Fifth said 'T is more fit to admire these secret motions which depend only on the good pleasure of Nature who alone knows wherein consists the proportion correspondence which makes bodies symbolize one with another then to seek the true cause of them unprofitably And Aristotle himself confesses that he knew not whereunto to refer the Antipathy which is between the Wolf and the Sheep so strange that even after their deaths the strings of Instruments made of their guts never agree together as the feathers of the Eagle consume those of other Birds Likewise the subtile Scaliger after much time unprofitably spent acknowledges that he understands it not They who go about to give reasons of it are not less ignorant but more vain then others The Sixth said Words are frequently abus'd as for example when 't is attributed to Antipathy that the Dog runs after the Hare whereas 't is for the pleasure that he takes in his smelling which is an effect of Sympathy But they who refer almost every thing to Occult Proprieties are like the Country-man who not seeing the springs of a Watch thinks it moves by an occult vertue or who being ask'd why it thunders answers simply because it pleases God Wherefore instead of imitating the ignorant vulgar who are contented to admire an Eclipse without seeking the cause the difficulty ought to inflame our desire as we use more care and diligence to discover a hidden treasure nothing seeming impossible to the Sagacious wits of these times The Seventh said That according to Plato the reason of Sympathies and Antipathies is taken from the correspondence and congruity or from the disproportion which inferior bodies have with the superiour which according as they are more or less in terrestrial bodies and according to the various manner of their being so the same have more or less sympathy For as inferior things take their source from above so they have one to the other here below the same correspondence which is common to them with the celestial bodies according to the Axiom that things which agree in one third agree also among themselves Thus amongst stones those which are call'd Helites and Selenites Sun-stone and Moon-stone are luminous because they partake of the rayes of those Luminaries and the Helioselene imitates by its figure the Conjunction of the Sun and Moon Amongst Plants the Lote or Nettle-tree the Mari-gold and the Heliotrope or Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun Amongst Solar Animals the Cock and the Lyon are the most noble and the Cock more then the Lyon he alwayes gives applauses to the Sun when he perceives him approaching our Horizon or Zenith Whereupon the Lyon fears and respects him because things which are inferior to others in one and the same degree yield to them though they surpass them in strength and bigness as the arms which fury hath put into the hands of a mutinous multitude fall out of them at the presence of some man of respect and authority though they be a thousand against one II. Whether Love descending be stronger then ascending Upon the second Point it was said Although this be a common saying and it seems that Love ought rather to descend then ascend yea that Fathers are oblig'd to love their children even with the hatred of themselves yet I conceive that the love of children towards their fathers surpasses that of fathers towards their children inasmuch as the latter proceeds from the love which the fathers bear to themselves being desirous to have support and assistance from those whom they bring into the world and in them to perpetuate their names honours estates and part of themselves But the love of children to Fathers is pure and dis-interested as may be observ'd in many who having no hope of a patrimony love and honour their parents with most respectful kindness Moreover the supream authority and absolute power of life and death which the Romans and our ancient Gaules frequently us'd against their children shows their little affection For not to speak of those Nations who sacrific'd theirs to false gods nor of Manlius Mithridates Philip II. King of Spain and infinite others who put them to death Fathers anciently held them of worse condition then their slaves For a slave once sold never return'd more into the Seller's power whereas a son sold and set at liberty return'd thrice into the power of his Father As also at this day in Moscovia Russia and particularly in Cyprus Rhodes and Candia where 't is an ordinary thing for fathers to sell their sons to marry their daughter which made Augustus say having heard that Herod had kill'd his own son that it was better to be the Swine then son of a Jew But Patricide was unknown to ancient Legislators and Lycurgus never ordain'd any punishment against such criminals not imagining that such a crime could come into the mind of a lawful child whom the Persians conceiv'd to declare himself a bastard by such an action For that foolish custom which reign'd some time at Rome of precipitating men of sixty years old from the bridge into Tyber is no sign of the cruelty of children towards their fathers since they imagin'd that they did an act of piety and religion therein by delivering them from the miseries of this life The Second said None can know how great a love a father bears his children but he that hath been a Father Paternal tenderness is so vehement that all the passions and affections of the soul give place to it Prudence and Philosophy may preach to us restraint and moderation but a father's love admitting no rule caus'd a King of Sparta to run with a stick between his legs a Grand Cosmo to whip a top and the wisest of all the Grecians to play at Cob-nut to make pastime to their children experiences sufficient to gain the cause to paternal love though it were not back'd by these reasons 1. That love being the issue of knowledge the more there is of knowledge the more there is of love Therefore fathers having more knowledge then their children have also more love 2. As man desires nothing so much as immortality so he loves that thing especially which procures the same to him and hating death more then any thing in the world extreamly loves what seems to keep him from dying as his children do in whom he seems to revive Whence also the Pelican feeds its young at the expence of its own blood On the contrary Man being the most ambitious of all creatures hates nothing so much as to see himself subjected to another Wherefore children that the benefits which they receive from their fathers may oblige them to gratitude and subjections they perform the same indeed but with much less love then their fathers 3. God ha's given no commandment to fathers to love their children knowing that they lov'd them but too much but he hath to children to love and honour their fathers as having need to be invited
Mind or the Body being moderate and indifferently temper'd with each of those Liquors may be supported by Men Pleasure and Good as the more natural much more easily then Evil and Pain which are destructive to Nature But when both of them are extreme and the sweetness of Pleasures and contentments is not abated by some little gall nor the bitterness of displeasures sweetned by some little Honey then Men cannot rellish this Potion because they are not accustom'd to things pure and sincere but to confusion and mixture and cannot bear the excess of Grief or Joy the extremities of which are found to be fatal As first for Grief Licinius finding himself condemn'd for the crime of Cheating the publick dy'd with regret Q. Fabius because he was cited before the Tribunes of the People for violating the Law of Nations Caesar's Daughter at the sight of the bloody garments of her Husband Pompey And in the last Age one of the Sons of Gilbert Duke of Montpensier going into Italy dy'd with resentment at Puzzole upon the Sepulchre of his Father whom he went thither to see Then for Joy Diagoras Rhodius seeing his three Sons victorious in one day at the Olympick Games dy'd with Joy The same Fate befell Chilo the Lacedemonian upon the same victory of one of his Sons Dionysius the Tyrant of Sicily and the Poet Sophocles having heard that they had won the bayes for Tragedies dy'd both immediately And so did the Poet Philippides upon winning that for Comedies The Painter Zeuxis having made the portraiture of an old woman very odly dy'd with laughing at it To which Paulus Jovins produces two like examples of later date one of Sinas General of the Turk's Gallies upon the recovery of his onely Son whom he accounted lost and the other of Leo X. upon the taking of Milain which he had passionately desir'd both of which dy'd for Joy Thus each of these Passions have great resemblance in their excesses They equally transport a Man beyond the bounds of Reason The one by its pleasingness makes him forget himself the other by its bitterness leads him to despair Grief destroyes Life either by the violent agitation of the Spirits or by their condensation which stopping the passages hinders respiration From whence follows suffocation and death Pleasure and Joy produce the same effect by contrary causes namely by too great a dilatation of the Spirits which causes weakness and that weakness death It may be doubted under which rank they ought to be plac'd who dye for Love But the sweetness of this kind of death is too much extoll'd by the Poets that being to choose said he I should prefer it before the others The Second said They who dye for Joy are of a soft temper and rare contexture and their Hearts being too easily dilated and expanded by it the Spirits evaporating leave the same destitute of strength and so the Ventricles close together and they perish under this Passion On the contrary they who dye with grief and sadness have the Pores more closed but are of a very hot temper which requires room and freedom for the dilatation of the Heart which becoming compress'd by sadness which like Fear stops and refrigerates and renders the Spirits too much throng'd ad condens'd among themselves the Spirits having their avenues obstructed and their commerce with the Air hindred stifle the Heart That nevertheless the Passions of Joy are much less then those of Grief because Evil more vehemently moves the Appetite then Good For Grief destroyes the simple and absolute Existence of a thing Pleasure brings onely a transient and casual effect and is but a redundancy or surplusage An Animal hath its perfect essence without it but Grief puts its Being into evident danger and changes it essentially II. The preservation of an Animal for which Nature endu'd it with the Passion of Grief is the highest internal end whereunto also Pleasure is ordain'd as a means the pleasure of the Taste for the preservation of the Individual that of the Touch for the preservation of the species In fine Delectation is a Female Passion or rather but half a Passion for when its Object is present it is languid and asswag'd and hath no more but a bare union with the Object that is the present Good which is rather a Rest then a Motion of the Sensitive Appetite Whereas Grief which respects a present Evil is not onely redoubled by the presence of the same but summons all the other Passions to its Relief Anger Audacity Courage and all the Faculties to revenge it self The Third said That if we consider these two Passions as streams running within their ordinary channels and do not respect their inundations then Grief seemes to be more powerful then Joy for it causeth us to break through all difficulties that might stop us it rallies the Forces of Nature when there needs any extraordinary performance gives Armes to extremities and renders Necessity the Mistress of Fortune On the contrary Pleasure and Joy abate the greatness of the Courage enfeeble a Man by exhausting his Spirits and emptying his Heart too much thereof The Fourth said Pleasure and Grief are two Passions of the Concupiscible Appetite the former of which is the perception of an agreeable Object the latter of a displeasing one For all Sensation is made by a Mutation and that either from Good to Evil whence ariseth Grief and if it persisteth Sadness or from Evil to Good whence springeth Pleasure which if it be lasting causeth Joy which are to be carefully distinguish'd They easily succeed set off and give conspicuousness one to the other Socrates would never have found pleasure in scratching the place where his fetters fastned his Legs if he had not borne those shackles a long time in Prison Their vehemence hath commonly reference to the Temper Pleasure hath more dominion over the Sanguine The Melancholy Man makes more reflexion upon Grief But considering them absolutely it seemes to me more difficult to support Ease then Disease Joy then Sadness Pleasure then Grief First because Hope the harbinger of good and contentment hath greater effects then Fear which fore-runs Evil and causeth to undertake greater things for all glorious and Heroical Actions have Hope for their impulsive cause whereras commonly Fear produceth none but servile Actions Secondly a Passion is term'd strong or violent when by the impression of the species of the Object first upon the Senses and then upon the Phancy it becometh so much Mistress of Reason that it hinders the Man from freely exercising the functions of knowing aright and doing aright Now Pleasures and Contentments cause Men not to know themselves but to forget God and run into Vices whereas Grief and Afflictions usually retain them within their duty in the Fear of God and in the exercise of the Virtues of Patience Obedience and Humility Many persons have bravely and couragiously resisted torments and yet yielded to Pleasure And that Emperour of whom Saint
them So Man not judging as he ought deviates out of the way which leadeth to his End This is it which makes him so sensible of the sleighting of his advice which sleighting seems to conclude that he hath ill judged and is a Lyar in his Knowledge And hence it is said that our French cannot endure a Lye by which a Man is imply'd to have no Understanding nor ability to judge seeing a Lye is opposite to that Truth which I spoke of For the same Reason a Man is ossended with being called Fool that is stupid and unable to judge in Revenge of which Injury and to render the like he often gives a Cuff which stricketh upon the Seat of Wisedom the Face for according to Solomon the Wisedom of a Man shineth in his Countenance Therefore our Lord saith in the Gospel that he who calleth his Brother Fool is liable to Hell for that he impeacheth the goodly lustre of Gods Image which consisteth in Judgement and Knowledge which he who calleth Fool obscureth and bringeth in doubt The Third said That the Reason why we are so zealous for our Opinions is For that we love all that proceedeth from our selves and particularly our Children in whom we see pourtray'd somewhat of our own Images So our Opinions and Conceptions being the fruits of our Mind we love them with Passion Whence also Men are more lovers of the wealth which they have acquir'd themselves then of that which they inherit But the Reason why we are so zealous of our opinions though we know they are false is That the more false Things are the more they are their own For a true Opinion is ours indeed but not altogether for it is also in the Thing Whereas that which is false is onely ours since it hath no foundation in the Thing but meerly in our Mind which imagines it to be though it be not Whence it is that there is no Religion nor Heresie so false but have had their Authors and followers Yea 't is chiefly in this kind of Judgement that we will not be controll'd But Authorities Reasons Experiences and also punishments being ineffectual cause it to be conjectur'd that there is something more then Humane therein For our Mind which of it self is pleas'd with sublime Things such as they are which concern Religion is the more zealous of them the more false they are as being altogether our own The following Speakers refer'd the Cause to the difficulty of defacing that which is engraven in our Understanding To our being grounded in Different Principles to the habit which some have of contradicting all proposals of others like the Woman of whom Poggio the Florentine speaks who being drowned her Husband went to seek her up the stream because she fell into the River far below and to those who advertis'd him to seek her downwards he answer'd That they did not know his wives Humour For since others floated down according to the current of the River she would infallibly ascend against the stream of the water The Third Hour was spent in the Report of the Poem deliver'd to be examin'd in the preceeding Conference the Author of which was the more commended for so great a Performance in that there hath not appeared in our Age so long-winded a Poem Whereof the fault was attributed to the niceness of the Witts of these Times impatient of long reading and the too exact manner of writing wholly turn'd into points the continuation of which is next to impossible Amongst other Inventions was offer'd that of an Instrument which so magnifieth a species that a Flea appears in it of the bigness and form of a Rat and the little wormes which are found in all kinds of good Vinegar of the bigness of Eeles For that One had spoken otherwise of the First Matter then they do in the Schools and there had not been sufficient Information of the Proposal made in the last Conference touching a Perpetual Motion they were appointed for the Subjects of the next CONFERENCE IV. I. Of the First Matter II. Of Perpetual Motion I. Of the First Matter THe Entrance into the former of these Subjects was made in this manner We should be too sensual Philosophers if we believ'd nothing but what we see though also we see the First Matter but 't is as the Ancients said Proteus was seen namely in so many formes that there was not one of them his own and yet he was never destitute So I see the First Matter under the form of a Man a Horse a Tree a stone and yet the stone Tree Horse Man are not the Form of that First Matter for it hath none Otherwise if I conceive it cloth'd with one single Form 't is then call'd Second Matter Nevertheless they differ not really one from the other no more then a Man naked and afterwards clothed The First is the common Subject of Substantial Formes and remaineth both before and after Corruption The Second said That as God is Incomprehensible by reason of his exceeding Grandeur so is this First Matter by reason of its baseness and lowness which makes it of all Things of the world neerest to Nothing conceivable by its obscurity alone as the night which we begin to see when we no longer see any thing else Whence it followes that we cannot say what it is but onely what it is not The Third said That as Inachus Father of Io seeking his Daughter found her Name written every where For being turn'd into a Heifer whose Foot is cloven with the Pastern she grav'd an O and with the cleft an I and so form'd Io. Nevertheless her Father knew her not for she was under a form which cover'd and hid the shapes and lines of her visage Just so is the First Matter found written every where For of it better then of Jupiter we may say that it is whatsoever thou seest and whatsoever is mov'd is Matter But being cover'd with a form and involv'd with the attires that follow it it cannot be seen in the pure and naked Nature of First Matter And just as in a loaf of Bread the Leven which fermented it is there though kneaded and temper'd in the mass of Meal in which it seemeth lost For being dissolv'd it turnes to it self and into its own Nature the whole Mass wherein it is incorporated And as in Cheese the Rennet though dissolv'd and mixt in the Milk ceases not to be there yea draws to its Nature the substance into which it was liquifi'd So the First Matter though it seem to have lost its being by entring into the Compound retaines the same notwithstanding and also draws all to it self rendring material what ever it is joyn'd to And although it be not visible or perceptible when 't is alone yet it is real in the Compound in which it puts off the Name of First and takes that of Second We prove this First Matter from the Necessity of a Common Subject in all Mutations
proceed but from Heaven or the Elements there is no probability in attributing them to these latter otherwise they would be both Agents and Patients together And besides if the Elements were the Efficient Cause of the Mutations which come to pass in Nature there would be nothing regular by reason of their continual Generation and Corruption Wherefore 't is to the Heavens that it ought to be ascrib'd And as the same Letters put together in the same order make alwayes the same word So as often as the principal Planets meet in the same Aspect and the same Coelestial Configuration the Men that are born under such Constellations are found alike Nor is it material to say though 't is true that the Heavenly Bodies are never twice in the same scituation because if this should happen it would not be Resemblance longer but Identity such as Plato promised in his great Revolution after six and forty thousand years Besides there is no one so like to another but there is alwayes found more difference then conformity The Sixth affirm'd That the same Cause which produceth the likeness of Bodies is also that which rendreth the inclinations of Souls alike seeing the one is the Index of the other Thus we see oftimes the manners of Children so expresly imitate those of their Parents of both Sexes that the same may be more rightfully alledged for an Argument of their Legitimacy then the External Resemblance alone which consists onely in colour and figure This makes it doubtful whether we may attribute that Resemblance to the Formative Virtue Otherwise being connex'd as they are it would be to assign an Immaterial Effect as all the operations of the Rational Soul are to a Material Cause The Seventh ascrib'd it to the sole vigour or weakness of the Formative Virtue which is nothing else but the Spirits inherent in the Geniture and constituting the more pure part of it The rest serving those Spirits for Matter upon which they act for the organizing it and framing a Body thereof Now every Individual proposing to himself to make his like he arrives to his End when the Matter is suted and possess'd with an Active Virtue sufficiently vigorous and then this likeness will be not onely according to the Specifical Nature and the Essence but also according to the Individual Nature and the Accidents which accompany the same This seems perhaps manifest enough in that First Degree of Children to Fathers but the difficulty is not small how a later Son that hath no Features of his Fathers Countenance comes to resemble his Grand-father or Great Grand-father The Cause in my Judgement may be assign'd thus Though the Geniture of the Ancestor was provided with sufficient Spirits to form a Son like himself yet it met with a Feminine Geniture abounding with qualities contrary to its own which infring'd its formative vertue and check'd the Action thereof hindring the Exuberance of its Spirits from attaining to frame such lineaments of the Countenance as Nature intended or else it met with a Matrice out of due temper by some casual cold though otherwise both the Genitures were laudably elaborated For when those Spirits or Formative Virtue become chil'd and num'd they shrink and retire into their mass as he that is cold to his bed and wanting heat in which their Activity consists they remain in a manner buried and without Action in reference to this Resemblance And nevertheless there is left enough to make a Male like to the Father as to the species This Son thus form'd comes to Age to Generate and meeting with a Feminine Geniture proportion'd to his own in vigour and strength and a Matrice proper to receive them those Spirits of his Father which till then lay dormant are awaken'd to Action and concurring from all parts of the Body suddenly impregnate the Geniture of the Immediate Father having by their long residence in the corporeal mass been recruited refined and elaborated And as old Wine surpasseth new in strength and vigour of Spirits because it hath less Phlegme so those Spirits of the Grand-father having digested all the superfluous Phlegm wherewith those of the Father abound are more strong then they and win possession in the Geniture for the forming and organizing of it according to the shape of the Body from whence they first issued The Eighth said That he was very backward to believe that any Thing of our Great Grand-fathers remaineth in us seeing it is doubted upon probable grounds whether there remaineth in our Old Age any thing of our Child-hood and that the Body of Man by the continual deperdition of its Three-fold Substance Spirits Humours and solid parts is like the ship Argo which by the successive addition of new matter was the same and not the same That he conceiv'd not yet how the Geniture can proceed from all the parts seeing Anatomy teacheth us that the Spermatick Veines derive it immediately from the Trunk of the Hollow Vein Vena Cava and the Emulgent and the Arteries from the great Artery Aorta conveying it to be elaborated in the Glandules call'd Prostatae from whence it is set on work by Nature The solid Parts can have no Influence upon it for what humour or juice is brought to them for their nourishment goeth not away naturally but by sweat insensible transpiration and the production of hair The Spirits are too subtle and dissipable to preserve in themselves a Character and imprint the same upon any Subject That Resemblance in my Judgement proceedeth from the natural heat which elaborateth and delineateth the Body of the Geniture and by it the Embryo First with the general Idea of its species and then with the accidents which it hath and which it borroweth from the Matrice from the menstruous blood and the other Circumstances requisite to Generation and when chance pleaseth there is found a likeness to the Father Mother or others Which Circumstances being alike in the Formation of Twinns cause them to resemble one another unless when the Particles of the Geniture which is sufficient for two are of unlike Natures and are unequally sever'd by the natural heat So that for Example the milder and more temperate Particles are shar'd on one side and on the other the more rough and bilious As it hapned in Jacob and Esau the former of whom was of a sweet and the other of a savage humour and then Bodies as different as their Manners One the contrary many resemble one another in Countenance who are nothing at all related as Augustus and that young Man who being ask'd by the Emperour whether his Mother had never been at Rome answer'd No but his Father had And the true and false Martin Guerre who put a Parliament their Wife and all their kinred to a hard task to distinguish them II. Whether Letters ought to be joyned with Armes The Second Hour design'd for treating of the Conjunction of Armes and Letters began with this discourse That Armes seem not
a certain person having been cur'd by a fast of that duration it cannot be said that all dye of that wherewith some are cur'd II. Of the Echo Upon the Second Point it was said The Echo is a reflected multiply'd and reciprocal sound or a repercussion of sound made by hollow rocks or edisices by the windings of which it comes to be redoubled as the visible species is reflected in the Mirror It is made when the sound diffus'd in the Air is driven into some hollow smooth and solid Body which hinders it from dissipating or passing further but sends it back to the place from whence it came as the wall makes the ball rebound towards him that struck the same against it According as the sound is violent and the space little or great it returns sooner or slower and makes an Echo more or less articulate It may be hence gather'd whether Sound is produc'd by the Air or some other Body since fish have the use of their Ears in the Water and the voice passeth from one end of a Pike to the other without resounding in the Air. And which is more strange strike as softly as you please with your singer upon the end of a Mast lay'd along he that layes his Ear to the other end shall hear it better then your self and a third that doth the like at the middle shall hear nothing at all In the Church de la Dorade at Tholouze he that whispers at one end of the wall is heard at the other by reason of its smoothness On the contrary it is reported that in Scotland there is a stone call'd the Deaf-stone because they which are on one side of it hear not the noise no not of Trumpets sounding on the other the stone sucking up the sound as a sponge doth Water The Second said That the Image which we see of our selves in a Looking-glass being as it were alive and yet dumb is less admirable then the Echo which we hear not and yet hear complain sing and talk with us without Body and without understanding This Echo is not onely a resilition or reflexion of the sound or voice or rather the voice it self so reflected and sent back by the opposition of some solid Body which makes it return whence it came and stops its course and flux For then it would follow that as often as we speak we should hear Echoes seeing we never speak but there is made some resilition of our voice by means of the opposition of solid Bodies near us and encompassing us on every side And yet we seldom hear any thing but our bare voice or some confus'd murmur as it happens in new houses in Churches under a vault before a wall and other such places in which we ought to hear a very articulate Echo since the voice is reflected better there then elsewhere I think therefore then the Echo is made in the same manner as the reflection of the Sun 's light or of the rayes of any other fire whatsoever by hollow mirrors which unite that light and those rayes and so produce another fire For as fire cannot be produc'd by plain or convex mirrors which reflect but one ray in one and the same place and all sorts of concave or hollow mirrors cannot be proper for it because it is necessary that the cavity be dispos'd and made in such manner that it may be able to reflect a sufficient quantity of rayes in one and the same place which being conjoyn'd and united together excite again and re-kindle that fire from which they issu'd which seem'd vanish'd by reason of the dissipation of its heat and rayes So the Echo which is nothing but the same voice reanimated and reproduc'd by the concourse and reunion of several of its rayes dissipated and afterwards reflected into one and the same place where they are united and recollected together and so become audible a second time cannot be produc'd by bare walls and vaults which do not reflect and recollect a sufficient quantity of those rayes into one and the same place but onely resemble many of them near one another whence ariseth a murmuring or inarticulate Echo Now as Art imitates Nature and sometimes surpasses her so we find there are Burning Mirrors which re-unite the rayes of fire and in like manner there may be made Artificial Echoes without comparison more perfect then those wherewith chance and the natural situation of places have hitherto acquainted us Whereunto beside what I have already mention'd the Hyperbole the Parabole and chiefly the Oval greatly conduce with some other means which are treated of in the Cataptricks The Third said The Echo the Daughter of Solitude and Secretary of weak Minds who without distrusting her loquacity fruitlesly acquaint her with their secret thoughts teaches us not to declare our secrets to any person since even stones and rocks cannot conceal them but she especially affords entertainment to Lovers possibly because she ownes the same Father with Love namely Chance For as no Love is more ardent then that which arises from the unlook'd for glances of two Eyes from the collision of which issues a spark little in the beginning but which blown up by the violence of desires grows at length into a great flame so though Art studies to imitate the natural Echo and the pretty conceits of that Nymph yet it never equals her graces which she borrows onely from the casual occurrence of certain sinuosities of Rocks and Caverns in which she resides the rest of her inveiglements remain unknown to Men The Cause why Antiquity made her a Goddess All which we can truly say of her is to define her a reflection of the voice made by an angle equal to that of incidence Which is prov'd because the Echoes in narrow turnings are heard very near him that sings 2. Nature always works by the shortest way which is the streight therefore Reflection is made by the same 3. When the voice is receiv'd in a streight line it formes no distinct Echo because it is united with the same direct line whereby it was carry'd which by that means it dissipateth and scattereth The same happens in a convex line But if the Body which receives it be concave it will recollect it from the perpendicular of the speakers mouth towards that Body and 't is by the concourse of the voice reflected in that line that the Echo is form'd 4. The Body which receives the voice must be sonorous which none is except it be hollow From which four propositions I conceive the way may be deriv'd to imitate the Echo and tame that wood-Nymph in some manner The Fourth said Vitruvius was not ignorant of this Artifice having very dextrously imitated the Nature of the Echo by the convenient situation of some earthen vessels partly empty and observing a proportion of plenitude to vacuity almost like that which some Musicians make use of to represent their six voices And that which hath been made
Hope which is by the testimony of Aristotle a species of Love contemnes and surmounts all difficulties which hinder its attaining to its Good Here one objecting That Anger which arises from Hatred and inward Grief hath more violent effects then Hope and the other Passions It was answer'd that Anger consists of a mixture of Love and Hatred therefore Homer sayes that to be angry is a thing more sweet then Honey For Anger tends to Revenge and ceaseth when we are reveng'd for the wrong we apprehend done to us Now Revenge seemes a Good and delectable thing to the person that seeks it and therefore all the great Ebullitions and Commotions observ'd in Anger ought to be referr'd to the Love and Desire of Revenge Besides the Motions which attend Hatred are Motions of Flight as those which accompany Love are Motions of Pursuit and Anger being rather a Pursuit and seeking of Revenge then a Flight from any evil it is more reasonably to be rank'd under Love then under Hatred Again we see amorous persons are more easily put into heat then even those which are drawn up in battalia and ready to kill one another In fine if Hatred and all the Passions attending it have any force and violence Love is the prime cause thereof we hate no thing but because we love some thing and that more or less proportionably as we love Wherefore the Philosophers who would introduce an Apathy and banish all the Passions should have done well rather to extinguish Love For he who loves no thing hates no thing and when we have lost any thing our sadness and resentment is proportionable to the Love we had for it He that loves no thing fears no thing and if it be possible that he do's not love his own life he do's not fear death It is not therefore to be inquir'd which excites the greatest Commotions Love or Hatred since even those which Hatred excites proceed from Love The Third said That the Acts or Motions of the Appetite are called Passions because they make the Body suffer and cause an alteration in the Heart and Pulse Such as aim at Pleasure enervate the Motion of Contraction because they dilate the Spirits and augment that of Dilatation Whereas on the contrary those which belong to Sadness diminish the Motion of Dilatation because they further that of Contraction We may consider the Passions either materially or formally the former consideration denotes the Impression which they make upon the Body the latter the relation to their Object So Anger consider'd materially is defin'd An Ebullition and Fervour of the Blood about the Heart and formally A Desire of Revenge This being premiz'd I affirm That Hatred is much more powerful then Love if we consider them materially not as alone but as leaders of a party viz. Love with all the train of Passions that follow the same towards Good and Hatred with all its adherents in reference to Evil. For either of them taken apart and by it self make very little impression and alteration in the Heart Love is a bare acknowledgement of and complacency in good and goeth no further as Love Hatred is nothing else but a bare rejection disavowing and aversion of Evil. In verification of which conception of the Nature of those Passions it is evident that the Effects ascrib'd to Love as Extasie Languishing are the Effects not of Love but of Hope weary and fainting through its own duration Now these Passions being thus taken Love causeth less alteration upon the Body then Hatred For its highest pitch is Delight which is materially an expansion of the Spirits of the Heart towards the parts of the whole Body wherein appeareth rather a cessation from Action then any violence But Hatred which terminates in Anger makes a furious havock It dauseth the Blood to boyle about the Heart and calls to its aid the same Passions that are subservient to Love as Hope and Boldness conceiving it a Good to be reveng'd on the present Evil. The Case is the same also if they be consider'd according to their formality For the Object of Love is a Good not absolute but according to some consideration seeing the good of an Animal is its preservation to which that kind which is called Delectable Good or the Good of Delight is ordain'd as a means to the end But the Object of Hatred is the Evil which destroyes an Absolute and Essential being of an Animal For which reason it moves more powerfully then Good The Fourth said That for the better judging of the Question we must suppose that these two Passions are two Agents which tend each to their different End For the end of Love is a good Being That of Hatred which repels what destroyes our Being is the preservation of Being simply Now Being is much more perfect naturally then better being though morally it is not so perfect and the preservation of Being is of the same dignity with Being On the other side it is true that Love is the cause of Hatred and that we hate nothing but because we love Yet it doth not follow that Hatred is not more powerful then Love seeing many times the Daughter is more strong and fair then the Mother Now if they are brutish Passions they must be measur'd by the standard of Brutes But we see a Dog leave his Meat to follow a Beast against which he hath a natural animosity And Antipathies are more powerful then Sympathies for the former kill and the latter never give life Nevertheless sometimes Love prevailes over Hatred For a Man that loves the Daughter passionately and hates the Father as much will not cease to do good to the Father for the Daughters sake The shortness of the dayes and the enlargements upon this Subject having in this and some of the former Conferences left no room for Inventions every one was entrealed to prepare himself for the future and these two Points were chosen for the next day seven-night CONFERENCE XVII I. Of the several fashions of wearing Mourning and why Black is us'd to that purpose rather than any other colour II. Why people are pleas'd with Musick I. Of the severall fashions of wearing Mourning and why Black is us'd to that purpose rather then any other colour THe First said That the greatest part of Man-kind excepting some Barbarians lamented the death of their friends and express'd their sadness by external Mourning which is nothing but the change of Habit. Now they are observ'd to be of six sorts The Violet is for Princes The weeds of Virgins are white in reference to purity Sky-colour is in use with the people of Syria Cappadocia and Armenia to denote the place which they wish to the dead namely Heaven The Yellow or Feuille-morte among those of Aegypt to shew say they that as Herbs being faded become yellow so Death is the end of Humane Hope The Grey is worne by the Aethiopians because it denotes the colour of the Earth which receives
us On the contrary Prodigality ruines and perverts the Laws of Nature leading a Man to the destruction of his relatives and the undoing of himself like Saturn and Time it devours its own issue and consumes it self to the damage of the Common-wealth whose interest it is that every Man use well what belongs to him Therefore all Laws have enacted penalties against Prodigals depriving them of the administration of their own Estates and the most Sacred Edicts of our Kings aim at the correcting of the Luxury of Prodigality But never were any Laws Punishments or inflictions ordained against Covetousness because Prodigality causeth the down-fall and destruction of the most Illustrious Houses which cannot be attributed to Covetousness for this seemes rather to have built them The Second said That according to Aristotle amongst all the virtuous none wins more Love then the Liberal because there is alwayes something to be gotten by him as amongst all the vicious none is more hated and shun'd by all the world then the covetous who doth not onely not give any thing but draws to himself the most he can from every one and from the publick in which he accounts himself so little concern'd that he considers it no farther then how he may make his profit of it He is so loath to part with his treasures when he dyes that he would gladly be his own Heir as Hermocrates appointed himself by his Testament or else he would swallow down his Crowns as that other Miser did whom Athenaeus mentions But the Prodigal free from that self-interest which causes so great troubles in the world gives all to the publick and keeps nothing for himself Whence according to Aristotle the Prodigal is not so remote from Virtue as the Covetous it being easier to make the former Liberal then the latter The Third said These two Vices are equally oppos'd to Liberality and consequently one as distant from it as the other For as the Covetous is Vicious in that he receives too much and gives nothing so is the Prodigal in that he gives too much and receives nothing at all or receives onely to give But Covetousness hath this priviledge that it finds a Virtue from which it is very little distant namely Frugality or Parsimony to which Prodigality is diametrically oppos'd Nor is it of little advantage to it that it is ordinarily found in Old Men whom we account wiser then others for having learn't by the experience of many years that all friends have fail'd them in time of need and that their surest refuge hath been their own Purse they do not willingly part with what they have taken pains to gather together which is another reason in favour of Covetousness For Virtue and Difficulty seem in a manner reciprocal But Prodigality is very easie and usual to foolish Youth which thinking never to find the bottome of the barrel draws forth incessantly and gives so freely that being over-taken with necessity it is constraind to have recourse to Covetousness which sets it upon its leggs again Nor ever was there a Father that counsel'd his Son to be prodigal but rather to be thrifty and close-handed And yet the Gospel and Experience shew that Fathers give and advise what is most expedient to their Children The Fourth said As Rashness is much less blameable then Cowardice so is Prodigality then Avarice For the Prodigal holding it ignominious to receive and glorious alwayes to give likes rather to deprive and devest himself of his goods then to deny any one whatsoever On the other side the Covetous doth nothing but receive on all hands and never gives any thing but with hope to receive more Now it is much more noble to give then to receive for Giving supposes Having The Prodigal knowing well that goods and riches are given by God onely to serve for necessary instruments to the living more commodiously and that they are not riches if they be not made use of employes them and accommodates himself and others therewith but the Covetous doth not so much as make use of them for himself and so destroyes their end The Fifth said If the Question did not oblige us to compare these two Vices together I should follow Demosthenes's sentence which he gave in the quarrel of two Thieves that accus'd one another which was that the one should be banish'd Athens and the other should run after him I should no less drive out of a well-policy'd State the Covetous and the Prodigal The first is Aesop's Dogg who keeps the Ox from eating the hay whereof himself tasts not like the Bears who hinder Men from approaching Mines of Gold and yet make no use thereof The other is like those Fruit-trees which grow in Precipices of which onely Crows and Birds of prey eat the Fruit vicious persons alone ordinarily get benefit by them But yet this latter Vice seemes to me more pernicious then the other For whether you consider them in particular The Covetous raises an Estate which many times serves to educate and support better Men then himself But Prodigality is the certain ruine of their Fortunes who are addicted to it and carries them further to all other Vices to which Necessity serves more truly for a cause then reasonably for an excuse or whether you consider them in general 't is the most ordinary overthrow of States And possibly he that should seek the true cause of publick Inconveniences would sooner find it in Luxury and Prodigality then in any thing else Therefore Solons's Law declar'd Prodigals infamous and gave power to their Creditors to dis-member them and cut them in pieces Our Ordinances in imitation of the Roman Law which ranks them under the predicament of Mad-men forbids and deprives them of the administration of their own goods as not knowing how to use them The Sixth said Avarice is like those Gulfes that swallow up Ships and never disgorge them again and Prodigality like a Rock that causes shipwracks the ruines whereof are cast upon the coasts of Barbarians and therefore both of them ought to be banish'd and I have no Vote for either Yet Prodigality seemes to me more fair and Covetousness more severe CONFERENCE XXIII I. Of Physiognomy II. Of Artificial Memory I. Of Physiognomy THeophrastus accusing Nature for not having made a window to the Heart perhaps meant to the Soul For though the Heart were seen naked yet would not the intentions be visible they reside in another apartment The Countenance and amongst its other parts the Eye seemes to be the most faithfull messenger thereof It doth not onely intimate sickness and health it shews also hatred and love anger and fear joy and sadness In short 't is the true mirror of the Body and the Soul unless when the Visage puts on the mask of Hypocrisie against which we read indeed some experiences as when Vlysses discover'd the dissimulation of Achilles disguis'd in the dress of a Damsel by the gracefullness wherewith he saw him wield
thereunto even by promise of reward 4. We naturally love that which proceeds from us be it the most imperfect in the world The Workman loves his work more then that loves him as the Creator loves his creature better then he is lov'd by it Moreover we find in Scripture fathers who desir'd and obtain'd the raising of their children from the dead but no child that pray'd God to raise his father yea one that desir'd leave to go and bury his To conclude our will is carri'd to an object by the opinion true or false which it conceives of it and accordingly we see that a man's only believing himself to be a father inspires this paternal love into him though he be not The Third said In this sweet debate between fathers and children I conceive the former ought to yield to the latter as in all other cases the latter to the former And as the whole goes not to seek its part but the part its whole so the child who is part of his father loves him more tenderly and is more willingly lead towards him then the father towards his child If fathers love their children because they resemble them the resemblance is common to both and so children shall love them as much for the same reason And the being which fathers give their children is as much an effect of the love which they bear to themselves as of that which they bear to their children Indeed if love be a fire as the Poets say it must according to its natural motion rather ascend then descend and if in humane love the lover is less perfect then the loved the child who hath less perfection then the father must be the lover and the father the subject of his love And this the examples of Filial love sufficiently manifest For not to speak of Aeneas who sav'd his father from the fire and sack of Troy nor of Amphinomus and Anapias who went to draw theirs out of the midst of Aetna's flames nor of Cimon the son of Miltiades who sold his liberty to redeem the dead body of his father which was retain'd for debts and to give it an honourable burial nor of Athamanes King of Crete who voluntarily brought death upon himself that he might prolong his fathers life according to the answer of the Oracle Appius alone decides the question He had the choice of leaving either his father or his own family in evident danger he chose rather to be a good son then a good father and husband abandoning his wife and children to the proscription of the Triumvirate that he might secure his father from it The Fourth said It seems that Filial love is rather a payment of a debt an acknowledgement of a benefit and shunning of ingratitude then a free and natural affection such as that of the father is Besides he who gives loves more then he who receives Yea it seems that he who began to do good is oblig'd to continue it that his work be not imperfect Now fathers give not only being which nevertheless is the foundation of well-being but also usually education and their riches acquir'd by their labours induc'd so to do by the sole consideration of honesty upon which their love being grounded is much more noble and admirable then that of children which is commonly establish'd upon the profit which they receive from their fathers The Fifth said 'T is not so much the being a father or a son that causes the amity as the being a good father or good son otherwise all fathers should love their children in the same manner and all children their fathers which do's not hold Nature casts the seeds of it co-habitation cultivates it custom cherishes it example fashions it but above all compassion enforces it Thus fathers seeing the weakness of their children ha's need of their aid love them the more And for this reason Grand-fathers love their Nephews more tenderly then their own children And when fathers through sicknesses or decrepit age become objects of compassion to their children their kindness is redoubled bur 't is not usually so strong as that of fathers towards them CONFERENCE XXXIII I. Of those that walk in their sleep II. Which is the most excellent Moral Virtue I. Of those that walk in sleep SLeep-walkers call'd by the Greeks Hypnobatae are such as rising out of their beds in the night walk about in their sleep and do the same things as if they were awake then return to bed again and think not that they were out of it unless in a dream This affection is rank'd under the symptomes of the animal faculty and particularly of the common sense and though it be not a disease yet it seems in some sort to be against nature For since men sleep for the resting of their senses and motion and wake to exercise the same whatever hinders and alters the one or the other as to move when we should rest is against nature And if it be strange persons remain stupid when they are awake as Exstaticks do 't is no less to see a man in sleep do as much or more then if he were awake I ascribe the natural causes hereof 1. To the Imagination which receives the impression of objects no less during sleep then waking yea it represents them to it self much greater then they are as it hapned to him whose leg being become paralytical in his sleep he dream'd that he had a leg of stone Now these species being strong act so powerfully upon the Imagination of the Hypnobatae that they constrain them to move and go towards the things represented therein For though sense be hindred in sleep yet motion is not as appears by Respiration which is always free and by infants who stir in their mothers belly though they sleep continually For the hinder part of the head destinated to motion is full of abundance of spirits especially at the beginning of the Spinal Marrow where there is a very apparent Cavity which cannot be stop'd by vapours as the anterior part of the head is in which the organs of the senses are which being stop'd by vapours can have no perception during sleep Wherefore 't is groundless to say with Aristotle that sleep-walkers see as well as if they were awake for 't is impossible for one not awake to see because visible objects make a more lively impression in their organ then any other and a man asleep is not distinguish'd from another but by cessation of the sense of seeing For one may Hear Taste Smell and Touch without waking but not See 2. The thick and tenacious vapours seising upon the brain and obstructing its out-lets contribute much to this effect For since the smoak of Tobacco is sometimes kept in our bodies two whole days the same may happen to the gross and viscous vapours rais'd from the humours or aliments 3. The particular constitution of their bodies is of some moment towards it as an active hot dry and robust
Christ-mass day exercise many cruelties even upon little children and those who in our time confess that they have put on the shapes of Wolves Lyons Dogs and other Animals that they might exercise their cruelty upon Men with impunity For I am not of their mind who think such transformation is made by natural causes To which neither can that be attributed which the Scripture relates of Nebuchadonozor K. of Babylon who became an Ox and ate the grass of the field for the space of nine years and afterwards resum'd his former shape that the rods of the Aegyptian Magicians were turn'd into Serpents as well as that of Moses that Lot's Wife was chang'd into a Statue of Salt no more then the most fabulous metamorphoses of Niobe into stone Lycaon Demarchus and Moeris into Wolves the companions of Vlysses into sundry Animals by the Enchantress Circe those of Diomedes into Birds Apuleius into an Ass that an Aegyptian Lady became a Mare and was restor'd into her former shape by S. Macarius the Hermite as the Historian Vincent reports in his 18. Book Seeing a Rational Soul can not naturally animate the Body of a Wolf The least distemper of our Brain suffices to hinder the Soul from exercising its functions and can it exercise them in that of a Beast 'T is more credible that some evil Spirit supplies the place and acts the part of the Sorcerer who is soundly asleep in his Bed or in some other place apart from the commerce of Men. As it happen'd to the Father of Praestantius mention'd by St. Augustine in his Book De Civitate Dei who awaking out of a long and deep sleep imagin'd himself to have been turn'd into a Horse and carry'd provisions upon his back to Soulders which he obstinately believ'd though his Son assur'd him that he had not stirr'd out of bed Nevertheless the thing was verifi'd by witnesses but it was done by an evil Spirit who on the one side personated him abroad and on the other so strongly impressed those species upon his Phancy that he could not be disswaded from the error For otherwise how should the Sorcerer reduce his Body into so small a volumn as the form of a Rat Mouse Toad and other such Animals into which it sometimes is turn'd Now if it happens that the wound which the Devil receives under that form is found upon the same part of the Sorcerers Body this may be attributed to the action of the same evil Spirit who can easily leave his blow upon such part as he pleases of the Body which he possesses For want of which possession all his designes upon those whom he would injure become ineffectual notwithstanding the imposture of all their waxen Images But if 't is the Sorcerer himself that hath the form of a Wolf either he clothes himself in a Wolf's skin or else the Devil frames a like Body of Vapours and Exhalations and other materials which he knows how to choose and can gather together with which he involves the Sorcerer's Body and fits the same in such manner that the Eye of the Beast answers to that of the Man and so the other parts according to the measure requisite to represent a Wolf Or else that subtile Spirit deludes our Eyes The Second said If the Proverb be true That one Man is oftentimes a Wolf to another we need not recur to extraordinary causes to find Men-wolves Now the word Wolf is here taken for mischievous because the wealth of the first Ages consisting in Cattle they fear'd nothing so much as the Wolf As for the causes of this brutish malady whereby a Man imagines himself a Wolf or is so indeed they are of three sorts the biting of a mad Wolf the atrabilarious humour or the Imagination perverted It seemes at first very strange that a drop of foam entring into the flesh of a Man at an orifice made by the point of a tooth should have the power to convert all the humours into its own nature But seeing the stroke of a Scorpion which is not perceivable to the sight kills the strongest person that admiration ceases at the comparison of a thing no less marvellous For 't is no more wonder that the humour which issues from an Animal imprints its Image other where then that it kills an other When the foam drop'd from a mad Wolf produces its like with its furious spirits it doth nothing but what other animate bodies with other circumstances do Thus the kernel of the Pear or Apple which subverts our Senses call'd therefore malum insanum so well containes in power the Pear or Apple-tree which produc'd it that it reproduces another wholly alike yea the salt of Sage Marjoram Baum and some others being sown produces the like Plants without slip or seed The atrabilarious humour sending up black and glutinous fumes into the brains of melancholy people not onely make them to believe that the species represented thereby to them are as true as what they see indeed but impresse an invincible obstinacy in their Minds which is proof against all reasons to the contrary because Reason finds the Organs no longer rightly dispos'd to receive its dictates And if he who sees a stick bow'd in the water can hardly rectifie that crooked species in his Common Sense by reasons drawn from the Opticks which tell him that the visual ray seemes crooked by reason of the diversity of the medium how can he whose Reason is not free be undeceiv'd and believe that he is not a Wolf according to the species which are in his Phancy But can the Phancy alone do all this He who feign'd and frequently pretended that he was one-ey'd by the power of Imagination became so indeed and many others whom Phancy alone makes sick and the fear of dying kills sufficiently shew its power which causes that these distracted people perswading themselves that they are Wolves do the actions of Wolves tearing Men and Beasts and roaming about chiefly in the night which symbolizes with their Humours Not but that a fourth cause namely evil spirits interposes sometimes with those natural causes and particularly with that gloomy black Humuor which for that reason Saint Jerome calls Satan's bath The Third said That besides those causes the food taken from some parts of Aliments contributes much to hurt the Imagination of Men in such sort that they account themselves really brutes Thus a Maid of Breslaw in Silesia having eaten the brain of a Cat so strongly conceited her self a Cat that she ran after every Mouse that appear'd before her A Spaniard having eaten the brain of a Bear thought himself to be one Another that had very often drunk Goats milk fed upon grass like that Animal Another who had liv'd long upon Swines blood rowl'd himself in the mire as if he had been truly a Hogg And 't is held that especially the arterial blood of Animals as containing the purest of their Spirits produces such an effect But to believe
Heroe illustrious in vertue of a vicious man or a wise man of a fool Nor doth it arise from riches which though the ornament yet are not the cause of Nobility For whereas a rich Yeoman is admitted to publick Offices rather then a poor Gentleman 't is because the former having more to lose then the latter hath also more interest in the preservation of the common good and consequently is presum'd more careful that all go well with it Ease and occupation are of no more moment For our first Father from whom we derive our Nobility and his Children were Labourers Noah was a Vine-dresser Saul and David Kings of Israel Shepherds and at Venice Florence Genua Luca and other places of Italy the Nobles are for the most part Merchants though in other Countries that imployment is derogatory to Nobility For as 't is not in our power to be born either of noble or mean Parents so ought not either be imputed to us as commendable or blame-worthy since praise and dishonour are rightly attributed to us only for what lyes in our ability as our good or evil actions do For being 't is no advantage to a blind man to have quick-sighted parents or to a gouty son to have a father of sound limbs why should it be any to a wicked son to have an honest man to his father on the contrary it ought to turn to his reproach that he hath not follow'd the way which he found already beaten For as good wheat is oftentimes chang'd into Darnel so the children of illustrious men are ordinarily lewd slip-strings witness the children of Cicero Aesop Cimon Socrates and Alcibiades On the contrary many times the greatest personages are the issues of the most infamous and abject Wherefore the seeds of Nobility namely our actions being in our selves the most certain way of acquiring is to do such as are good and vertuous True it is those of war are most in esteem because most persons are capable of them Yet excellent civil actions ought to be accompani'd with the good hap which may make them known and recommendable to the Prince otherwise they are as a light hid under a bushel But if all these conditions meet in any one whom the vertue of his Ancestors hath dignifi'd to be of an illustrious Family this excellency of descent renders his vertue more acceptable and this Gentleman's condition is like that of a child upon a Gyant 's shoulders who sees all that the Gyant sees and also over his head He hath all the Nobility of his Fore-fathers and besides that which is properly his own To conclude if the blood of our Ancestors is the body of Nobility our vertue is the soul of it CONFERENCE XXXV I. Of feigned Diseases II. Of regulating the Poor I. Of feign'd Diseases AS man is the most wilie of all creatures so he best knows how to dissemble and represent another personage then what he is indeed But external signs accompany and follow their effects as necessarily as they are preceded by their causes he cannot so artificially cover his duplicity but it will appear and his retentions betray themselves It is as difficult to him to dissemble fear anger hatred envy and the other passions when they are real as to counterfeit them when they are not The same may be said of Diseases as of the passions of the body As 't is almost impossible to dissemble a true Gout or a Fever so 't is very hard to feign a Disease when one is in perfect health They who counterfeit the same are of two sorts People of quality and Beggars Of the first order are many Generals of Armies who have feign'd themselves sick that they might surprize their enemies who supposed them in bed and such as cover with malady that of cowardize or do it to avoid being present at Assemblies Thus Demosthenes pretended a Quinzy that he might not plead against one accus'd of Defrauding the State by whom he was corrupted with presents Of the second sort are they who to avoid the labour common to others or to cause themselves to be pitied make semblance of having one a Leprosie another the Falling-sickness a third the Jaundies and infinite other maladies which they have not or having some light ones amplifie and continue the same Such was the invention of an Italian Souldier of late years who feign'd himself troubled with certain fits caus'd by the biting of a Tarantula crying out of extraordinary pain except when the Musitians play'd for then he fell to dancing after the same manner as he had heard those use to do who have been hurt by that creature Physick to which alone pertains the discerning of these feign'd Diseases imploys to that end this maxime of Geometry that a right line serves for a measure not only of straight things but also of oblique So the perfect knowledge of real Diseases enables us to find out counterfeit 'T was by this means Galen discover'd the imposture of a Slave who to excuse himself from following his Master in a long Voyage because he was loath to leave his Mistress who was at Rome made his cheeks swell with the root of Thapsia and pale with the fume of Cummin For Galen seeing no other signs agree with these two cur'd him only with a Refrigerative whereas a true defluxion requir'd other remedies The Second said Maladies of body or mind are feign'd by people to decline some burdensome charge and commission or some evident danger Thus Vlysses counterfeited himself foolish to avoid going to the Trojan war and David being pursu'd by Saul made himself appear distracted to King Achish The young wife mention'd by Martial being married to an old man counterfeited the Hysterical Passions which she found a way to deceive her jealous husband Such pretences are sometimes us'd to retard an execution of death or else in a civil matter to be freed from prison and many times those things which afford signs to the Physitians are so exquisitely order'd that the most subtle are over-reached One makes his Urine black with Ink or red with Oker or yellow with Saffron another applies the root of Ranunculus to his groyn or some other Emunctory to counterfeit a Carbuncle another provokes vomiting by some Emetick which by that means will cause extraordinary agitation in his Pulse and give appearences of a pestilential Fever or else make so streight a ligature on the upper part of his arm that his Pulse will not beat at all as Matthiolus reports an ancient Physitian serv'd to confirm the fraud of a Mountebank who us'd that trick to make people believe that being almost dead he was revived by his Antidote But the most ordinary impostures of this kind are those of Beggars some of whom fume their faces with Brimstone that they may appear pale Others rub themselves with the flower of Broom or the seed of Carthamus to seem yellow or else black themselves with Oyl and Soot to appear struck with
also instanc'd to comprehend all Vices as Justice contains in it self all Virtues For he who is proud covetous prodigal or a Murtherer would not be so if he were not unjust whilst he attributes more to himself and less to others then is due And for conclusion it was said That as of the diseases of the Body those are term'd the greatest which invade the most noble part or have the most dangerous symptomes as the prick of a pin in the heart is more mortal then the cutting off of an arm and the same puncture is more perillous when Convulsions thereupon befall the whole body then a wound with a sword in some fleshy part without any accidents so Ignorance and Imprudence are the greatest vices because they possess the most noble Faculty of man the Understanding and produce all the rest At the hour of Inventions a Proposition was reported to draw Smith's-coal out of the lands of this Kingdom and in so doing to cut channels for the draining of Marshes and making rivers Navigable in order to the conveniency of transportation sacilitation of commerce feeding of Cattel and preservation of Forests This Invention besides the advantage it will bring to the meaner sort of people in reference to their domestick fuel is of much benefit for the making of Brick Tile and Lime as much of which may be made thereby in three days as is made in eight or nine with wood which is the ordinary fashion It will be a matter of great saving to the whole Kingdom especially to the abovesaid Artists who are here in great number and are forc'd to buy such Coal from England at dear rates The Proposer offer'd to continue the experience which he had made thereof at his own charges for satisfaction of the curious CONFERENCE XXXVII I. Of the Cabala II. Whether the truth ought always to be spoken I. Of the Cabala THat which hath hapned to many other words as Tyrant and Magician which at their first institution were taken in a good sense but have abusively degenerated into odious significations is found likewise in the word Cabala which according to its genuine importance signifies nothing else but Tradition and comes from the Verb Cabal denoting with the Hebrews to give or receive 'T is a mystical doctrine concerning God and the creatures which the Jews receiv'd by tradition from Father to Son If we may give credit to them it Began in Adam who had a perfect knowledge not only of the whole nature and property of things corporeal but also of the Divine nature of the mysteries of Religion and of the redemption of mankind which his Angel Raziel assur'd him was to come to pass by means of a just man whose name should consist of four letters which is the cause say they that most part of the Hebrew names are of four letters in their language wherein the vowels are no letters Adam taught these mysteries to his children they to their successors until Abraham and the Patriarchs But they say Moses learn'd it anew from the mouth of God during the forty days that he was in the Mount where he receiv'd two Laws one written with the hand of God compriz'd in the two Tables of stone the other not written and more mysterious the former for all in general the latter for the learned and skill'd in mysteries of Religion which is that which Moses taught the seventy Elders of the People chosen by himself according to the counsel of Jethro his Father-in-law and they transfer'd the same to the Prophets Doctors of the Law Scribes Pharisees Rabbines and Cabalists The Second said That in order to judge of the Cabala 't is requisite to know what the Philosophy of the Jews was as the Stoicks Peripateticks Pyrrhonians and other Philosophers had their peculiar Sects 'T is divided commonly into that of things and that of words or names The first is call'd by the Rabbines Bereschit the second Mercana That which treats of things by the Cabalists call'd Sephiroch that is to say numbers or knowledges for with them to number and to know are almost synonymous is either Philosophical or Theological The Philosophical comprehends their Logick Physicks Metaphysicks and Astronomy In Logick they treat of the ten lesser Sephiroth which are so many steps or degrees for attaining to the knowledge of all things by means of Sense Knowledge or Faith and they are divided into three Regions In the lowest which is made by the sense are 1 the Object 2 the Medium or Diaphanum 3 the External sense In the second and middle region are 4 the Internal or common Sense 5 the Imagination or Phancie 6 the Estimative Faculty or inferior Judgement In the third and supream 7 the Superior and Humane Judgement 8 Reason 9 The Intellect 10 and lastly the Understanding or Mens which performs the same office to the Soul that the Eye doth to the Body whom it enlightens For example when I hear a Cannon discharg'd the sound comes to my ears by the medium of the air then the Common Sense receiving this species of the sound transmits the same to the Imagination and the Estimative Faculty judges thereof simply as beasts would do afterwards the Judgement apprehends the essence of the sound Reason searches the causes thereof and the Intellect considers them but lastly the Understanding or Mens call'd by the Cabalists Ceter that is a Crown by way of excellence receiving light from on high irradiates the Intellect and this all the other Faculties And these are the degrees of Cabalistical knowledge In the other parts of their Philosophy they treat of the fifty gates of light Whereof the 1. is the Divine Essence the Symbol of which is the Tetragrammaton and ineffable name of God The 2. gate is the Archetypal World the knowledge of which two gates they say was hid even to Moses The 3. is the Earth 4. Matter 5. Vacuum or Privation 6. The Abysse 7. The Fire 8. The Air 9. The Water 10. The Light 11. The Day 12. Accidents 13. The Night 14. The Evening 15. The Morning And after many other things they constitute Man for the 50th gate To arrive to the knowledge of these 50 gates they have invented 32 Flambeaux or Torches to guide them into the secrets contained therein which they call the paths of Wisdom namely the Intelligence miraculous or occult Intelligence sanctifying resplendent pure dispositive eternal corporeal c. The Theological Cabala treats of God and Angles Of God by expounding the names of 12 and 42 letters yea they attribute seven hundred several ones to him and particularly the ten Divine Attributes which they term the grand Sephiroth namely Infinity Wisdom Intelligence Clemency or Goodness Severity Ornament Triumph Confession of praise Foundation and Royalty whereby God governs all things by weight number and measure Of Angels namely of the 32 abovesaid Intelligences call'd by them the paths of wisdom for they make them so many Angels and of seventy two other
Angels the names they compose of the 19 20 and 21. Verses of the 14. Chapter of Exodus in each of which there being 72 letters they form the name of the first Angel out of the three first letters of each Verse the name of the second out of the three second letters of the same Verses and so the rest adding at the end of every word the names of God Jah or El the former whereof denotes God as he exists and the latter signifies Mighty or Strong God The Cabala which treats of words and names is nothing else but the practice of Grammar Arithmetick and Geometry They divide it into three kinds The first whereof is called Notarickon when of several first or last letters of some word is fram'd a single one as in our Acrosticks The second Gématrie when the letters of one name answer to the letters of another by Arithmetical proportion the Hebrews as well as the Greeks making use of their letters to number withall Whence some Moderns have affirm'd that Christianity will last seven thousand years because the letters of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and of the same value in number with those of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The third is call'd Themurath which is a transposition of letters like that of our Anagrams the most common way of which is to change the last letter of the Alphabet into the first and on the contrary to which kind are referr'd the words and verses which are read backwards such as this opus l I. Deus elati mutatum Itale suedi l supo Thus they prove by the first word of Geneses which is Bereschit that the world was created in Autumn because in this word is found that of Bethisri which signifies Autumn And that the Law ought be kept in the heart because the first letter of the Law is Beth and the last Lamed which two letters being put together and read after their mode which is backwards make Leb which signifies the heart The Third said If the word Cabala be taken for a tradition that is to say the manner in which the Jews made their sacrifices and prayers according to the instruction which they had from Father to Son concerning the same it deserves to be esteem'd for its antiquity although it be abolish'd And the more in regard of the Hieroglyphical and mysterious names of God and Angels which it contains and whereof whosoever should have a perfect and intire knowledge would find nothing impossible 'T was by this means say they that Moses divided the waters of the Red Sea and did so many other miracles because he had written at the end of his Rod the name of Jehovah For if it be true that black Magick can do wonders by the help of malignant spirits why not the Cabala with more reason by means of the names of God and the Angels of light with whom the Cabalists render themselves friends and familias Our Lord seems to confirm the same when he commands his Apostles to make use of his name for casting Devils out of the possessed and to heal diseases as they did and the Church hath done after them to this day The victory of Judas Maccabaeus against the enemies of his Religion hapning by means of a sign of four letters that of Antiochus over the Galatae by a Pentagone that of Constantine the great by the sign of the Cross and the Thau wherewith the Scripture arms the foreheads of the faithful demonstrate that figures are not wholly inefficacious The Critical days of Diseases and the practice of Physitians who administer their Pills in odd number which the Pythagoreans call the masculine number shew likewise that all kind of vertue cannot be deny'd to number and consequently that the Cabala is not to be blam'd for making account of numbers names and figures the knowledge whereof would undoubtedly be most excellent did it not surpass the reach of humane capacity which cannot comprehend the connexion which there is between the name and the thing which it denotes the number and the thing numbred and figure and the thing figured For since the external figure of a man or other animal gives me to know his substance which I see not and the species of this figure entring into my senses suffices to make me conceive the thing without its stirring out of its place why shall not the names and particularly those impos'd on things by our first Parent in the Hebrew language have as necessary a signification and connexion with things as the other accidents which are the objects of our senses And why shall we not believe the same of the letters which represent those names in the same language The Fourth said That the Cabala was either Allegorical or Literal The former was more conjectural but if there be any vertue in characters which signifie nothing with more reason the words syllables and letters which are the visible names of things shall not be without This gave ground to the Cabalists to consider in letters not only their number and Arithmeticall value but also their order proportion harmony magnitudes and Geometrical figures observing whether they be straight crooked or tortuous closed or not thus in one passage where the Messiah is spoken of some have concluded from a Mem which is found closed in the middle of a word contrary to custom that this Messiah should come out of the closed womb of a Virgin contrary to the course of the ordinary birth of men Thus Rabbi Haccadosch in the first letters of these three Hebrew words of Genesis 49. v. 10. Jebo Scilo Velo found those wherewith the Hebrews write the name of our Saviour namely JSV. The Fifth said That we ought to govern our selves in the reading of the Cabalists as Bees do who gather only the good and leave the bad which is more plentiful and above all avoid the loss of time which is employ'd in turning over the tedious volumns of the Thalmudists which are either so unpleasant or their sence so much unknown to us through the envy which they bore to their successors that we may with more reason tear their Books in pieces then a Father did the Satyrs of Perseus saying that since he would not be understood by the surface and out-side like other Writers he would look within whether he were more intelligible II. Whether Truth is always to be spoken Upon the second Point it was said Truth and Justice being reciprocal and the former according to Aristotle a moral Duty it much imports the interest of Government that it be observ'd and kept inviolably not only in contracts and publick actions but also in private discourses and 't is a kind of sacriledge to go about to hide it Moreover 't is one of the greatest affronts that can be put upon a man of honour to give him the lye For as 't is the property of an ingenuous man to avow the Truth freely and not to dissemble so Lying is the sign and
consequent of a servile spirit Hence the Persians were not contented to cause the children of their Kings to be instructed above all things always to speak the truth but they erected Temples and Altars to this Vertue as to a Deity and ador'd it under the name of Oromagdes which signifies the God of Truth And therefore 't is my judgement that truth ought always to be spoken although it be to one's own damage The Second said If it be necessary always to speak truth and that it be the conformity of our words with our thoughts mine is that it is not always to be spoken This Nature teaches us whilest she discovers to us only the surface of the earth but hath hid all the treasures of it as all the parts of man especially the more noble are conceal'd under the skin That which vilifies mysteries is the publishing of them call'd Prophanation That which hinders the effect of State-Counsels whereof secrecy is the soul is the letting of them be discover'd which is Treason That which takes away the credit from all arts and professions is the rendring them common And Physick amongst others knows the advantage of concealment whilst the welfare of the Patient many times depends upon his ignorance Would you see what difference there is between a wise man and a fool a Civil Man and a Clown it do's not consist in knowledge for they oftentimes have the same thoughts and inclinations but the Fool speaks all that he thinks the Wise man doth not as the Clown will declare by Gesture and if he can do every thing that comes into his phancie but the better bred man uses restraint upon himself The Comoedian therefore wanted not reason to say that Truth begets Hatred and the Scripture teaches us that God built houses for the wise Egyptian women who ly'd to Pharaoh when they were commanded to murther the Hebrew children at the birth but obey'd not For though some hold that God pardon'd them the lye in regard of the good office which they render'd to his Church and that 't was for this good office that God dealt well with them yet leaving this subtilety to the Schoolmen 't is evident that their dissimulation was approv'd in this case The Third said There 's great difference between Lying and not speaking all the truth which is expected from us the former being vicious the other not whence S. Athanasius being ask'd by the Arrians who pursu'd him whether he had seen Athanasius told them that he went that way a little while since but did not tell them that himself was the person And S. Francis being ask'd whether he did not see a robber pass by shew'd his sleeve and said that he did not pass that way The Fourth said As only weak and distemper'd eyes are unable to bear the light of the Sun so none but weak and sickly minds cannot suffer the lustre of truth All men are oblig'd to speak it but particularly that which is dictated from God's mouth and we ought rather to choose Martyrdom then renounce the belief of it Less ought they to conceal it who are bound to it by their condition as Preachers and Witnesses provided they have regard to place time and persons Without which circumstances 'tis as inacceptable and absur'd as to carry a Queen to an Ale-house Yet in two cases particularly the telling of truth may be dispens'd with I. when the safety of the Prince or good of the State is concern'd for which Plato in his Commonwealth saith it is lawful to lye sometimes and the Angel Raphael told Tobias that 't is good to hide the secrets of Kings II. When our own life is concern'd or that of our Father Mother and Kindred against whom although we certainly know them guilty of a Crime we are not oblig'd to declare it provided nevertheless that it be with the respect due to the Magistrate and that we beware of speaking lyes whilst we intend onely to decline discovery of the Truth 'T is the opinion of the Civilians and amongst others of Paulus in l. 9. ff de Test. that a Father cannot be constrain'd to bear witness against his Son nor a Son against his Father except in the case of High Treason The Fifth said That these three things must not be confounded To lye To speak or tell a lye and to do or act one To lye is to go against our own meaning as when I know a thing and not onely conceal it but speak the contrary This action according to some is alwayes evil inasmuch say they as 't is never lawful to do evil that good may come of it According to others 't is qualifi'd according to the diversity of its end For he who tells a lye to save a Traveller's life who is pursu'd by Thieves seemes to do better then if he expos'd him to their Cruelty by his discovery The Physitian who dissembles to his Patient the danger of his disease and thinks it enough to acquaint his domesticks therewith do's better then if he cast him into despair by a down-right dismal prognostication and when he chears him up in fitting time and place by some pleasant made Story what he speaks can scarce be reckon'd amongst idle words But he who lyes for his Profit as most Trades-men do sins proportionably to the deceit which he thereby causes but he is most culpable who lyes to the Magistrate One may tell or speak a lye without lying namely when one speaks a false thing conceiving it to be true To do or speak a lye is to lead a life contrary to ones profession as he who preaches well and lives ill Whence I conclude that many precautions are requisite to lye without committing an offence that a lye is to be spoken as little as possible and never to be done or acted at all CONFERENCE XXXVIII I. Of the Period called Fits of Fevers II. Of Friendship I. Of the Fits of Agues A Fever is a Heat contrary to Nature kindled in the Heart and from thence sent by the Arteries and Veins into the whole Body with a manifest laesion or disturbance of the action It is so inseparable from the Heart in case of any injury that being we cannot dye without the Heart be mis-affected therefore many have thought that we cannot dye without a Fever though 't were of a violent death And for that there are three subjects which receive this Heat viz. the Parts the Humours and the Spirits thence ariseth the distinction of Fevers into three kinds the Hectick the Humoral and the Ephemera or One-day Fever The first is in the solid parts and is call'd Hectick or Habitual because it resides in the whole habit of the Body and is of very long continuance yea ordinarily lasts till Death The second call'd Humoral is when the Humours are enflam'd either through a bare excess of Heat without other alteration in their substance or with corruption and putrefaction which happens most frequently The third
as it is very excellent so 't is exceeding rare and being not us'd amongst us cannot come into comparison with the rest Whereas Sculpture and Statuary consisting only in paring away the overplus of matter or if the matter be fusible in casting it into a mould made from the original as the moulds of Plaster are from the faces of persons newly deceas'd need less industry The Second said Although Painting be sensible and visible yet it belongs to very few persons to judge well of it witness Alexander who going to see Appelles and offering to talk concerning Painting he spoke so ill that the Apprentices of that Artist could not forbear laughing Indeed Painting is one of the noblest parts of the Mechanicks and ought as well to be rank'd amongst the Mathematicks as Astronomy For if the reason of the Celestial motions gave cause for accounting this Science amongst the Mathematicks more justly may the reason of the motions and proportions of mans body the object of Painting more admirable and of which more certain and real knowledge may be had then of those remote bodies deserves to be of that rank considering that it makes use of the same Mathematical Rules Proportions whose Rules are so infallible that seven excellent Statuaries very distant one from the other being employ'd to make a brazen Colossus perform'd their tasks by the precepts of their Art and the parts which each of them made severally being put together represented a well proportion'd man According to which proportion a mans body must be eight lengths of his head from the less corner of the eye to the tip of the Ear is to be twice the length of the Eye the Feet and Hands stretch'd forth equally distant from the Navil and such other remarks The Third said The reason of the measures and proportions observ'd in Painting consists principally in four points viz. in the form and figure of the thing represented which is taken from the visual rays in the shadow which is to be taken from the rays of light in colour which is to imitate the natural and in the handsome posture or situation of the thing painted For Painting is the imitation of the affections of bodies with reference to the light made upon a solid Plane Hence a face is otherwise represented under the water then bare distant then neer in the Sun-shine then in the shadow by Candle-light or Moon-light And though the Painter represents also the dispositions of the soul as anger or sadness yet he doth it always by the features and qualities of the body The Fourth said They who blame Painting and Statuary because they represent unfitting objects and gave occasion to the Idolatry of antiquity may as justly blame beauty because 't is sometimes the occasion of sinning Painting hath this preeminence above all Arts that it imitates God more perfectly then they for God was the first Painter when he made man the goodliest piece of the world after his own image and likeness and all the bless'd spirits are but contracted copies of so perfect an original 'T is that which frees the body from the tombe and like a second table after shipwrack preserves the memory of virtuous men renders present those who are absent and makes almost as strong impressions upon our Soul as the thing it self witnesse the friendships of the greatest personages of the world contracted by its means And as if the desire of pourtraying it self were natural to all things there is no body but incessantly produces its own image which flies and wanders in the Air till it meet with some solid and smooth body whereon to represent it self as we see in Looking-glasses and polish'd marble where the images are much more exact then those which Art draws with a pencil yea then their own originals of whose corporeal matter they are wholly divested And as the beginning of all Arts are rude this of Painting is attributed to the Daughter of Belus who observing her Fathers shadow upon a wall delineated it with a coal For Pourtraiture invented by Philocles the Aegyptian is ancienter then Painting invented either by Gyges the Lydian in Aegypt according to Pliny or by Pyrhus Cousin to Daedalus according to Aristotle The Fifth said That in Painting as in other disciplines Ignorance of the principles is the cause that so few succeed well in it These principles are the methodical proportion of Mans Body Perspective the reason of shadows Natural Colours Designing and History all which must be found in a good Piece and the defect of some of them as it frequently happens causes us to wonder though we know not the reason that there is commonly something in all draughts that does not satisfie our Minds For oftentimes when all the rest is good Perspective hath not been well observ'd or the Design is nought or the History ill follow'd But as things are the more to be esteem'd which are the most simple so there is more of wonder in Painting to the life with a coal as Appelles did before Ptolomy to denote a person to him whom he could not name then with colours the least part of Painting which consists properly onely in proportion and this being the most divine action of Understanding 't is no wonder if there be so few good Painters For they are mistaken who place the excellence of painting in the smallness of the strokes because they fancy that Appelles was discover'd to Protogenes by having made a smaller line then he For on the contrary the most excellent strokes of Masters are many times the grossest and that this proportion may be exact it must imitate not onely particular subjects but generally the species of every thing Which Michel Caravague neglecting to do about 90. years since and instead of following Durer's excellent Rules addicting himself to draw onely after the life hath lead the way to all his successors who care not for his Rules but give themselves onely to imitation and this is the cause of the defects of painting at this day CONFERENCE LIX I. Of Light II. Of Age. I. Of Light I Conceive with a learned Physitian of the most worthy Chancellor that France ever had in his Treatise of this subject that Light is of two sorts one radical and essential which is found perfectly in the Stars the fire and some other subjects but imperfectly in colour'd bodies because Colour is a species of Light The other secondary and derivative which is found in bodies illuminated by the Light Both are made in Transparent Bodies those of the Stars in the Heaven and that of flame and bodies ignited in the fire whiteness in the Air and blackness in the Water But these transparent bodies must be condens'd that those Lights and Colours may appear and therefore the principle of Light is in transparence alone whereof neither purity rarity tenuity nor equality of surfaces are the causes but they all proceed from the quantity of matter some bodies having more matter then others
not by rarity alone or local extension but by formal extension or internal quantity and consequently that a little matter under a great internal quantity is the principle cause of tenuity rarity and transparence to which the evenness of surfaces is also requisite in gross bodies So that Light consists in a proportion between the quantity and the matter of its subject and Light is great when the matter is little under a great quantity as in the Heavens on the contrary the body is dark when a very small quantity is joyn'd to a great deal of matter as is seen in the Earth To prove this you must observe that all simple bodies are luminous excepting the Earth which is opake and we find Light in sundry animated bodies as in the Eyes of Cats and of those Indian Snailes which shine like torches and in our Gloe-wormes whose Light proceeds from their Spirits which being of a middle nature between the Body and the Soul are the least material thing in the world Whence it follows that Light is a form with the most of essence amongst sensible formes as obscurity hath the least The Second said The wonder of Marsilius Ficinus was with reason how 't was possible that nothing should be so obscure as Light For if Transparence be the subject of it why doth Crystal heated red hot in the fire come forth more luminous and less transparent then it was The same may be said of Rarity for we see that Air and Aqua Vitae are well rarify'd by the fire which inflames them but cease to be transparent as soon as they are made more rare and luminous which is an evident sign that rarity and transparence are not causes nor yet conditions of Light So the whole remainder of Heaven is lucid but onely the less rare parts and such as you might call vapours in respect of the pure Air. And the light which proceeds from the Sun the most luminous of all those celestial bodies would never be visible but be depriv'd of all its effects which are heating and enlightning if it were not reflected by some solid body Then it not onely appears but exerts its activity And if things be produc'd by the same causes which preserve and multiply them the solidity of burning mirrors made of Steel the hardest of all metals which make the Sun-beams do more then their own nature empowers them to shews sufficiently that their Light cannot arise from a rare and diaphanous cause Nor may the Light of rotten wood be assign'd to its rarity alone since many other bodies of greater rarity shine not at all nor that of Gloe-worms and Cats Eyes to their spirits since the flesh of some animals shines after their death as 't is affirm'd of Oxen that have frequently eaten a sort of Moon-wort and not onely the scales of divers fishes shine after separation from their bodies but sparkles of fire issue from the hair of some persons in great droughts whereunto the spirits contribute nothing Which would perswade me to believe that Light is a Form to the introduction whereof several conditions are requisite according to the diversity of subjects just as we see the Souls of some irrational creatures need great dispositions for their reception a Brain a Heart and a Liver with their dependances whereas others as Insects require lesse and are contented with something that may supply this defect some are generated in an instant without any apparent preparation as Frogs in a summer showre and therefore to assign the cause of Light is to seek the reason of Formes which is unknown to us Which similitude the vulgar speech confirmes for the people say The Candle is dead when it is extinguish'd presupposing that it had life before as an Animal hath so long as its form is conjoyn'd with its body Moreover Fire hath a Locall Motion as Animals have to obtain its food The Third said Light is a substance for it was created by God but 't is a Sixth Essence more subtile then that of Heaven which is call'd a Quintessence in respect of the Four Elements A substance which subsisted before the Sun having been created three dayes before it and nothing hinders but it may be communicated in a moment from Heaven to Earth since the intentional species of visible things is so Indeed whereunto shall we attribute the effect of Light which heats at distance and blinds being too great which colours and gives ornament to the Universe if it be not a substance And the Penetration of Dimension objected hereunto is salv'd by saying that it hath no more place here then when an Iron is red hot with the Fire which yet none will affirm to be an accident and neverthelesse it enters into the whole substance of the Iron and Light with it for 't is transparent and luminous at its centre when 't is throughly heated in the Fire The Fourth said The excellence of Light appears in that nothing hath greater resemblance with the Deity Which made some Heathen Philosophers say that Light is Gods Body and Truth his Soul Moreover the Scripture teaches us that God dwells in inaccessible Light And the blessed Spirits are stil'd Angels of Light as Daemons Spirits of darknesse Light enlivens and animates all things it rejoyces all Creatures by its presence Birds begin to sing and even flowers to display their beauties at its arrival And because Nothing gives what it hath not therefore some have conceiv'd that Light the enlivener of all the world is it self indu'd with life and that 't is the Universal Spirit and the Soul of the whole world Whence Plato in his timaeus brings no other argument to prove that Fire is an Animal but that it is luminous And in the sixth Book of his Common-wealth he makes the Sun who is the known Father of all living things the son of Light without which Pythagoras forbad to do any thing Moreover it hath no contrary Darkness being oppos'd to it onely privatively For its being is so excellent that Nature found not her self so able to make any thing that might be equall'd with it that might alter and corrupt it as the nature of Contraries require whereas all Qualities have each their particular enemy And 't is upon this very reason that Light acts in an instant because having no contrary quality to expel from its subject it needs no time or successive motion which is necessary to other qualities as to heat to warm cold water The Fifth said Light is a real form produc'd in the medium by a luminous body Aristotle calls it the act of the Perspicuum as it is Perspicuum This Form is accidental and falls under the head of Patible Qualities because 't is sensible by it self which is the property of accidents alone whereas substance is not sensible that is falls not under the perception of sense but by means of accidents and as it is the principle of action which belongs onely to a Quality For it cannot
oblig'd by right of their birth to pay to it but in requital for the same they have a Proverb against them That a rolling stone gathers no moss they little improve their fortunes The Third said Every Nation produces not every thing and all climates have inhabitants excelling in some particulars Since therefore there 's no such learning as by examples and travels afford the most it follows that it 's necessary for an ingenuous man to survey foreign manners institutions customs laws religions and such other things upon which moral prudence is superstructed Whence Homer calls his wise Vlysses the Traveller and Visiter of Cities Moreover 't was practis'd in all ages not only by our ancient Nobility under the name of Knights errant but also by the greatest personages of antiquity Pythagoras Socrates Plato Pliny Hippocrates and we ow to the Voyages of Columbus Vesputius Magellane and some others the discovery of America and other new Lands formerly unknown and abundance of Drugs and Medicaments especially Gold and Silver before so rare not to mention the commodities of commerce which cannot be had without Voyages The Fourth said That for seven vagabond errant Stars all the rest of the firmament are fix'd and stable sending no malignant influence upon the earth as the Planets do And the Scripture represents Satan to us as a Traveller when he answers God in Job to the question whence he came I come from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it The Fifth said We must distinguish persons places times and other circumstances pertaining to voyages For if you except Embassies in which the good of the State drowns all other considerations those that would travel must be young and strong rich and well born to get any good by their travels otherwise they will be but like sick persons who receive no ease but rather inconvenience by tumbling and stirring the injudicious and imprudent returning commonly worse then they went because they distract their minds here and there Of which one troubled with the same disease of travelling asking Socrates the reason he answer'd him that 't was because he did not leave himself behind when he chang'd place and that he ought to change his mind and not the air in order to become wise it being impossible but he that is a fool in one Country can become wise by passing Seas and running from one Province to another As for places 't is certain that before the voyages of Italy and some other climates the disease of Naples and other worse things were not only not so much as heard but most contagious diseases have by this means been transfer'd into the remotest Countries So that if ever it were reasonable for a man to be wise at another's cost 't is in the matter of travels in which those that have perform'd most commonly bring home no other fruit but a troublesome talkativeness wherewith they tire peoples ears and a sad remembrance of what they have suffer'd CONFERENCE LXXXVIII I. Which is the best sect of Philosophers II. Whence comes the diversity of proper names I. Which is the best Sect of Philosophers ONe of the greatest signs of the defects of the humane mind is that he seldom accomplishes his designs and often mistakes false for true Hence ariseth the incertainty and variety in his judgements For as there is but one straight line from one point to another so if our judgements were certain they would be always alike because Truth is one and conformable to it self whereas on the contrary Error is always various This variety is of two sorts one of the thing the other of the way to attain it For men were no sooner secur'd from the injuries of the air and provided for the most urgent necessities of the body but they divided themselves into two bands Some following outward sense contented themselves with the present Others would seek the causes of effects which they admir'd that is to say Philosophize But in this inquisition they became of different judgements some conceiving the truth already found others thinking it could never be found and others labouring in search of it who seem to have most right to the name of Philosophers The diversity of the way to arrive to this truth is no less For according as any one was prone to vice or vertue humility or pride the probable cause of diversity of Sects he establish'd one sutable to his own inclination to judge well of which a man must be of no party or at least must love the interest of truth most of all But the question is which is Truth no doubt that which comes neerest the Judge's sentiment and has gain'd his favour as Venus did the good will of Paris And because the goodness of a thing consists in its sutableness the contemplative man will judge Plato's Philosophy better then that of Socrates which one delighted with action and the exercise of vertues will prefer before all others the indifferent will give the preeminence to that of the Peripateticks who have conjoyn'd contemplation with action And yet speaking absolutely 't is impossible to resolve which is the best of all For as we cannot know which is the greatest of two lines but by comparing them to some known magnitude So neither can we judge which is the best Sect of Philosophers unless it be agreed wherein the goodness of Philosophy consider'd absolutely consists Now 't is hard to know what this goodness is unless we will say 't is God himself who as he is the measure of all beings so he is the rule of their goodness So that the best Philosophy will be that which comes neerest that Supream Goodness as Christian Philosophy doth which consists in the knowledge of one's self and the solid practice of vertues which also was that of S. Paul who desir'd to nothing but Jesus and him crucifi'd which he calls the highest wisdom although it appear folly in the eyes of men The Second said That the first and ancientest Philosophy is that of the Hebrews call'd Cabala which they divided into that of Names or Schemot and of things call'd by them Sephiroth Whose excellency Josephus against Appion proves because all other Philosophies have had Sects but this always remain'd the same and would lose its name if it were not transmitted from Father to Son in its integrity 'T was from this Cabala that Pythagoras and Plato sirnamed Moses Atticus took their Philosophy which they brought into Greece as 't was from the Indian Brachmans and Gymnosophists that Pythagoras took his Metempsychosis and abstinence from women and animals and learn'd weights and measures formerly unknown in Greece Some of these Indian Philosophers use to stand upon one foot all day beholding the Sun and had so great respect for every thing indu'd with a soul that they bought birds and other animals and if any were sick kept them in hospitals till they were cur'd and then set them free The Persians
but one life to lose yet this action could not pass for a virtue since Fortitude appears principally in sufferings and miseries which to avoid by death is rather cowardize and madness then true courage Wherefore the Poet justly blames Ajax for that after he had overcome Hector despis'd fire and flames yet he could not subdue his own choler to which he sacrific'd himself And Lucretia much blemish'd the lustre of her chastity by her own murder for if she was not consenting to Tarquin's crime why did she pollute her hands with the blood of an innocent and for the fault which another had committed punishments as well as offences being personal He who kills himself only through weariness of living is ingrateful for the benefits of nature of which life is the chief if he be a good man he wrongs his Country by depriving it of one and of the services which he owes to it as he wrongs Justice if he be a wicked person that hath committed some crime making himself his own witness Judge and Executioner Therefore the Prince of Poets places those in hell who kill'd themselves and all Laws have establish'd punishments against them depriving them of sepulture because saith Egesippus he that goes out of the world without his father's leave deserves not to be receiv'd into the bosom of his mother the earth I conclude therefore that the ignorant dreads death the timerous fears it the fool procures it to himself and the mad man executes it but the wise attends it The Third said That the generous resolution of those great men of antiquity ought rather to have the approbation then the scorn of a reasonable mind and 't is proper to low spirits to censure the examples which they cannot imitate 'T is not meet because we are soft to blame the courage of a Cato who as he was tearing his own bowels could not forbear laughing even while his soul was upon his lips for joy of his approaching deliverance nor the constancy of a Socrates who to shew with what contentedness he received death convers'd with it and digested what others call its bitterness without any trouble the space of forty days Sextius and Cleanthes the Philosopher follow'd almost the same course Only they had the more honour for that their deaths were purely voluntary For the will forc'd by an extrinsecal cause performs nothing above the vulgar who can obey the laws of necessity but when nothing forces us to dye but our selves and we have good cause for it this death is the most gallant and glorious Nor is it injust as is pretended any more then the Laws which suffer a man to cut off his leg for avoiding a Gangrene Why should not the Jugular Vein be as well at our choice as the Median For as I transgress not the Laws against Thieves when I cut my own Purse nor those against Incendiaries when I burn my own wood so neither am I within the Laws made against murtherers by depriving my self of life 't is my own good which I abandon the thred which I cut is my own And what is said that we are more the publick's then our own hath no ground but in our pride which makes us take our selves for such necessary pieces of the world as not to be dismember'd from it without a noble loss to that great body Besides were we so usefull to the world yet our own turn must be first serv'd Let us live then first for our selves if it be expedient next for others but when life becomes worse then death let us quit it as we do an inconvenient or unbecoming garment Is it not a sign of generosity to make Gouts Stones Aches and all other Plagues of life yield to the stroke of a victorious hand which alone blow puts an end to more maladies then all the simples of Galen and the Antidotes of Avicenna The Fourth said He could not approve the determination of the Stoicks who say that vulgar souls live as long as they can those of the wise as long as 't is fit departing out of life as we do from the table or from play when we are weary That the examples of Priseia who accompani'd her husband in death of Piso who dy'd to save his children of Sextus's daughter who kill'd her self for her father of Zeno who did as much to avoid the incommodities of old age which made it pass for piety at Rome a long time to cast decrepit old men head-long from a Bridge into Tiber are as culpable as he who surrenders a place when he is able to defend it For whereas Plato exempts such from the punishment against sui-cides who committed it to avoid infamy or intolerable necessity and what Pliny saith that nature hath for this end produc'd so many poysonous Plants for five or six sorts of Corn that there is but one way to enter into the world but infinite to go out of it the imputing it to stupidity not to go out of a prison when one hath the key adding that 't is lawful to execute that which 't is lawful to desire as S. Paul did his own death yea the example which is alledged of Sampson of Razias and of eleven thousand Virgins who precipitated themselves into the sea to save their chastity in the Church are effects of a particular inspiration not to be drawn into consequence and out of it examples of rage and despair disguis'd with the mask of true fortitude and magnanimity which consists chiefly in supporting evils as the presidents of so many religious souls attest to us CONFERENCE XC I. Of Hunting II. Which is to be prefer'd the weeping of Heraclitus or the laughing of Democritus I. Of Hunting IF the least of goods hath its attractions 't is no wonder if Hunting wherein are comprehended the three sorts of good honest profitable and delightful have a great interest in our affection being undoubtely preferrable before any other exercise either of body or mind For Play Women Wine and all the pleasure which Luxury can phancy in superfluity of Clothes Pictures Flowers Medals and such other passions not unfitly nam'd diseases of the soul are divertisements either so shameful or so weak that they cannot enter into comparison with hunting so honest that it hath been always the recreation of great persons whose martial courage us'd to be judg'd of by their inclination to this sport which Xenophon calls the apprentisage of War and recommends so much to Cyrus in his Institution as Julius Pollux doth to the Emperour Commodus It s profitableness is chiefly discern'd in that it renders the body dextrous and active preserves health and by inuring it to labour makes a firm constitution hindring it from being delicate consumes the superfluous humours the seeds of most diseases Lastly the pleasure of Hunting must needs be great since it makes the Hunters think light of all their pains and incommodities The mind has its pleasure in it by hope of the prey in such as