Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	air_n	fire_n	water_n	32,759	5	7.2266	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A51723	Considerations upon the lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus by Marques Virgilio Malvezzi, one of the supreme councell of warre, to his Catholick Majestie ; dedicated to the King, his master ; englished by Robert Gentilis, gent.; Considerationi con occasione d'alcuni luoghi delle vite d'Alcibiade et di Coriolano. English	Malvezzi, Virgilio, marchese, 1595-1653.; Gentilis, Robert.	1650 (1650)	Wing M356; ESTC R12183	129,318	301

understanding and will and annihilate I was almost going to say his free will unman himselfe and grow beast leaving to emulate Angels and making himselfe like to a horse or mule Can he then thinke you alter nature gaine a new temperature and command that influence which hee cannot change The greatman came into the world amongst the Jews hee who indeed onely deserved the name of man presently his Country Parents and Tutors are enquired after His Country they know to bee Nazareth whence no good can come his Father they beleeve to be a Carpenter they doe not find he had any Masters or Tutors because they will not consent that man should found unto himselfe this greatnesse And not acknowledging it to proceed from Divinity because they cannot attribute it to the nature of his Country nor education of his Tutors they will have him possessed by a Devill What worser country was there then Bethsaida what better country-men then Peter Andrew John James and Philip. There could be no better Tutors and Mastors framed to teach vertuous actions and give good documents then Socrates Plato Aristotle and Seneca nor pupills and Schollars that could make lesse use of them then Alcibiades Dionisius the Titant Alexander the great and Nero. What father could be more Philosophicall then Marcus Aurelius And more learned and eloquent then the Romane Oratour and who was a more brutish Son then ●ommodus or more ignorant then Tullus Tullie forgot that which he had by experience found to bee true in his owne family and judging nature which for the most part erres to be alwayes in a certainty pretended th' Ethicks to be the work of Aristotles son imagining so eminent a Father could not have a son but of a soveraigne understanding And suffering himselfe to be overcome by the force of that argument the invaliditie of which he himselfe had experimented seemed to beleeve his sonnes case to be rather the limitation or exception of that rule then the confirmation of another contrary one He that sets downe the Probleme rests not at making learned Fathers infortunate in their children but goes further yet and affirmes ignorant men to be happy as if engendring of evill were the counterpoise of a good understanding and the comfort of ignorance the begetting of wisedome He frames hereby an exception to two approved rules Namely that no man can give that which he himselfe is not owner of And that goodnesse is of its own nature communicable One exception makes for ignorant men if they can bestow understanding which they themselves want upon their children And the other is adverse to learned men if they cannot communicate unto their issue the greatest good they possesse He saith also that the wise man is alwayes working with his intellect he is not attentive in the act of generation nor takes no great delight therein he ejects seed without spirit with a moderate pleasure contemplation distracting him from it But a blunt fellow wholly immerged in the act casts forth abundant vigorous stuffie seed and full of spirit But this proves rather the ability of the body then the vertue of the mind and that the one should have children of a soft and weake constitution and the other of a strong and robustious the greater abundance of seed causeth not more plenty of braine if the greater quantity of spirit produceth not a larger portion of understanding If it be a stuffie seed nature frames thereof much bone and a massie cranium and these being thick hinder the intellects contemplation and like a soggie and dark mist hide the beauty of the images from it The understanding requires mild and tender organs and there they will be heard subtile and cleere spirits and there they will be thick and cloudy The Philosopher from the robustiousnesse of the complexion argues a weaknesse of the intellect and concludes a strong one in a weake constitution How true soever the Probleme be in that part which concernes ignorant Parents I will go another way to unfold that which belongs to learned fathers because many though not peradventure most times we see it confirmed by experience Amongst creatures man hath the most braine amongst men the wisest or he that may be so The matter is viscous and cold it hath need of much aid to draw nourishment unto it and much spirit to digest it These are instruments of the naturall heat The soule makes them hers and taking them away from concocting raiseth them to contemplate if not against yet out of and beyond their own nature and because she would have them reach unto that which they doe not she subtilizeth them dasheth them together and tormenteth them they being subtilized evaporate tormented doe wast and weary are corrupted The naturall heat wanting for a time its instruments and having gotten it againe weake it workes not being made unable and growen feeble Man's proper place is the earth raised up into the aire he is disordered in the water he drownes in the fire he burnes The spirits place is the body which soaring above the matter afflicts and destroyes it selfe The seed according to the most eminent Physician for the most part proceeds from the braine if this be weakened it will not be powerfull to beget a male if there bee one begotten it is on the womans side Hyppocrates saith that those who are borne oftwo masculine seed prove Heroes Those that are borne but of one if it be the mans it foretokens greatnesse if it be the womans they become effeminate If this solution doth not please thee say that the forming power makes use of the seed to make the spermaticall parts and of the menstruous bloud for the sanguine Of mans weakened seed it will make a very weake braine of the vigorous bloud of the woman a strong liver and heart The rationall part will be inferiour to the irascible and concupiscible so the man will prove ignorant and vicious These documents will unfold severall Problemes This is the reason why brute beast are not so subject to catharres as men because they have a lesser masse of braine They need lesser quantity of spirits to concoct and preserve them better because they employ them not in contemplation A Philosopher by chance was deceived in the solution of this Probleme he attributed the cause to mans upright figure which being like a Limbeck easily attracts the vapours unto it He knew not that distillation is not onely by ascent but also by descent and in a plaine If a Limbeck be not like the figure of a brute beast it may be like a serpentine or winding still and the former distillation being more subtile the latter grosser a beasts head will be more aggravated then a mans Behold how the good sonne is the fathers glory and the bad one the mothers sorrow either because he is born of her seed or because the root springs out of her blood she predominating in the production of the heart and liver fountaines of all

the passing from dangers to secureness You will find wrath hatred envy desire of domination to be most weake passions if you compare them with feare This Chimericall passion is of greater force then those reall ones if we will beleeve an eminent Polititian Many and true provocations saith he had Otho to adventure himself to obtain the Empire Desire of domination a riot even burthensome to a Prince Poverty scarce to be tolerated by a private man Anger and hatred towards Galba Envy against Piso He feigned but one only of these passions to make him the more to affect it and that was Feare What makes Tyranny so pleasing but the love of danger Where it is great he can desire no more where it is but small he encreases it where there is none he feigns it Yet the tragick scene of these men is full of bloud unjustly spilt sometimes of guilty sometimes of half guilty and sometimes of innocent men I should say only of innocent for the greatest fault that Tyrants punish deserves the the name of the greatest innocency But if if this man be not yet grown so inhumane as to feign a fear where there is none yet he seldome reserves so much humanity as not to grudge and bemoane himself because there is none Tiberius comes into the Senate house he finds all the Senators to second his thoughts and flattter his actions No body Contradicts him no man provokes him He goes forth angry and enraged Calls them base men prepared for slavery He was troubled and molested saith the Author with such base servility he was ashamed said I of having caused it He was sorry I now say that he had lost that feare which was the Seminarie of his delights Plato and Tacitus also knew peradventure that to be true which I said though they did not explaine it They call a Tyrant unhappy not by reason of any outward feare which he with pleasure and delight satisfies by the death of sometimes one sometimes another Citizen But by reason of the inward feare which insensibly gnawing his entrailes lets him neither find rest nor hope for remedy If the griefe and paine of this did not counterpoise yea go beyond the pleasure and delight of the other we should amongst the Pagans reckon more Tyrants than Princes There is a Character imprinted in mans Nature by God which we call Conscience to the end that even who those may feare him who not know him Contenting himself rather with not being known then not feared to the end that the world should not be lost for want of feare nor men arrive to the extreme of wickednesse Alcibiades becomes Socrates his Scholar He addicts himself with much fervency to the learning of Sciences and with as much eagerness follows vices He studied greatness more then goodness to counterpoise not to forgoe his defects going forwards in acquiring vertue as a means to satisfie his ambition Which he cannot attain to by being admired by the lesser number namely the wise if at the same time he be abhorred by the greater number which are the ignorant He would be like the bad because many and because he would not become an enemy to many for not being like them He had his intent with reproach whereas he might have had it with commendation if he had outwardly habited himself with the vulgars qualities which are not vices and inwardly with wise mens that are vertues This had joyned in him those two so contrary elements the wise and ignorant in the same manner as the aire linkes the elements of fire and water together He that will gain a man let him not be his adversary or at the least let him not shew himselfe to be so for otherwise he will flye him If he cannot make himself semblable let him feign to be so if he means to be followed Resemblance is of great vertue every one celebrates it and peradventure none understand it The like doth not attract the like because it is the like but because the similitude is joyned with superiority otherwise iron might draw iron and if by vertue of resemblance it should receive force from the loadstone it also might do it He is deceived in Physick that thinks Rhubarb draws bilious humours because it hath a resemblance to them ●he resemblance causeth it to find no resistance but the superiority draws In Musick the unison which meerly resembleth is disliked and rejected as dissonant and the eight is admitted and approved as harmonious it adding nothing to the resemblance but superiority In policy to be of one and the same Province of the same Language and custome if there be no superiority brings forth a Republick or Common-wealth if there be a superiority it produces a Principality The Tribe of Iuda sees David grown great they say he is their brother and follow him he was so before and yet no man stirred He that thinks love to grow from resemblance what reason can he give for its being seldome enterchangeable being it should alwaies be so unless superiority added unto it perswade the enterchange This instinct of similitude either of suffering ones self to be drawn or of voluntarily following superiority often proceed from a desire of advancing to a greater perfection or of preserving that degree which one hath received from it for which purpose the resembling eminent is held a more fit Instrument then any other So the coldnesse of the earth which is not entire is preserved by that of the water which is ful●y perfect the humidity of the water by that of the aire the heate of the aire by that of the fire and all thes● by the virtuall qualities of the heaven which the inferiour ones eminently containe Alcibiades invited with other Nobles by Nicetus to sup●er contemnes the invitation He makes himselfe drunke at home th●n go●s to his friends house takes away the one halfe of his pla●e and without any more adoe returnes to his owne ho●se The guests wonder at Alcibiades insolency and admi●e Nicetus patience He answers that he ought to thanke him fo● that part which he had left him All troubles have their comforts and many poisons their antidotes He that instead of eating the vipers back eats its head and taile will not be cured he that with an ill looke lookes upon trouble when he might doe it with a good one will not be comforted One that were in love as Nicetus was with him that causeth the trouble would take an occasion to thanke him for it and he that hath been so hath done it Man doth not looke upon troubles with a good countenance because he contents not himselfe to come out of trouble at even hand by onely remaining comforted He is desirous to gaine sometimes compassion and with a female weakness makes moane sometimes repute and esteem and with a manly courage endures it This last though for the most part he shew a good countenance and the other see it yet will he not seeme to others

cause the person also which gave it to be applauded or whether it be because when any one gives consent to a thing the understanding being rather violently drawn thereunto then perswaded to it by reason he beleeves there is in him that perswades somewhat which is above reason and therefore without any further enquiry he will recommend the issue of that which he had voted not knowing what it was to him that perswaded him to it Yet notwithstanding the Athenians considering Alcibiades to be rash and violent to restraine and mitigate these qualities in him assigned him Nicias a wise and staid subject for a companion Because wise men presuming upon their own wisdome not knowing how little it availes in sublunary things will thereby direct those things also which they have begun through the impulsion and violence of fate Or because we being composed of a nature which being an enemy of simple and unmixt things hath every thing mingled in it cannot be quiet our selves untill wee have produced a mixt But whatsoever be the cause the issue thereof which hath alwayes bin unfortunate should make us not to adhere to any such manner of opinion which is either ill argued upon by the understanding or little favoured by heaven What can bee gotten by it but the depriving our selves of good forsaking that advantage which by each quality several might be obtained The staid and prudent man causes the rash and hare brained to lose that fortune which assists and favours bold men The rash man spoyles the prudent mans councells and advices not suffering them to come to maturity but preventing them with fury and violence The primary qualities of the elements are qualified controuled and corrected by themselves mans qualities remaine entire they are continually justling encountring one another but never joyne nor qualifie themselves The rash man gives an onset the prudent man will not second him One goes as it were with feet of lead to engage himselfe the other flyes into an engagement with wings of fire The prudent man thinkes he shall utterly lose himselfe unlesse he forsake his companion and sometimes goes back when by going on he might have conquered Tacitus relates the vertues and vices of Mutian and Vespasian He doth not say they would have made a good compound being in two severall subjects but if they had been both joyned in one he will have a mixt made by Nature and not by Art where the parts grow neere but doe not unite or at least not mix each holds keeps its inclinations to its proper ends And though the first vertues from which the accidents have their originall be sometimes dashed to pieces yet the last remains intire so that in operating they frame as many characters as they are themselves always different and for the most part contrary The knowledge of the first qualities and ignorance of the second loses both the Physitian and the patient if we did not want this knowledge the medicines which were most mixt would be the best for our body is more mixt then than any other by this means bearing the worldly imperfection to make a difference between it and heavenly perfection for there the most pure and simple are the best and here the most mixed and mingled are excellentest The Athenians not content that they had sent Nicias Alcibiades to the enterprise of of Sicilia doe appoint Varianus also for that service Two contraries had need have a third to the end that if they cannot be united one to another they may be both joyned in him which he may easily attain to if he participate of both their qualities So the aire by meanes of its heat is united to fire by means of its moistness to water water by its coldness unites it selfe to the earth by its moistness to the aire From whence growes the rawly-composed order of this great vniverse But because Varianus was not so but was likewise full of rage boldness this seemed to be rather a putting the enterprise into the hands of temerity than securing it unless that were the way to secure it A prudent man is not sitting to undertake bold attempts which are beyond Reason they are to be atchieved by the hands of a daring fierce man or not at all Prudence hath measure for is actions temerity is unlimited in using it somtimes are performed extravagant unlookt for atchievements He that makes use of it hath an advantage to assault by way of surprize to amaze to disorder to confound binding the understanding either to lose it selfe or take a sudden resolution in a thing which was never discoursed upon It runnes violently upon some inaccessible way and finds it without defence because every one stands armed against Wisdome and lies open to Temerity Therefore wise men for feare of this make a golden bridge for him that flies and Conquerours make a way for them that runne One may erre it is true by temerity but one shall sometimes doe the like through prudence The wise man casts him selfe into the armes of reason the rash man puts himselfe into the hands of Heaven And because things have seldome that end which other men judge hee erres seldomer that hath not discoursed upon affaires then hee that hath judged of the events The understanding is within us imprisoned in the body and intangled amongst the senses Nature is without loose free and not subject to erring The Philosopher defines Temerity to be an act without reason Hee might peradventure be deceived An unfortunate act is out of the bounds of reason but a fortunate one is above it An impulse of nature which alwayes aymes at truth is more available then a motion of the understanding which discourses upon likelihoods and if nature erres it is because one making no difference between our particular nature and the universall beleeves that impulse to be superior to reason which is without any as if the senses and the heauens did move in the same manner Others confiding too much in their owne understanding hold all that to be a defect in the inferior part which is dissonant from the superior as if there were not a supreme which they sometimes doe not know and sometimes oppose erring for the most part by fearing not to erre It is too hard for the one to forget that they have understanding and for the other to discern the impulses of a not erring nature from the provocation of a corrupt one Alcibiades was noted for and accused of impiety as if totally irreligions in some actions he had made a mock of the Gods and had by night cut off the heads of all Mercuries Statues which were set up in divers places of Athens A wise man among the Gentiles wept at the ignorance of his times in which they worshipped so many and such ridiculous Gods And raising himselfe by the power of his understanding to a more sublime Sphere easily penetrated into the knowledge of one onely ●ne A Subject raised

of the City which was manifestly to give it in prey to the other who remained made choice for the setting forward of this businesse of one Hyperbolus a man so full of infamy that he felt it not being so covered over with it that he had no sound part left him by which he might judge of it Such was Alcibiades his circumspectnesse and vigilancy that he turned the Ostracisme upon Hyperbolus himselfe The people were ashamed that the Ostracisme should fall upon so infamous a person being a punishment which made a man sufferable and almost to be desired its reward being to be thereby declared the best man and therefore after that time it was no more used and it was very fitting that law which had begun with the best should end with the worst Excellency or perfect goodnesse seemes to be an unfortunate thing In Physicke Galen saith it is not to be found Hyppocrates if he grant any such thing doth presently againe disallow it In policy they will not admit of it amongst formes of state unlesse it be transitorily A Common wealth banisheth any thing that resembles it a Tyrant kills it In humane actions they call it an enemy to goodnesse nature is sometimes blamed as ignorant because it cannot reach to the making of it up and sometimes they accuse it as envious because after it hath begun it it cuts it off green If it belonged to the body Arithmetically there were no place to receive it If Geometrically no ayre whereby it might breath no food to feed upon without offending it If it belong to the mind it must of necessity be excluded out of the Common-wealth The excellent and perfect one is not yet come upon earth and he cannot be a fitting Citizen of any other therefore it must either grant him the command over all or kill him When the perfect one came into the world and was borne amongst us he would not accept of the first because his kingdome was not of this world and he came for the latter Scarce was he borne but the Tyrant seekes to slay him Scarce is he knowne but the Tribes cry him up King and the rulers crucifie him Man is borne to iniquity saith Eliphaz the Temanite and this doth not proceed saith he from the dust from which spring the senses for then beasts also would be wicked Not from the soule governesse and guide of the body say I for then the infant and the mad man would sinne But from that which moves the understanding and the will by St Paul called Spirit by the Philosophers Minde and by us commonly Reason The child because he wants it receives by that defect more securenesse then Man The mad man because he hath lost it hath an advantage above the wise man The one cannot sinne the other can not chuse but sinne To be great in heaven we must become as the little ones of the earth to be wise we must become fooles yet with this difference that where they do not sinne through defect we should not sinne thorough vertue and where they doe not undeserve wanting the use of reason wee should merit in rightly using it This food this heavenly Nectar if it meets with a cleere and resplendent mind doth seed and elevate it wonderfully if an impure and troubled one it doth above measure offend and depresse it He which is best be it either in the species or in the individuum if once he begin to be bad becomes the worst Angels are worse then Men Men worse then Beasts Amongst Angels he that was the greatest amongst men he that is the best the best most excellent is onely contrary to the worst and the best onely can attaine to be wor●t This possibility was the guilding which the inventers of the Ostracisme gave malice They covered the vice of envy with the vertue of providence But it is not a vertue when it is overmuch it is a vice and the lesse it resembles it the more it is such It shews ill in Gods sight as if man did put his whole confidence in himselfe and none in him Of this Tyrants are framed For this warres arise and with this the world is pull'd off of the hinges How many men are dead by preventing future things and by physicking themselves with prevention How many Cities Provinces and Kingdomes have lost themselves to prevent a future thing which was not nor would not have been I would liken over much Providence to the Judiciary but that is more harmfull more rash more uncertaine and worse because it cannot be hindred Thou shalt indeed find some that have bin killed by a Tyrant by reason of what the Astrologers advised and the starres threatned him Other some that have undertaken great and new things perswaded thereunto by the happy influences of their births These are but some but their number is infinite whom providence hath caused to be kill'd or spurred on to new businesses Both go on in divining future things But providence is the rashest because it drawes the principall out of it selfe and the other seekes it in the starres where he thinkes the Creator hath placed it They are both false Astrology lesse false because it makes use of celestiall things Providence more false because it is grounded upon terrestriall God is not pleased with man who remits all things to him and is displeased when he remits nothing at all to him Seldome will he operate without man and never likes that man should operate without him The one is tempting of God by obliging him The other is a provoking of him by refusing to be obliged to him This most vile Law was ordained by Ignorance and Malignity the Nobles the People Ambition Jealousie Envy and Feare The People seeke after security the Nobles after honour and both with their private passions overthrow the publick weale A subject of great worth is ever hatefull to his equalls but not alwayes distrusted by his inferiours If it were possible for him to free himselfe from envy he might easily free others from feare The People love him and exalt him while they beleeve he may profit or at least not endammage their security The Noble alwayes hates him because he is alwayes a hinderance to his honour and being ashamed to shew his envy so naked and plaine he cloaths and covers it with feare to imprint likewise in the Peoples hearts this his dissembled and feigned character It is not withstanding a feare in both of them though it be not a vice in both in great ones it is a feare of not losing their glory in the meane ones their liberty And if the People be permitted to oppose him who takes away their liberty why should the Noble be denied the opposing of him that takes away his glory Peradventure it is because the one is assayed directly the other reslectively Liberty cannot be defended but onely by directly opposing him that seekes to intrappe it Glory may be maintained by getting before him who