grace is destroy'd by any one Mortal Sin XX. Nevertheless it cannot be deny'd but God may justifie the Infant without interrupting the Dominion of his Body over his Mind or convert his Will towards him by depositing in his Soul a Disposition like that which remains after an Actual Motion of our Loving God But that way of acting I doubt seems less Natural than the Other for it cannot clearly be conceiv'd what these remaining Dispositions can be 'T is true that ought not to be much admir'd since having no clear Idea of our Soul as I have elsewhere prov'd we need not wonder if we know not all the Modifications it is capable of But the Mind cannot be fully satisfied upon things which it does not clearly conceive and without recourse to an extraordinary Miracle we cannot see what can give the Soul these Dispositions without a preceding Act surely it cannot be
whatever is intelligible is either a Being or a Mode of Being By Being I mean something of an absolute Nature or that may be conceiv'd alone as unrelated to any other thing By Mode of Being I understand something relative or that cannot be conceiv'd alone Now there are two kinds of Modes of Being The one consists in the Relation of the Parts of any Whole to any Part of the same whole The other in the Relation of one thing to another which makes not any Part of the same whole The Roundness of wax is a Mode of Being of the former sort as consisting in the Equality of Distance which have all the Superficial parts to the central The Motion or situation of the wax is a Mode of Being of the second sort Which consists in the Relation the wax has to circumambient Bodies I speak not of motion taken for the Moving Force for it is plain that that force neither is nor can be a Mode of Bodies existing for conceive them Modified how we will we cannot conceive them as a moving Force It being certain that whatever is intelligible is either a Being or a Mode of Being it is as evident that every Term that signifies not one or other of these signifies nothing and that every Term that signifies not this or that particular Being or Mode of Being is obscure and confus'd and consequently we cannot conceive either what others say to us or we to others if we have no distinct Ideas of Being or of the Mode of Being which respectively answer to the Terms they use or we imploy our selves Nevertheless I grant that we may and even sometimes must imploy those words which do not directly raise distinct Ideas We may because it is not always necessary to put the Dâ—finition instead of the Defin'd and that abridg'd Expressions are to good use imploy'd though confus'd in themselves And We must when we are oblig'd to speak of things whereof we have no clear Idea and which we cannot conceive but by our inward Sensation as when we speak of the Soul and her Modifications Only we must take care not to use obscure and equivocal when we have clear Terms or any which may excite false Ideas in those we speak to This will be better understood by an instance It is more perspicuous to say that God created the World by his Will than to say he created it by his Power This last word is a Logical Term which excites no distinct and particular Idea but affords Liberty to imagine that the Power of God is something distinct from the efficacy of his Will We speak more clearly when we say God pardons Sinners in JESUS CHRIST than in absolutely saying he forgives them by his Clemency and Mercy These Terms are Equivocal and administer occasion to think that the Clemency of God is it may be contrary to his Justice That Sin may be left unpunish'd and that the satisfaction of Our LORD is not necessary and the like These Terms of a Loose and Indefinite sense are often us'd when we speak of the Divine Perfections which is not to be condemn'd since Philosophical accuracy is not at all times necessary But by a culpable dullness and negligence such abuse is made of these general Expressions and so many false consequences are drawn from them that though all Men have the same Idea of God and that they consider him as a Being infinitely Perfect yet there was hardly any Imperfection but was attributed to him in Idolatrous times and Mens discourses of him were commonly unseemly and unworthy And all for want of carefully comparing the things they said of him with the Idea that represents him or rather with Himself But chiefly in matter of natural Philosophy these rambling and general Terms are abus'd which excite no distinct Ideas either of Beings or their Modes For example when we say that Bodies tend to their Center that they fall by their Gravity that they ascend by their Levity that they move by their Nature that they successively change their Forms that they act by their Vertues Qualities Faculties c. we use such Terms as have no signification and all these Propositions are absolutely false in the sense that most Philosophers take them There is no Center in the sense that is commonly understood These Terms Gravity Form Nature and the like excite no Idea either of a Being or a mode of Being They are empty and insignificative Terms which Wise-Men should avoid The Knowledge of the unwise is as talk without sense says the Son of Sirach These Terms are good for nothing but to shelter the Ignorance of Pretenders to Learning and to make the Ignorant and Libertines believe that God is not the True Cause of all things This methinks is certain and easy to be conceiv'd Yet most Men talk freely of all things without caring to examine whether the Terms they employ have any clear and exact signification And many Authors there are of huge and bulky Volumes in which its harder than may be thought to find any passage where they have understood what they have written Therefore those who are great Readers and respectful Hearers of the rambling and general Discourses of the falsly Learn'd are in the darkest Ignorance And I see no way they have to get free of it but by constantly making and renewing their Resolution of believing no Man on his word and before they have annex'd very distinct Ideas to the most common Terms which others use For these Terms are not clear as is commonly imagin'd and they seem so only from the common Use that is made of them Because Men fancy they well understand what they say or hear when they have said or heard the same an hundred times though they have never examin'd it THE ILLUSTRATION UPON THE Conclusion of the Three First BOOKS That Physicians and Casuists are absolutely necessary for us But that it is dangerous to consult and follow them in many occasions CErtainly Man before his Fall was possess'd of all things necessary to preserve his Mind and Body in a perfect State He needed neither Physician nor Casuist He consulted Inward Truth as the Infallible Rule of his Duty and his Senses were so faithful in their Reports that they never deceiv'd him in the use he ought to make of encompassing Bodies for the preservation of his own But since the Transgression things are much chang'd We consult our Passions much more than Law or Truth Eternal and our Senses are so disorder'd that in following them we sometimes destroy our Health and Life The Casuist and Physician are become absolutely necessary And those who pretend to be most dexterous at Self-management upon all occasions fall commonly into the grossest Miscarriages which teach them a little too late that they follow a Master that is not over-wise Nevertheless I think I may say that Sin has not so disorder'd all the faculties of the Soul but that we may consult our selves
hears the Prayers of the Humble he will comfort them justfie them and save them he will fill them with Blessings and will debase the high Mind of the Proud Blessed are the Poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven but woe to the Rich â—or they have their Consolation in this World How hard is it says our Saviour for those that have much Wealth to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven 'T is harder for a Camel to pass through the Eye of a Needle which cannot be done without a Miracle As for those who like David humble their Souls with Fasting change their Garments for Sack-cloth in a word afflict themselves upon sight of their Sins and the Holiness of God they are the worthy Objects of the Compassion of Jesus For God despises not a broken and contrite Heart We constantly disarm the Anger of God when we take his Part against our selves and revenge his Quarrel The Will of Jesus Christ being entirely conformable to Order whereof all Men have naturally some Idea we might still discover by Reason that he has more Thoughts and Desires in regard to some Persons than others For Order requires that more Graces should be shed on those for Example who are call'd to Holy Orders than on others whose Employment necessarily engages them in Worldly Commerce in a word On those who constitute the Principal Parts of the Church Militant than on such as have no regard to any body or that meddle in the Ecclesiastical State or raise themselves above others out of Ambition or Interest For though it be requisite that Jesus Christ should give them Graces in relation to their Charge they merit not the Gift of that Grace which may sanctifie them in the Station they have chosen out of Self-love They may have the Gift of Prophecy whilst they may want Charity as we are taught by Scripture XXVI But though we may discover by the Light of Reason and the Authority of Holy Writ something of the diverse Wills of the Soul of Jesus yet that Order and Process of Desires which accomplish the Predestination of the Saints and which tend only to the honouring God in the Establishment of his Church is an unfathomable Abyss to the Mind of Man For if St. Paul had not taught us that God would that all Men should be included in Unbelief that he might exercise his Mercy towards them should we ever have thought that the Jews were to fall into a wilful Blindness not only that the multitude of the Nations might enter into the Church but that they themselves might receive Mercy at the Accomplishment of Ages The future World being to be a Work of pure Mercy and to have infinite Ornaments whereof we have no Idea since the Substance of Spirits is unknown to us it is plain we can discover very little in the different Desires of the Soul of Jesus these Desires being related to Designs we are ignorant of Thus in the Distribution God makes of his Graces we ought to cry out with St. Paul O the depth of the Riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his Judgments and his Ways past finding out XXVII We have prov'd that the diverse Designs of the Soul of Jesus are the Occasional Causes of Grace and we have endeavour'd to discover something of these Desires Let us now see of what sort of Grace they are the Occasional Causes For though Jesus Christ be the meritorious Cause of all Graces it is not necessary he should be the Occasional Cause of the Graces of Light and of certain external Graces which are Preparatory to the Conversion of the Heart and which do not opperate For Jesus Christ is always the Occasional or Necessary Cause according to the Establish'd Order of God in point of all those Graces which opperate Salvation XXVIII In order to our distinct understanding what this Grace is which Jesus Christ as Head of the Church diffuses in his Members we ought to know what is that Concupiscence which the First Man has communicated to all his Posterity For the Second Adam came to remedy the Disorders which the First Adam was the Cause of And there is such an Affinity between the Sinful and Earthly and the Innocent and Heavenly Adam that St. Paul looks upon the former communicating Sin to his Children by his Disobedience as the Type and Figure of the latter infusing Justice and Holiness into Christians by his Obedience XXIX Order requires that the Mind should have the Supremacy over the Body and not be divided against its Will by all those Sensations and Motions which apply it to sensible Objects Therefore the First Man before his Sin was so absolute over his Senses and Passions that they were mute and silent as soon as he desir'd it nothing could give him an involuntary Diversion from his Duty and all the Pleasures which at present precede Reason did only respectfully caution him in a ready and easie manner of what ought to be done for the Preservation of his Life But after his Sin he lost on a sudden that Power over his Body So that not being able to stop the Motions nor obliterate the Traces which sensible Objects produc'd in the principal Part of his Braiâ— his Soul by the Order of Nature and in Punishment of his Disobedience found her self miserably enslav'd to the Law of Concupiscence to that Carnal Law which constantly wars against the Mind inspiring it with the Love of sensible Goods and so ruling it by strong and lively and at once soft and agreeable Passions that it cannot and indeed will not make the necessary Struggles for its breaking the captivating Bonds For the Contagion of Sin is spread through the Children of Adam by an unavoidable Consequence of the Order of Nature as I have explain'd in another place XXX The Heart of Man is the constant Slave of Pleasure and when Reason teaches us that 't is not convenient to enjoy it we put it off but with Design of finding it more delicate and solid We willingly sacrifice little Pleasures to the greater but the invincible Impression we are under for Happiness will not permit us to deny our selves all our Life the Satisfaction we enjoy when we give our selves up to follow our Passions XXXI 'T is certain that Pleasure makes happy the Possessour at least whilst he enjoys it Therefore Men being made to be Happy Pleasure always gives the Will the first shock and puts it constantly in Motion towards the Good that causes or seems to cause it The contrary is to be said of Pain Now Concupiscence consisting only in a continual train of Sensations and Motions antecedent to Reason and not subject to it of Pleasures which seeming to flow from surrounding Objects inspire into us the Love of them and of Pains which rendring the Exercise of Vertue rough and painful make us hate it The Second Adam to remedy the Disorders of the First ought to
they had committed in murthering our Saviour it was fit that Jesus Christ should come into the World about the Reign of Herod supposing that People by the necessary Consequence of the Order of Nature was to be divided about that time that Civil Wars and perpetual Seditions were to weaken them and that lastly the Romans were to ruine and disperse them with the total Destruction of their City and Temple 'T is true there seems to be something extraordinary in the Desolation of the Jews But as it shews greater Wisdom in God to produce so surprizing Effects by the most simple and general Laws of Nature than by particular Wills which are always Miracles I question whether on that Occasion we are to fly unto a Miracle But for my part I dispute it not here since 't is a Fact that we cannot easily nor need we explain our selves upon And I produce this Instance only to make some Application of my Principles and to make them more easily intelligible to others I have I think said enough of Nature and Grace to satisfie all equitable and moderate Persons about an infinite Number of Difficulties which disturb only their Minds who must needs judge of God by themselves For if Men would consult the Idea of an Infinitely Perfect Being of a General Cause of an Infinite Wisdom and if they would consent to the Principles I have establish'd conformable to that Idea I believe they would neither be surpriz'd nor offended at the Conduct of GOD and that they would change their Murmurs and Censures into Wonder and Adoration CONCERNING Nature and Grace DISCOURSE III. Of the Manner of GRACE's acting in us PART I. Concerning Liberty I. THERE is nothing more rude and unform'd than the Substance of Spirits if we separate it from God For what 's a Mind void of Understanding and Reason destitute of Motion and Love Yet it is the Word and Wisdom of God which is the universal Reason of Minds and 't is the Love whereby God loves himself that gives the Soul the Motion she has towards Good If the Mind knows Truth 't is by its Natural and Necessary Union with Truth it self If it is reasonable 't is so through supreme Reason Lastly If it be a Spirit or Intelligence 't is in one sense because its Substance is enlightned penetrated and perfected by the Light of God himself These Truths I have explain'd in another Place So likewise the Substance of the Soul is not capable of loving Good save by its Natural and Necessary Union with the Eternal and Substantial Love of the Supreme Good it advances not towards Good any farther than convey'd by God it is volent only from the Motion it continually receives from him it lives only through Charity and wills merely through the Love of Good which God makes it participate though it abuses it For in fine God making and preserving Minds only for himself inclines them towards him as long as he preserves their Being and communicates the Love of Good to them whilst they are capable of receiving it Now that natural and continual Motion of the Soul towards Good in general towards Good indefinite towards God is what I here call Will Since 't is that Motion which capacitates the Substance of the Soul to love different Goods II. This Natural Motion of the Soul towards Good in general is invincible for 't is not in our Power not to will to be happy We necessarily love what we clearly know and lively feel to be our Good All Minds love God by the Necessity of their Nature and if they love any thing else by a Free Choice of their Will 't is not because they seek not God or the Cause of their Felicity but because they are deceiv'd 'T is because perceiving by a confus'd Sensation that surrounding Bodies make them happy they consider them as good and by an Ordinary and Natural Consequence love them and unite to them III. But the Love of all these particular Goods is not naturally invincible Man consider'd in his Original State might supersede loving those Goods that fill'd not the whole Capacity of his Affection There being but one Good which includes all others he might sacrifice every other Love to the Love of this For God having made Minds only for himself cannot invincibly carry them to the loving any thing besides him or without relation to him Lastly our own inward Consciousness informs us that we can reject a Fruit though we are inclin'd to take it Now that Power of loving or not loving particular Goods the Non-invincibility which is found in the Motion which carries Minds to the loving what does not seem every way inclusive of all Goods That Power or Non-invincibility is what I call Liberty Thus placing the Definition instead of the thing defin'd that Expression our Will is free signifies that the Natural Motion of the Soul towards Good in general is not invincible in point of Good in particular To the Word Free the Idea of Voluâ—tary is commonly annex'd but in the Sequel of this Discourse I shall take the Word in the Sense I have observ'd as being the most Natural and Ordinary IV. The Word Good is equivocal and may signifie either Pleasure which makes formally happy or the true or seeming Cause of Pleasure In this Discourse I shall constantly take the Word Good in the second Sense because indeed Pleasure is imprinted on the Soul that she may love the Cause that makes her happy that she may advance towards it by the Motion of her Love and may strictly unite to it to be perpetually happy When the Soul loves nothing but her own Pleasure she in effect loves nothing distinct from her self For Pleasure is only a Condition or Modification of the Soul which renders her actually happy and content But whilst the Soul cannot be the Cause of her own Pleasure she 's unjust ungrateful and blind if she loves her Pleasure and forgets to pay the Love and Devotion which is due to the true Cause that produces it in her As none but God can act immediately and by himself on the Soul and make her sensible of Pleasure by the actual Efficacy of his all-potent Will so he alone is truly Good However I term the Creatures Good which are the seeming Causes of the Pleasures we feel occasionally from them For I am unwilling to deviate from the customary way of Speaking any farther than is necessary to explain my self clearly All Creatures though Good in themselves or Perfect with reference to the Designs of God are not Good with reference to us They are not our Good nor the true Cause of our Pleasure or Felicity V. The natural Motion which God constantly imprints on the Soul to carry it to love him or to make use of a Term which is the Abridgement of several Ideas and can be no longer equivocal or confus'd after the Definition I have given of it the Will is determin'd towards particular Goods either
alteration of the Countenance of his Enemy the Animal Spirits of that Enemy receive a new determination of which they were not capable a moment before and this Machinal Motion of Compassion which he yields to inclines the Soul to yield to the Pleas of Charity and Mercy Because a Man taken up with a Passion cannot without a great plenty of Spirits produce or preserve in his Brain an Image of his Misery lively enough nor a Concussion sufficiently strong to give his Body an extraordinary and constrain'd Disposition the corresponding Nerves within the Body receive upon his sight of the Evil the Concussions and Agitations that are necessary to infuse into all the Vessels that communicate with the Heart fit Humours to the producing such Spirits as the Passion requires For the Animal Spirits spreading through the Nerves that go to the Liver Spleen Pancreas and all the other Viscera agitate and shake them and by their Agitation force out such Humours as those parts keep in reserve for the Wants and Exigencies of the Machine But if those Humours always flowed in the same manner into the Heart if they received an equal Fermentation in different times and the Spirits that are made of them regularly ascended into the Brain we should not see such hasty Changes in the Motions of the Passions For instance the sight of a Magistrate would not stop of a sudden the extravagant Transports of an enraged Person persuing his Revenge and his Face all fiery with Blood and Spirits would not in an instant turn pale and wan for fear of Punishment So to hinder those Humours that are mixed with the Blood from entering the Heart constantly in the same manner there are Nerves that surround all the Avenues thereof which being compressed or dilated by the Impression that the sight of the Object and the strength of the Imagination produce in the Spirits shut up or open the way to those Humours And lest the said Humours should undergo the same Agitation and Fermentation in the Heart in divers times there are other Nerves that cause the Beatings of it which being not equally agitated in the different Motions of the Spirits drive not the Blood with the same force into the Arteries Other Nerves spread through the Lungs distribute the Air to the Heart by constringing or relaxing several Branches of the Trachea used in Respiration and order the Fermentation of the Blood proportionably to the Circumstances of the predominant Passion Last of all to regulate with the greatest Accuracy and Readiness the Course of the Spirits there are Nerves surrounding the Arteries as well those that end in the Brain as those that carry the Blood into the other parts of the Body so that the Concussion of the Brain which accompanies the unexpected Sight of some Circumstance for which 't is convenient that the Motions of the Passion should be alter'd suddenly determines the Course of the Spirits to the Nerves thus surrounding the Arteries that by their Contraction they may shut up the Passage to the Blood that ascends into the Brain and by their Dilatation lay it open to that which runs into all the other Parts of the Body When those Arteries that carry the Blood to the Brain are free and open and on the contrary those that disperse it through the rest of the Body are strongly bound up by these Nerves the Head must all be full of Blood and the Face appear all fiery but some Circumstance altering the Commotion of the Brain that caused that Disposition in the Nerves the Arteries that were strait bound are loosened and on the contrary the Arteries of the Brain strongly contracted Then is the Head emptied of Bloud the Face covered with Paleness and the small quantity of Blood which issues from the Heart and which the Nerves before mentioned admit into it as the Fewel to keep in Life descends most or all into the lower parts of the Body the Brain wants Animal Spirits and all the rest of the Body is seized with Weakness and Trembling To explain and prove the Particulars of what we have mentioned it would be necessary to give a general Knowledge of Physicks and a particular of the Humane Body but those two Sciences are still too imperfect to be treated of with as much Accuracy as I could Wish besides that should I proceed farther in this Matter it would carry me too far from my Subject and therefore I only design here to give a gross and general Idea of the Passions and am satisfied provided that this Idea be not false Those Concussions of the Brain and Motions of the Blood and Spirits are the fourth thing to be found in every Passion and produce the fifth namely the sensible Commotions of the Soul At the very Instant that the Animal Sprits are driven from the Brain into the rest of the Body to produce such Motions as are fit to keep up the Passion the Soul is carried towards the good perceived and this more or less strongly according as the Spirits come down from the Brain with more or less vehemence for 't is that Concussion of the Brain which agitates the Soul and the Animal Spirits The Motion of the Soul towards Good is so much stronger as the View of Good is more sensible and apparent and the Motion of the Spirits that proceed from the Brain and flow into the other parts of the Body is the more violent as the Vibration of the Fibres of the Brain caused by the Impression of the Object or of the Imagination is more forcible because that Concussion of the Brain occasioning a more sensible and lively View of Good necessarily makes the Commotion of the Soul in the Passions to increase proportionably to the Motion of the Spirits Those Commotions of the Soul are not different from those that immediately follow the Intellectual View of Good which we have mentioned before only they are stronger and livelyer because of the Union of the Soul and Body and the sensibleness of the View that produces them The sixth thing to be met with is the Sensation of the Passion the Sensation of Love Hatred Desire Joy or Sorrow This Sensation is not at all different from that which has been spoken of only 't is livelyer because the Body has a greater share in it but 't is always attended with confused Sensation of Satisfaction that makes all the Passions grateful which is the last thing to be found in each of them as has been already hinted The Cause of this last Sensation is such At the sight of the Object of a Passion or of any new Circumstance part of the Animal Spirits are driven from the Head to the outward Parts of the Body to put it in the Disposition that the Passion requires together with which some other Spirits make a violent descent into the Heart Lungs and other Viscera to draw from thence the necessary Supplies as has been already sufficiently explained Now the Body is never in