contrary maintain'd that all things were done by Chance in the Universe which they said it self was made by the casual occourse of their Atoms these denying the Providence of God those his Power by subjecting and tying him to the immutable Laws of Fatality But without considering things in reference to God to whom every thing is present and certain we may distinguish them into two sorts Some acting necessarily have alwayes their necessary effects others which depend absolutely upon Man's Will which is free and indifferent have accordingly Effects incertain and contingent Thus the accidents of the Sea where the vulgar believes is the chief Empire of Fortune natural deaths the births of poor and rich have regular and necessary Causes On the contrary Goods freely given or acquir'd with little industry or found have contingent Causes which being almost infinite for there is no Cause by it self but may be a Cause by accident by producing another thing than what was intended they cannot fall within the knowledge of Humane Wit which knows onely what is finite and terminate Other Events have Causes mixt of Chance and Necessity as the death of the Poet Aeschylus hapning by a Tortoise which an Eagle let fall upon his bald Head As for the second manner wherein Happiness may be consider'd namely Whether it render us happy in Reality or in Imagination 't is an accusing all Men of folly to say that Felicity is imaginary and phantastical since Nature which hath given no Desire in vain as she should have done if she had caus'd us to desire a thing that exists not makes all Men aspire to the one and fear the other There must be an Absolute Happiness as well as an Absolute Good namely the possession of this Good as that of Existence is which being the foundation of all Goods must be a Real and Absolute Good Virtue and the Honor attending it being likewise true and solid Goods their possession must adferr a semblable Felicity the verity and reality is no more chang'd by not being equally gusted by all than the savour of Meat or the Beauty of Light would be by not being perceiv'd by a sick or a blind person Yea as he that ha's a rough Diamond is not less the possessor or less rich for not knowing the value of it so he that possesses some Good ought not to be accounted less happy though he think not himself so Moreover 't would be as absurd to call a Man happy or unhappy because he thinks himself so as to believe a fool is a King or Rich because he phansies himself to have Empires and Riches The Fifth said That Happiness which is rather an Effect of our Genius as the examples of Socrates and Simonides prove than of our Temperament much less of the Stars and their influences depends not onely upon the possession of some Good or the belief a Man hath that he possesses it but upon both together namely upon the reflexion he makes upon the Good which he really possesses for want of which Children Fools Drunkards and even the Wise themselves whilst they are a sleep cannot be call'd Happy CONFERENCE CXXXVI Of the Original of Precious Stones A Stone which is defin'd a Fossile hard dry and frangible body is either common or precious Both are compounded of the Four Elements chiefly of Water and Earth but diversly proportion'd and elaborated Coarse Stones are made with less preparation their proximate matter being onely much Earth and little Water whereof is made a sort of Clay which being dry'd by Nature is hardned into a Stone Precious Stones have more of Water and less of Earth both very pure and simple whence proceeds their Lustre which attends the simplicity of the Elements and exactly mixt by Heat which concocting the aqueous humidity purifies and sublimes the same to a most perfect degree by help of that Universal Spirit where-with the Earth and whole world is fill'd on which account the Pythagoreans esteemed it a great Animal The Second said Three things are to be consider'd in reference to the original of Stones their matter their efficient cause and the place of their generation Their remote matter is Earth and Water which two Elements alone give bulk and consistence but their next matter concern'd in the Question is a certain lapidifick juice supplying the place of Seed and often observ'd dropping down from rocks which if thick and viscous makes common stones if subtil and pure the precious Now this juice not only is turn'd it self into stone but likewise turns almost all other Bodies as Wood Fruits Fishes the Flesh of Animals and such other things which are petrifi'd in certain Waters and Caves Their remote efficient cause is Heat which severing heterogeneous bodies unites those of the same nature whereof it makes the said homogeneous juice which is condens'd by cold which giving the last form and perfection to the stone is its proximate efficient cause Lastly their place is every where in the middle region of the Air which produces Thunder-bolts in the Sea which affords Coral of a middle nature between Stone and Plant and Pearls in their shells which are their wombs by means of the Dew of Heaven in Animals in Plants and above all in the Earth and its Mines or Matrices which are close spaces exempt from the injuries of Air Water or other external Agents which might hinder their production either by intermixtion of some extraneous body or by suffering the Mineral Spirits serving to the elaboration of the Stones to transpire The Third said Precious Stones produc'd for Ornament as Metals are for Use of life are of three sorts namely either bright and resplendent as the Diamond Ruby Crystal Amethyst or a little obscure as the Turquois Jasper and other middle ones without perfect lustre as the Opal and all Pearls And as the matter of common Stones is Earth the principle of Darkness so that of the precious is an aqueous diaphanous humour congeal'd by the coldness of water or earth or by the vicinity of Ice and Snow which inviron Mountains and Rocks where commonly their Mines are found and amongst others Crystal which is as 't were the first matter of other precious Stones and the first essay of Nature when she designs to inclose her Majesty in the lustre of the most glittering Jewels is nothing else but humidity condens'd by cold Whence a violent heat such as that of Furnaces resolves and melts it Moreover the effects attributed to these Stones as to stop blood allay the fumes of wine and resist hot poysons argue them caus'd only by cold which also gives them weight by condensation of their parts The Fourth said If Crystals and Stones were produc'd only by cold they could not be generated in the Isles of Cyprus the red Sea and other Southern parts but only in the Northern where nevertheless they are most rare there being Mountains where cold hath preserv'd Ice for divers Ages without ever being converted into
which consists in Mediocrity either extreme whereof is the Territory of Vice CONFERENCE CIII I. Of Glass II. Of Fucusses or Cosmeticks AS there is in all sublunary Bodies a vital and celestial Spirit without which neither Food nor Physick hath any virtue and which is the principle of all actions and motions of mix'd Bodies so all those Bodies have in them an incorruptible Matter partaking of a celestial Nature which the Chymists call Virgin-Earth and is the Matter whereof Glass is form'd being found in all sorts of Bodies capable of calcination and vitrification but chiefly in Nitre Saltpetre Sand Shels certain Stones Wood and Plants from which they draw Glass different in beauty according to the Matter whence it is extracted by means of a most violent fire which resolving the compound consumes all its parts except that vitreous matter which is proof against its violence We owe its Invention by Pliny's testimony to certain Merchants of Nitre who having landed in Phoenicia of Syria bordering upon Judaea near a Lake call'd Cendevia which is at the foot of Mount Carmel whence flows the River Belus or Pagida of small extent and making their Kitchin upon the Sand of this River us'd some clods of their Nitre as a Trevet for their Kettle and the heat of the fire melting the Sand and Nitre into Glass they took notice of it and publish'd the Invention Afterward Moulds were found out wherein to cast it into all sorts of figures Pipes or Tubes to run it in others to blow it and give it all sorts of Colours which almost miraculously arise from the very substance of the Glass without other mixture only by the wind and blast manag'd according to the rules of Art as also Mills to calcine and pulverise Gravel Stones or Sand amongst which that of Vilturne in Italy and of Estampes in France is most excellent for this use for which likewise they imploy the Ashes of a Plant call'd Salicot Salt-wort or Glass-wort which grows in Provence and Languedoc nam'd likewise Soude because heretofore it serv'd only to glase earthen Pots The Second said As there are but two things that can open Bodies in order to their separation namely Water and Fire which is verifi'd by the proofs made by Refiners of Gold and Silver so there are but two things to separate to wit the Volatil and the Fix'd Fire commonly separates the Volatil such as sulphureous and aqueous things are and Water separates the Fix'd as the Salt from the earthy parts Of Fix'd things some are so in part as the same Salt others intirely or altogether as Earth which is either slimy clayie or sandie which last species is made of the two former as is seen in Rivers where the Water having wash'd away the fat part nothing remains but the Sand By which means Nature renders Valleys and low Places more fruitful and men by her example have oftentimes rais'd meliorated and render'd low and marshy places formerly unprofitable fit for culture by stirring the Earth during the Rain and Floods which by this means carries away all the fat and unctuous parts from the higher places into the lower rendring the Mountains and Hills sandy and consequently unfruitful and barren For as Sand is incorruptible being neither putrifi'd by Water nor consum'd by Fire so neither can it generate any thing nor be turn'd into any other nature like other species of the Earth which serve for nutriment of Plants and some Insects and for the production of Animals On the contrary it preserves things buried in it as appears by Mummies kept in it for two or three thousand years and Fruits which are kept no way better than in Sand. Now as Sand is the Matter of Glass for any Sand melted in the Fire vitrifies so Glass suits with the nature of its Principle being like it incorruptible and eternal yea being it self one of the Principles of Nature according to modern Chymists who reckon four namely Mercury resembling Water Sulphur or Oyl corresponding to Air Salt to Fire and Glass to Earth which Glass is found clean and pure in the centre of all mix'd Bodies there being nothing but may be reduc'd into ashes and no ashes but of which Glass may be made which they call a shining and not burning Fire having affinity with that of Heaven as the Fire kindled in Sulphur and any oylie Matter is both burning and shining and that which is in Lime and Salts is burning and not shining such as is seen in Potential Cauteries but not as others have said in Coals which have some although a weak light Glass wants but one thing and that is the removing its brittleness or fragility were it not for which it would be the most precious thing in the World Of the possibility hereof a certain Artist having shewn a tryal to Tiberius hath rais'd a desire in others to make like attempts which have hitherto been unsuccessful Moreover the Transparence of Glass caus'd by the simplicity and tenuity of its parts is incompetible with the consistence which renders things ductile and malleable which is a tenacious viscosity and oleaginous humidity from whence opacity proceeds as appears by Horns and colour'd Glass which is less transparent then other by reason of the unctuosity of the Sulphur employ'd to give it that extraneous colour The Third said That Archimedes in his Fabrick of a Glass-Sphere was as judicious in reference to the matter he chose as the form since the Matter of the Heavens being incorruptible and diaphanous they cannot be represented better than by Glass which hath both those qualities Moreover all the perfectest Bodies of Nature are of a vitreous substance as amongst others the first of all the Heavens call'd the Crystalline 'T is held That the glorified Bodies are luminous and transparent and according to some of a vitreous Nature which is the utmost perfection of every Body and shall be also communicated to the Earth at the last Judgment to be executed by Fire which brings Mettals to their highest degree of excellence for by the help of Lead Gold it self is turn'd into Glass so pure and perfect that in the Apocalyps Paradise is pav'd with such Glass of Gold and in Ezechiel God's Throne is made of it the word Hamal being a fit Etymologie for our Esmah or Enamel which is nothing but Glass And the affinity or correspondence of Mettals with Glass is so great that like them it is extracted out of Sand elaborated in a Furnace receiving the alliances of Nitre Copper and the Load-stone which they mingle in its Mine to get an attractive quality of Glass as well as of Iron With purifi'd Glass call'd Sal Alcali they counterfeit the Diamond Emerald Turcoise Ruby and other precious Stones The Eye it self the noblest part of Man symbolises with Glass by that crystalline humour wherein the point of the visual ray terminates But as all things in the World like Fortune which governs them whom the Poet describes of
are utter'd as soon as thought and hence when we see those fine Discourses in Writing which ravish'd all the World in the Chair and at the Bar we are oftentimes asham'd of having admir'd them Which perhaps as much or more kept Cicero from letting his Orations be read in his youth as his pretended excuse of reserving to himself the liberty of contradicting himself Wherefore there being more to be learn'd in a well-digested and exact Piece Writing which is ordinarily such must also be more proper for Instruction Which is so true in the Mathematicks to which alone the name of Discipline belongs that none ever presum'd either to teach or learn them by Speech alone The Third said That a good Comparison must be of things alike and so if we compare Speech and Writing it must be in respect of two things equally perfect in their kind as an exact Discourse and an exact Writing You must also bring two capacities of the same pitch and they must have equal time to learn the same thing in which case the circumstances being the same there 's no doubt but Speech is more advantageous thereunto than Writing which is not absolutely necessary as the Voice is without which the latter is unserviceable he who reads being unable to understand any thing unless he hath already heard it spoken of Hence one naturally deaf is uncapable not only of the Sciences but also of the use of Reason yea of Speech too Whereas on the contrary some born blind and who consequently never read have nevertheless prov'd very learned And this prae-eminence of Speech above Writing appears especially in that the latter cannot be expressed without the former Whence some justly doubt whether dead Languages even such as are most familiar to us as Greek and Latine are not lost as to their best part their pronunciation So that the Greeks and Latines of Demosthenes and Cicero's time would possibly no more understand us speaking Greek and Latine than those of the present Age Whence 't would not be knowing of things to know them only by Books by which also none ever learn'd Languages but only by Speech The Fourth said That this Question admits not of an absolute determination in regard of the different capacities of Teachers and Learners as also of the Arts or Disciplines which are learn'd For nimble Heads and impatient of Labour such as the Cholerick and Sanguine commonly are suit better with Vocal Instructions than with Reading which on the contrary is more pleasing and profitable to the Melancholy and Phlegmatick who take more time for reflection and meditation upon what they read Again Such Disciplines as consist chiefly in Contemplation as Divinity Natural Philosophy the pure Mathematicks together with those which require great Memory as History and Law have more need of Reading But those that consist in Action are better learn'd by Speech which hath more affinity with action and sets it out better Such is Oratory the practical part of Physick and Law Mechanick Arts and Handicrafts which 't is impossible to learn by Books although one may be render'd more perfect therein by them CONFERENCE CXIIII I. Of the Milky-Way II. Which is most powerful Gold or Iron THis Tract of the Sky is call'd the Milky-way from its whiteness and having breadth is rather a Superficies than a Circle although commonly so term'd It passeth quite round the Heaven and so like the great Circles is divisible into 360 degrees but differs from them in that it passeth not precisely through the Center of the World but deviates something from it It cuts the Heaven into two Hemispheres to wit at this time making one of the Sections at the last degrees of Taurus and beginning of Gemini and the other opposite to it at the end of Scorpio and beginning of Sagittary at which place 't is narrower by about two degrees than at Gemini where it hath ten degrees of breadth wherein it differs in several places making such windings as Rivers have and contracting or enlarging and dividing it self in some places as particularly neer Cygnus beyond the Tropick of Cancer where it makes two Branches one of which ends neer the Aequator by the side of Serpentarius the other passing between Sagittary and Scorpio by the feet of the Centaure cross the Ship Argo where 't is broadest goes by the Unicorn over the head of Leo to the feet of Gemini from whence crossing Bootes Perseus and Cassiopaea it returns to Cygnus To speak nothing of the Poets Fables who say That when Juno suckled Hercules and discover'd who 't was she spilt her Milk here or That 't is the space of Heaven which the Sun's Chariot burnt by the ill driving of Phaeton That 't is the place where Apollo fought with the Giants or by which he return'd towards the East to avoid seeing the crime of Thyestes or else the Road of the Gods leading to Jupiter's Palace the Residence of Heroes the Mansion of the Virtues the High-way of Souls and such other Fables Such as have thought it the Light of the Stars whose Splendour the Sun cannot Eclipse by reason of the Earths interposition in the night-time were greatly mistaken For there are no Stars but what are enlightned by the Sun who being 166 times bigger than the Earth 't is demonstrated by the Opticks That when an opake Body is plac'd before a luminous Body greater than it the Rays of the luminous Body are united beyond the shadow which was made by the opake Body as the Sun's Rays meet again beyond the Earth's shadow which reacheth no further than the sphere of Mercury much less to the Starry Heaven to hinder the Sun's Light from passing thither this Sphere being distant 2081 Semidiameters each of which makes 860 German Leagues Those who say 'T is the place where the Element of Fire transpires and purges its fuliginosities or else a sort of Fire denser than the Elementary are as little credible as those others who think the Sun sometimes made his course in this Milky-way as he doth now in the Zodiack in which nevertheless he leaves no print of combustion or light Much less Theophrastus who said 'T was the conglutination and soader of the two Hemispheres and that at the place where they are united and soader'd together this brightness appears different from the rest of Heaven But I conceive it to be nothing else but a part of Heaven more dense and consequently more luminous than the others For Heaven having a radical Light the denser and closer its parts are they are the more luminous as appears by the Stars which are the denser parts of their Orb not visible in regard of its rarity and by Water part of which condens'd by cold reflects the Light and appears white the remainder of liquid Water abiding transparent The Second said He judg'd no Opinion more ridiculous than Aristotle's who held this Milky-way to be a Meteor shining not in Heaven but in the Air where
the Gauls of his time weak in war because they were rich For what is commonly said That Gold is the sinew of War is true as to the power of levying and maintaining of men but not as to the performing of great exploits and enterprises Mercenary Souldiers and Venal Souls being ordinarily base and of ill qualities if they do any thing 't is forc'd and of little duration nor do they continue longer then the Gold lasts Iron on the contrary is maintain'd by it self and its own power Every one fears to offend such as have only Iron by their side as those by whom nothing is to be gotten but much may be lost For to use Gold for repelling enemies and diverting them elsewhere constant experience manifests it a very dangerous remedy since besides the ignominy of becoming as it were tributaries they are never driven so far but they soon return more irritated with the thirst of this Gold then they were before with the honour of Victory In fine since men yield sooner to violence then to gentleness Iron which constrains and forces is much more powerful then Gold which perswades but chiefly in War where the bravest and most generous exploits are perform'd by open force and not by surprises and treacheries he not being properly overcome who was willing to be so and suffer'd him self to be corrupted but a Victory gotten by pure Valour ordinarily takes from the enemies the desire of returning The Second said That Victory being the end of War it matters not by what means that end is obtain'd the easiest and least bloody of which are stratagems and surprizes which besides being the effects of Wit and Prudence seem more proper to man then down-right force wherein beasts surpass us and which is oftimes accompani'd with injustice Wherefore Gold whereby all secret intelligences are contriv'd seems to have the advantage of Iron as slights in War are more efficacious then open force As also it makes less noise and hath more fruit whereas Iron oftentimes equally subdues and weakens both parties And Victory the thing aimed at by War cannot be call'd such unless it be intire Iron indeed subdues bodies not hearts but Gold wins both together The Third said That Gold and Iron may be consider'd either simply as Metals or else as Instruments of civil life In the former consideration Gold being of a more perfect nature hath also more power then Iron the most imperfect and terrene of all besides its ductility makes it more capable of extension then any other which is an evidence of its perfection If they be consider'd as means and instruments destinated to the use of life which is the noblest end whereunto they can be imploy'd Gold will still have the advantage over Iron since if we credit the Chymists potable Gold is profitably employ'd for health and the prorogation of life and the same Metal is also the bond of humane society which cannot subsist without commerce nor this without money for which Gold is the most proper as containing in small bulk the value of all other Metals of lower alloy Hence we see the people commonly raise the price of it beyond what the Prince sets upon it and 't is as much desir'd by all the world as Iron is abhorr'd all Professions and Trades aiming at the enjoyment of gold which seems to be the ultimate end of all humane actions in this life whatever disguises men assume under the pretexts of honour and vertue whose lustre is also set off by that of Gold employ'd for this purpose to crown the heads of Monarchs and to render divine worship more magnificent The Fourth said That as Iron makes Hammers and Anvils which serve to give Gold what form we please so 't is every where the master of gold and consequently more powerful in Peace and War affording Grates Locks and Keys for securing Gold in the former and Swords for defending it in the latter For Gold serves only to make the possessor envi'd and inflame the desires of such as want it 'T was with Iron that the Romans became masters of the Gold of other Nations and the Portugals conquer'd that of Peru and the Swisses overcame the Duke of Burgundy the History observing that all their wealth was not worth the Gold wherewith the Burgundians had enrich'd their horses bridles The Fifth said That the end being not only more noble but also more powerful then the means Iron which is commonly employ'd for the getting of Gold must be also inferior to it And 't is universally acknowledg'd that Gold is the sinew of War it levies and keeps men together it makes the Cannon move and all its train 'T is with Gold that we corrupt Spies without whose informations all Iron and strength would be oftentimes unprofitable Wherefore since Iron borrows its power from Gold by the Philosophical Maxim it hath less power then it CONFERENCE CXV I. Of the cause of Vapours II. Which is less culpable Rashness or Cowardice THe First said The material cause of Vapours is aqueous humidity the efficient external heat the formal rarefaction the final is various according to nature's different intentions but commonly the elevation of an aqueous body which remaining in its first consistence would weigh more then air and consequently could not be carried to those higher places where 't is needful for the generation of Mixts which cannot be done without transmutation of the Elements into the places yea and natures also one of another So Roses in an Alembick would evaporate nothing if they were depriv'd of all humidity as appears in their dry'd Cakes nor what humidity may be in them without heat which humidity is rarifi'd and carri'd upwards before it descends being again condens'd into the water which resided in the Cake before its separation by heat which consequently is the most evident cause of Vapours The Second said There are some vapours that are hot and dry as appears not only by the smoak exhaling from boiling Pitch and other unctuous bodies but also by the vapours that issue out of the earth which would never be inflam'd some in the surface of the earth others in the middle of the air and others beyond the highest region and even in the heavens if they were only of the nature of water which quencheth instead of conceiving fire as on the other side Rain Hail Snow Dew and other aqueous and incombustible Meteors argue that all Vapours of which they must be produc'd are not hot and dry Whence I conclude that as the matter of vapours is various so their other causes are all different especially the efficient For the degree of heat that evaporates water will not make Oyl exhale as we see a great glass will be sooner evaporated then a spoonful of the latter and the Chymists make use of a small fire or even of the Sun to distill their waters but augment their fire to extract Oyls Moreover as to the material causes the vapours of hot
Children whence amongst the old Spartans and at this day amongst the Aethiopians as Alvarez reports 't is a shame to blow the Nose or spit because it signifies Effeminacy and the Thracians as Pliny records freed themselves from many Diseases by cutting the Nerves behind the Ear whereby all fluxions from the Brain were stopt On the contrary Animals having a dry and less Brain sleep in the open Air without inconvenience The Fourth said That as Man exercises the greatest variety of Actions so he is liable to most Diseases Animals which reason not have no Delirium those that speak not are not subject to be dumb But the truth is Men consider not remote things further than their interest reaches Hence more Diseases are observ'd in the Bee and Silk-worm than in the Elephant Unless we had rather say that there being so great a variety of dispositions and tempers requir'd to the Health of all the parts humors and faculties of a humane body it happens very rarely that they are all as they should be As 't is harder to make good Musick with a Lute or other many string'd Instruments than with one that hath fewer strings and accords as Animals have in respect of Man CONFERENCE CLXXXIII Of the Greenness of Plants COlours being the illuminated surface of Mixt Bodies alter according to their various mixture and because the less a body is distant from its simplicity it partakes the more of light hence as soon as water becomes consistent and solid it puts on Whiteness which is so near akin to Light that the latter cannot be painted but with the former For this reason new-sprung Plants issuing out of the Womb of their Elements retain a White Colour till having thrust their stem out of the Earth the nourishment they attract adding to their composition they assume a new Colour which sutably to the Temper of the Compound whose upper part is heated by the Sun-beans and lower part nourish'd with the juice and vapors of the Earth becomes Green upon the same reason that Blew and Yellow make a Green the Blew proceeding from condens'd Moisture as appears in deep Seas and the Yellow from the Sun-beams Hence a Plant depriv'd of the Sun's aspect looseth its verdure and remaining Colour-less by the privation which is always Harbinger to some ensuing Generation it appears white as we use to make Succhory and Thistles white by burying them or covering them in a Vessel whereinto no Air can enter Greenness therefore is the first mixture of the Sun-beams with corrupted humidity as putrid waters wax green and the first assay of the Vegetative Soul and consequently an evidence of their Life as on the contrary Yellowness shews that the Sun hath dry'd up the humidity wherein the life resided and left only the Colour of Feüille-morte But when this humidity is so unctuous and adherent to the compact and solid body of a Plant that it cannot be exhal'd as Oyle is not evaporated by the Sun than the outward Cold shutting the Pores retains the Greenness longer and brighter whilst other Herbs and Trees are despoil'd of their verdure And therefore 't is no wonder if the leavs of such Plants as the Laurel Holly Box Ivy and many others feel no injury from great Cold and great Heat The Second said That the production of Vegetables proceeding from the resolution of Minerals as appears not only in the order of Generations which proceed from simple to organick bodies but also in the sympathy of the Oak with Copper of the Beech with the Load-stone of the Hazel with Gold and Silver 't is probable that Vitriol the commonest of Minerals and found in most grounds gives Plants their Verdure which many of them also testifie by their acidity For I cannot attribute the Cause to Light which is indifferent to all Colours and hath none in it self the Gold Colour of the Sun not inhereing in him but proceeding from the reflexion of bodies he irradiates But if we are to find some mixture of Yellow and Blew to make this Green I should rather assign the Yellow to the Earth which is most commonly of that Colour as the Air and Heaven are Blew And perhaps too this Greenness is but a sign of imperfect Generation since 't is lost when Plants are mature and we find it again in mouldy Bread which is in a tendency to corruption The Third said That all Bodies must have some Colour or other and a Plant being the first living thing ought to have the most agreeable as being equally temper'd of the two Extreams Black and White for at its first issuing out of the Earth whilst it is yet full of earthy humidity it is of a dark Green which becomes lighter as the Plant shoots higher till at length the more volatile particles are excluded in a Flower which borrows its Colour from the various qualities of the sap then comes out the fruit which keeps its verdure till the Sun have fully concocted its juice The Fourth said That 't is not possible to give the reason of Colours since we see Tulips change theirs almost every year and there are Black White Red and other colour'd grapes equally sweet and good for Wine as also Apples Pears and other fruit Nor is Greenness inseparable from the leavs of Plants for we have not only red Coleworts but also Roots and some leavs of Rapes Purple Violet and of other Colours All that can be said in this matter is That Colour is nothing but a resultance of the External Light from the Surface whose Particles are so or so modifi'd and posited Hence Blew appears Green by Candle-light the necks of Doves seem of divers Colours by diversity of situation and Wool appears whiter when compacted together than whilst it was in flocks whereas Water which hath no Colour shews white when Particles are divided by Air and reduc'd into Snow So also when Humidity is digested by Heat which is inseparable from Light it puts on the first of Colours which is Blew of which Colour thickned Air appears to us and the prodominant earthiness of Plants makes that Blew incline to a darker degree thence ariseth Green which is the general Colour of all Plants The Temperament contributes least to this Colour for we see Sempervivum which is cold of the same Colour with Leeks and the Aloë-Plant which are Hot. Just as Sugar and Salt are both White and yet differ much in Taste and other qualities so are Chalk and Snow Honey and Gall are Yellow the juice of Aloes and that of Liquerice black Yea in Animals too the diversity of their Colour Hair and Plumes is deceitful whence came the Proverb Of every Hair a good Grey-hound And whereas Physicians reckon the Colour of the Hair a sign of the Temper 't is not always true since we see persons of the same Hair totally different in Manners and Humors and others of different Hair perfectly agreeing in temper wherein consequently we must not seek the reason of
Causes The Second said That the Remora worketh the same Effect upon the Ship that the Torpedo doth upon the hand of the Fisher which becomes stupid when he toucheth the same with a long pole Now of this effect of Remora is not hard to be accounted for if we follow the Principles of Campanella and those who allow sense to all even the most gross corporeal things But this opinion being little received 't is better to say that whereas all natural things subsist only by the vicissitude of motion and rest wise Nature who is the principle of both hath judiciously dispenc'd them that they are found differently in some things and in others and that for the good and ornament of the Universe which requires that as they are bodies immoveable by reason of their scituation or use to wit the Earth and the Poles of the Heavens others always in motion to wit the Heavens Rivers Air and Fire and others endued with an attractive vertue as the Loadstone and Amber so She hath given others a Quality contrary to this Namely the Remora that of stopping the motion of a Ship and because motion and rest are contrary one to the other their principles are no less as well those that are effective of motion as those which cause rest but 't is better to explicate them by their sensible and indubitable effects than by reasons ordinarily frivolous and impertinent The Third said 'T is no rare thing for Ships to be staid in the main Sea whatever pains the Mariners take to make them go forward and how favourable soever the Wind may be the cause whereof is no other but the contrary motion of the waves of the Sea especially in streights and narrow places where there are strong Currents which probably stopp'd Caligula's Ship and those other mentioned in History rather than this little Fish which 't is credible can send so strong a Vertue from its small body as to fix and check the far greater and oftentimes irresistible force of the Winds and Sea Unless you had rather attribute this retardment to the mucosity and other foulnesses wherewith Ships are crusted in long Voyages which hinder their advancing and this Fish being sometimes found in those mucous humidities people mistake it for the cause though it no wise contributed thereunto The Fourth maintain'd according to the opinion of Francastorius That 't is not possible for so small a Fish as the Remora to stop a great Ship at full sail but that this Effect is occasion'd by Rocks indu'd with a Quality like that of the Loadstone upon which this Fish using to reside when a Ship passes near them their Adamantine Vertue attracts the same towards them whence the same thing happens by these two violent motions viz. that wherewith the Vessel is driven along in the main Sea and the attraction of these Rocks as when two equal forces draw a weight two several ways the thing remains unmov'd so that this fish is not the cause but only the sign of this retardment The fifth said That if there were any such magnetical vertue in this case the nails and iron-works of the Ship so stay'd would rather be taken away than its course stopt the latter being more hard to do than the former since a little force sufficeth to pull a nail out of a Ship whose impetuous motion 't is not possible to withhold whence Archimedes's his drawing of a Ship out of the Port into the Market-place by his endless serue pass'd for one of the goodliest secrets of the Mechanicks though indeed it be nothing to the present enquiry And the truth is this strange effect may best be attributed to a hidden property and singular quality of this Fish which being always found sticking to the stopped Ships is more probably the cause of that impediment than any unknown Rocks which ought to do the like to all Vessels that approach them if there were any such For t is a vanity condemn'd by the most intelligent in the secrets of Nature to presume to give valid reasons thereof whilst we have none for the most sensible and ordinary effects for want of knowing the last and proximate differences which constitute every thing in its Essence and distinguish it from others it being easie to know that the Remora after the example of many other which act by a propriety of their form produceth this effect without being needful to trouble our selves to find out the means it imploys in order thereunto CONFERENCE CCXI. Of Negroes NAture loves variety so well that she is not contented with producing a great number of Species of all sorts of Animals differing chiefly according to the Climates which produce them but she hath also pleas'd her self in an innumerable diversity of individuals especially as to colour as cannot be call'd an Accident in Blackamores but an inseparable property which distinguishes them from other men and constitutes the nature of Negroes in whom the Sun's heat produceth an effect contrary to that of his light this brightning the other obscuring the subject upon which it acts Yet it acteth not alike upon all Subjects since the same Star Aethiopian whitens linnen and wax but this blackness happens to the Aethiopians because moisture exceeds and in a manner extinguisheth heat just as we see it come to pass in Charcoals Gangreens and the parts of man's body when struck with Lightning For if the first Quality would take colours no doubt cold would be white as we may judg by Water Ice Snow Gray Hairs and the Animals that live under the Artick Pole which are all white though of the same Species with ours of another colour as Bears and Hares Which is further prov'd by Herbs which grow white under ground and lose as much of their heat and bitterness as they partake of such whiteness witness the stalks of Hartichoaks and Savoury Hot things would be red and of the colour of Fire which we see gives that colour to faces formerly pale to hot Iron and burning Wood but a superfluous humidity supervening stifles and extinguishes this heat and leaves behind it the colour of corruption as we see the whitest skin grows black by heat upon travelling Southwards the contrary happening to those that go Northwards The Second said That if heat alone made Blackamoors those that are most expos'd to the Sun-beams should be the blackest but they are not so there being many Nations of the New World where it is so hot that they go all naked of an olive colour whereas in Guiney Aethiopia and other places inhabited by Moors they are cloth'd and feel more cold And because this colour may be ascrib'd to the reciprocation of heat and cold which is more likely to alter men's bodies in all other qualities than in a permanent one there are found both black and white people under the same parallels and elevation of the Pole as in the Isle of Sumatra where the Inhabitants are white Wherefore this colour must
Countenances And if the insinuations and praises made use of by Men to caress them are nothing but flatteries why should not they too reciprocally endeavour to deceive Men whilst they represent for the object of their Lies only the Image of Artificial Beauty The Third said That the Countenance being the Tablet and Mirror of the Soul as Hypocrisie and Lying in the Soul is contrary to Candour and Sincerity without which there would be no confidence nor true Friendship in the World but perpetual dissimulations and diffidences so a Fucus upon the Face is unlawful and the more pernicious in that it is a speaking Lye For as a Liar speaks otherwise than he thinks and hath another thing in his Mind than upon his Tongue so a painted Face appears outwardly wholly other then what it really is unjustly covering under the plaister and tincture of a Fucus its natural imperfections and defects which to go about to mend is to resist the Wisedom of God the Author thereof who disposing all things wisely hath perhaps deny'd the advantage of Beauty to certain Persons out of fore-sight that they would abuse it and who otherwise having imprinted the Character of his Divinity upon our Countenances the Person that paints and disguises the same seems to be ingrateful and unworthy of such a favour yea to deprive himself of all credit among honest men For who will give belief to the Words of one that wears a Lye upon his Fore-head Besides that in time those Mixtures alter and destroy the health of the whole Body Sublimate amongst the rest the commonest of all Cosmeticks Not to mention the danger of letting it get into the eyes and more of swallowing it down it wrinkles the skin renders the eyes hollow blacks the teeth and corrupts the breath The Fourth said since Beauty is one of the four gifts of the Body it ought not to be of worse condition than the other three Health Strength and Goodness of the Senses but 't is lawful to preserve and encrease the same so far as we can especially that of the Visage which being the Mirror of the Deity should be carefully adorn'd and embellish'd considering too that our Lord commands us in the Gospel to wash our Faces and suffer'd his own Feet to be annointed with precious Unguents the use whereof was common among the Ancients who annointed the Head and all the rest of the Body with Aromatick Oyls and Compositions more for Beauty than for Health And Physick in one of its parts call'd Cosmetica treats of Fucusses and Ornaments of the Body and Face which the Law approves in L. 21. ff De Auro Mundo making four sorts of Fucus namely for Pleasure Health Ornament and Cleanness Moreover 't would seem a contempt of that Divine Gift of Heaven Beauty not to preserve it And as no man being to chuse a dwelling-house but prefers a handsom and agreeable one before another so if Souls had the choice of their Bodies when they come into the World they would undoubtedly take the fairest and best shap'd because they might exercise their operations best therein And indeed the Soul is so curious of this Beauty that as soon as any stroke or other external injury deforms the Body it ceases not to repair the ruines thereof and without the continual industry which she imploys not only to re-establish the perpetual deperdition of our triple substance but also to cause re-generation of the consumed flesh the re-union of parts disjoyn'd by solution of continuity and to reduce to a better conformation the depravations thereof there would be more Monsters than Men. Why then should it be a crime for Art which perfects Nature to assist her in this work by taking away what is superfluous or adding what is deficient which are also the two parts of Physick CONFERENCE CIV I. Of Tobacco II. Whether the Invention of Guns hath done more hurt than good THe Herb call'd by the Spaniards Tobacco from an Island of the same name in the West-Indies wherein it grows in abundance is nam'd by the Indians Petun by others for its great virtues Herba Sancta and Jean Nicot Embassador of Francis II. having first brought out of Portugal into France some of the seed of it to Queen Catherine de Medicis with the description of its virtues it became denominated from him in French Nicotiane or Herbe a la Reine the Queens Herb as in Italy it was term'd Herbe de Santa Croce of Holy Cross because a Cardinal of that name was the first that brought it to Rome Some others still call it Antarctical Buglosse Henbane of Peru and Indian Wound-wort It grows many times to the height of three Cubits with a straight and thick stalk so fat that it seems annointed with Honey it sends forth sundry large branches with many leaves long and broad rounder than those of great Comfrey somewhat like those of great Personata or Bur-dock fleshy fat and little rough of a pale green unpleasing smell and biting taste On the top of the stalk it hath many flowers oblong hollow and large in form of a Trumpet of a white inclining to purple to which succeed little slender cods or husks full of a brownish seed smaller than that of Poppey It s root is thick hath several lobes is woody yellow within bitter easily separating from its bark and like all Herbs hot and dry for this is so in the second degree it requires moist places and shadow and delights to be cultivated Moreover 't is kept in Gardens as well for its beauty as for its faculties of curing abundance of Maladies to which 't is the more proper in that it hath an unctuosity familiar to our Body whose excrementitious humours the seed of most Diseases it potently resolves For as Plants are of a middle nature between Minerals and Animals so they are more proper and safe for the preservation and restoring of Man's health than Animals themselves which by reason of their similitude act less on us or than Minerals and inanimate Bodies which through the too great diversity of their nature act with too much violence The Second said That this Herb heats resolv's deterges and is somewhat astringent whence it is that its leafs apply'd hot to the head cure the Meagrim and old headach proceeded from cold or wind and if the pain be contumacious you must rub the place first with oyl of Orange-flowers Moreover 't is us'd for the Cramp and all other pains arising from the same cold humour particularly for that of the Teeth by filling them with the leaf bruis'd It s decoction in common Water is good for maladies of the Breast of the same kind as the Asthma and old Coughs causing expectoration of the phlegm which produces it Also Its smoak taken by the nose and swallow'd down by respiration frequently cures the Asthmatick and such as have ulcers in the Lungs by the same reason that Galen saith he saw a Baker's Wife cur'd of
it very speedily whitens whatever is expos'd to it as Linnen and Wax for the effecting of which Rain requires thrice as long time But its penetrativeness appears yet further in that it dissolves even Gold it self for which reason some have thought fit to wash several times in it such Medicaments as they would have penetrate as well as others are wont to do in Vinegar The Second said If it suffic'd to speak of Dew in a Poetical way I should call it the sweat of Heaven ther spittle of the Stars the dropping of the celestial Waters or the crystalline humour which flows from the eyes or the fair Aurora or else that 't is a Pearl-Garland wherewith the Earth decks her self in the morning to appear more beautiful in the eyes of the Sun and the whole Universe to which if the Vapours serve for food the Dew is its Nectar and Ambrosia But to speak more soberly I conceive it a thin and subtle Vapour rais'd by a moderate Heat till either meeting some Body it adheres thereunto or being attracted neer the Middle Region of the Air 't is condens'd by cold and falls down again upon the Earth Nevertheless this Vapour proceeds not only from a humour purely Aqueous but somewhat partaking of the Spirits of Nitre Sugar or a sweet Salt since the thinnest part of it being evaporated the rest remains condens'd upon leafs and stones or becomes Honey and Manna and whoso shall lightly pass his tongue over the leafs of Nut-tree and other compact and close Plants shall taste a sweetness upon them in temperate Climates or Seasons which is nothing else but an extract of this same Dew Moreover the fertility which it causes in the Earth its purgative and detersive virtue sufficiently manifest this Truth For Dew could not fertilise the Earth if it were bare Water destitute of all sort of Spirits and particularly those of Nitre which is the most excellent Manure that can be used to improve Land for the Earth from which it is extracted remains barren till it have been anew impregnated with those Spirits by the influx of Dew to which they expose it for some time that it may again become capable of producing something This purgative virtue whereof not only Manna partakes being a gentle purger of serosities but also pure Dew which sometimes causes a mortal Diarrhoea or Lax in Cattle purging them excessively when it is not well concocted and digested by the heat of the Sun which consumes its superfluous phlegm and that detersive Faculty whereby Dew cleanses all impurities of the Body which it whitens perfectly cannot proceed but from that nitrous Salt which as all other Salts is penetrative and detersive Nor can that ascending of the Egg-shell proceed from any other cause but the virtue of certain leight and volatil Spirits which being actuated and fortifi'd by the heat of the Sun-beams are set on motion and flying upwards carry the inclosing shell with them which an aqueous humour cannot do because though the heat of the Sun could so subtilise attenuate and rarefie it as to render it an aery Nature which is the highest point of rarity it can attain yet it would not sooner attract the same than the rest of the air much less would it raise up the Egg-shell but it would transpire by little and little through the pores of the shell or be expanded in it so far as it had space and at last either break it or be resolv'd into fume Heat imprinting no motion in Water but only rarifying and heating it by degrees which is not sufficient to raise up the Vessel which contains it since the same being full of heated air would remain upon the ground The Third said That all natural things being in a perpetual flux and reflux to which this Elementary Globe supplies Aliments to make them return to their Principle Dew may be term'd the beginning and end of all things the Pearl or Diamond which terminates the circular revolution of all Nature since being drawn upwards by the Sun from the mass of Water and Earth subtilis'd into vapour and arriv'd to the utmost point of its rarefaction it becomes condens'd again and returns to the Earth to which it serves as sperm to render it fruitful and to be transform'd upon it into all things whose qualities it assumes because being nothing but a Quitessence extracted from all this Body it must have all the virtues thereof eminently in it self Moreover anciently the ordinary Benedicton of Fathers to their Children was that of the Dew of Heaven as being the sperm of Nature the First Matter of all its Goods and the perfection of all its substance recocted and digested in the second Region of the Air For the same vapour which forms Dew in the Morning being that which causes the Serein in the Evening yet the difference of them is so great that the latter is as noxious as the former is profitable because the first vapours which issue out of the bosome of the Earth being not yet depurated from their crude and malignant qualities cause Rheums and Catarrhs but those of the Morning being resolv'd of Air condens'd by the coldness of the Night have nothing but the sweetness and benignity of that Element or else the pores of the Body being open'd by the diurnal heat more easily receive the malignant impressions of extraneous humidity than after having been clos'd by the coldness of the night The Fourth said Although Vapour be an imperfect Mixt yet 't is as well as other perfect Bodies compos'd of different parts some whereof are gross others tenuious The gross parts of Vapour being render'd volatile by the extraneous heat wherewith they are impregnated are elevated a far as the Middle Region of the Air whose coldness condenses them into a cloud which is ordinarily dissolv'd into Rain sometimes into snow or hail into the former when the cloud before resolution is render'd friable by the violence of the cold which expressing the humidity closes the parts of the cloud and so it falls in flocks and into the latter when the same cloud being already melted into rain the drops are congeal'd either by the external cold or else by the extream heat of the Air which by Antiperistasis augmenting the coldness of the rain makes it close and harden which his the reason why it hails as well during the sultry heats of Summer as the rigours of Winter And amongst the gross parts of the Vapour such as could not be alter'd or chang'd into a cloud descend towards our Region and there form black clouds and mists or foggs But the more tenuious parts of this Vapour produce Dew in which two things are to be considered I. The Matter II. The Efficient Cause The Matter is that tenuious Vapour so subtil as not to be capable of heat and too weak to abate it The Remote Efficient Cause is a moderate Heat for were it excessive it would either consume or carry away the Vapour whence
remov'd from the place the very next day a great Fire happened in the same City For if every thing below is as that which is above and the effects of inferiour things proceed from the various configuration of the Celestial Bodies as of the different combinations of the Letters of the Alphabet are compos'd infinite Books there may be some proportion and correspondence between those Celestial Figures and such as are made upon fit and suitable materials the knowledg of which sympathetical Correspondences is the true Magick which is by the testimony of J. Picus Mirandula the highest point of humane Knowledg marrying Heaven with Earth as black Magick is detestable shameful and ridiculous The Fifth said That every thing acts in the World by the first or second Qualities or by its Substance whence proceed occult Properties and Sympathies But Talismanical Figures cannot act by any of these ways for 't is certain that they act neither by heat cold hardness softness or such other first or second Quality no more than by their Substance which is different in Talismans of Copper Iron Stone c. Although the Authors of this Art ascribe the same virtue to all provided they be graven with the same Figures and under the same Constellations and Aspects of the Starrs from whom alone they make them derive their strange virtues alledging as a Principle That there is nothing in the World but hath both its Contrary and its Like as well in Heaven as on Earth where we see not only the Marigold and the Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun the Selenotrope that of the Moon the Cock proclaims the approach of the Sun As also on the contrary Dogs commonly run mad in the Dog-days and Lions under the Sign Leo But also some Persons beheld with an evil eye by some Planets others being propitious So to cure hot and dry Diseases they engrave their Talismans under a Constellation contrary to the Evil as cold and moist having regard to the Signs whereunto every Malady and diseas'd Part is referr'd which is an Invention of Paracelsus who fancies Poles a Zenith a Nadir an Equator a Zodiack and other phantastical Figures in our Bodies answering to those of Heaven without the least proof of his sayings Upon the Second Point it was said Since Man is compos'd of Body and Soul the best Life he can lead is that which is most proper for the perfection and good of both Such is the Country-life being accompanied with the Goods of the Body Fortune and the Mind Those of the Body as Health and Strength are possess'd with advantage by Rusticks who know not so much as the Names of Diseases the cause whereof is their Exercise and Labour which dissipates and resolves the humours that produce most Diseases as also the purity of the Air they breathe which is the more healthful in that it hath free motion and is less confin'd for which reason Physitians send their recovering Patients to confirm their Health in the Air of the Country Which also supplies the Goods of Fortune the true and natural Riches to wit the Fruits of the Earth and the Spoils of Animals Gold Silver and other artificial Goods being but imaginary and useless without those first whereunto they are subservient But above all the Goods of the Mind which consist in Knowledg and Virtue the two Ornaments of its two chief Faculties the Understanding and the Will may be acquir'd much more easily in a Country-life in regard of the purer Air which begets like Spirits as these frame purer Species and Phantasms on which depend the actions of the Understanding which besides cannot meditate nor improve without rest and silence scarce found in a civil and tumultuary Life as that in Cities is which hold our Minds as well as Bodies in captivity depriving us of the free aspect of Heaven the rising and setting of the Sun and Stars and of the means of considering the Wonders of God in the production of Flowers Fruits and Plants Hence the Poets feign'd the Muses the Goddesses of the Sciences living in the Mountains of Helicon and in Woods not in the inclosure of Cities where Virtues are also more difficultly practis'd than the Sciences nothing of them being left there but shadows and phantasms which under veils of Dissimulation Hypocrisie Complements and other testimonies of Virtue cover Injustices Sacriledges Impieties and other Crimes unknown in the Country where Simplicity and Innocence are sure tokens of true Virtue which is also better retain'd amongst the Thorns and Sweats of the Country than in the Luxury and Idleness of Cities And if things may be judg'd of by their beginnings the Sacred History tells That Cain the first Murtherer was the first that built a City named Henoch after the Name of his Son as a little after did the first Tyrant of the World Nimrod who built Niniveh On the contrary all holy Personages have lead a Country-life Adam was a Husband-man and so was Cain as long as he continu'd in the state of Innocence which as soon as he lost he desir'd to become a Burgess Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs his Sons were Shepherds as also the Kings Saul and David and the Prophets Amos Elisha and many others in imitating whose example we cannot erre The Second said That Man being a sociable and political Animal the habitation of Cities is as consentaneous to his Nature as the Country-life is repugnant to the same And therefore Men had no sooner discover'd the inconveniences of the Rustick-life but they unanimously conspir'd to build Cities to the end to supply one anothers Necessities and defend themselves from wild Beasts and their Enemies to whose fury they were expos'd before they liv'd in some Town which is a Sacred Society or Unity of Citizens all aspiring to the conservation of the State to the maintaining of the Laws and Justice and to the publick Ornament and Glory making Arts and Disciplines flourish and procuring Safety to all People by the distribution of Rewards to Virtue and Punishment to Vices which have not their effect but in publick For our Lives would not differ from those of Brutes if we were oblig'd to dwell in Dens or wander up and down Woods as the Barbarians of the new World do whose Brutality Irreligion Cruelty Ignorance and Misery compar'd with the Politeness Devotion Humanity Knowledg and Happiness of others sufficiently manifest what difference there is between a City and a Country-life CONFERENCE CIX I. Of Volcano's or Subterranean Fires II. Which Age is most desirable THe effects of Volcano's and Subterranean Fires are no less manifest than their cause is unknown although the desire of teaching us the same occasion'd the death of Pliny by haying too neer approach'd the Fires of Mont Gibel or Aetna and made Empedocles cast himself head-long into them But the former did not attain it and the latter left us nothing but his Pantofles The Artifice of Man hath indeed excavated the
of the Days comprehended in half a year And the obliquity of the Horizon is the cause that these parallels are cut by it unequally Otherwise if these parallels were not different from the Equator or although different if they were cut equally by the Horizon as it happens in a Right Sphere the Horizon which is a great Circle passing by the Poles of these parallels which are the same with those of the World both the Days and Nights would be equal so that where the Sphere is not inclin'd as in the Right and Parallel Spheres there is no inequality of Days nor consequently of Climate so call'd from its Inclination but only in the oblique Sphere 'T is defin'd a Region of Earth comprehended between two circles parallel to the Equator in which there is the difference of half an hour in the longest days of the year It encompasses the Terrestrial Globe from East to West as a Zone doth which differs from it only as the Zone is broader whence there are many Climats in the same Zone The Ancients having regard only to so much of the Earth as they believ'd inhabited made but seven Climats which they extended not beyond the places where the longest days are 16 hours and denominated from the most remarkable places by which they made them pass as the first Northern Climat was call'd Dia Meroes hy Meroe which they began at 12 deg 43 min. from the Aequinoctial where the longest day hath 12 hours three quarters and which at present is the end of our first Climat and beginning of the second This first Climat passes by Malaca a City of the East-Indies and begins at 4 deg 18 min. Its middle from which all Climats are reckon'd hath 8 deg 34 min. and its end 12 deg 43 min. The other six Climats of the Ancients pass'd by Siene Alexandria Rhodes Rome Pontus Euxinus and the River Boristhenes Ptolomy reckons twenty one as far as the Island Thule which lies in 63 deg of Northern Latitude Our modern Astronomers make twenty four from the Aequinoctial to the Polar Circles in each of which Climats the longest day of Summer encreases half an hour above twelve according as they approach nearer those Circles beyond which to the Poles of the World they place six more not distinguish'd by the variation of half an hour but of 30 days So that there is in all sixty Climats 30 Northern and as many Southern each comprehended by two Parallels which Climats are easily found by doubling the excess whereby the longest day surpasses twelve hours the Product being the Climat of the place As if you know the longest Summer day at Paris to be 16 hours double 4 the excess above 12 and you will have 8 which is the Climat of Paris and so of others And though there be the same reason of Seasons and other variations in the Southern and Northern Climats yet since experience shews us that those of the South are not inhabited beyond the 8th which is about the Cape of Good Hope at the farthest point of Africa beyond which no Inhabitants are as yet discover'd it may seem that the diversity of Climats is not alone sufficient for long or short life but there are other causes concurring thereunto The Second said That since a thing is preserv'd by that which produces it the Sun and Stars which concur to the generation of all living Creatures must also contribute to their preservation and continuance in life which being maintain'd by use of the same things variety and change though delightful yet being the most manifest cause of brevity of life that Climat which is most constant and least variable will be the properest for longaevity and so much the more if it suits with our nature such is the first Climat next the Aequinoctial where things being almost always alike bodies accustom'd thereunto receive less inconvenience thereby then under others whose inequalities and irregularities produce most diseases The natural purity of the Air promoted by the breath of a gentle East Wind there reigning continually and the want of vapours and humidities which commonly infect our Air conduce greatly to the health of the Inhabitants also when the dryness and coldness of their temper makes longer-liv'd as appears by Ravens and Elephants the most melancholy of all Animals which are common in these parts where they live above 300 years Moreover Homer testifies that Memnon King of Aethiopia liv'd 500 years which by the report of Xenophon was the common age of most men of the same Country where Francis Alvarez affirms in our time that he saw lusty men at 150 years of age and that in Aegypt which lies near it there are more old men then in any place of the World and that women are so fruitful there that they bring forth three or four children at a time rather through the goodness of the Climat then any nitrous vertue that is in the waters of Nilus Hence possibly most Doctors place the Terrestial Paradise under the Aequinoctial and the cause of our first Fathers longaevity who having been created under this Climat seem to have lost of its duration proportionably as they remov'd from the same Northwards whence all evil comes and towards the Zones wrongfully call'd Temperate since more subject to alteration then that call'd Torrid by the Ancients who thought it unhabitable by reason of extream heat although the continual Flowers and Fruits wherewith the always verdant Trees are laden testifie the contrary The Third said Since Heaven is immutable and always like to it self the Earth and Elements alone subject to change the length and shortness of Life seems not to depend on Heaven but on Earth and the several dispositions of our Bodies and the whole World being Man's Country there is no place in it but is equally proper for his habitation provided he be born there because the Air he breathes and the Food he eats from his Nativity altering his Body at length make his temper suitable to that of the place of his Education which therefore he loves above any other The Fourth said That Heaven remaining it self immutable is nevertheless the cause of motions and mutations here below its light producing different effects in the Earth according as it is receiv'd the most sensible whereof are heat dryness and other qualities which diversifie the Seasons and Zones of which the two temperate especially the Northern seems most habitable and proper for longaevity 'T is also the most populous and its Natives are not only the most healthy and lusty but also the most refin'd and civiliz'd of all others Now of the Climats of this Zone the eighth wherein Paris lyes seems to me the healthiest of all as well for pureness of Air as all other Causes The Fifth said That the goodness of Climats depends not so much upon Heaven as the situation of each place in reference to the Winds of which the Southern being the most unhealthy therefore Towns defended by
the Womb where she wraps it up in two membranes which receive the Urine Sweat and other Excrements of sanguification as the Intestines do the grosser excrements but assoon as it is born she expells its immundicities by blisters scurfs scabs tumors of the head and other purgations which Hippocrates saith preserve from diseases especially from the falling sickness Nor can the Malignity of the Air be the Cause as Fernelius holds alledging that the difficulty of respiration heaviness of the head inflammation of the face and such other concomitant symptoms seem to be caus'd by the viciousness of the air which infects the heart and by that means hurts the other Functions For then the Small Pox would be as Epidemical as the Pestilence or any other contagious maladies and seize upon all men indifferently not excepting such as have once had them Wherefore the matter of this disease is a serosity accompanied with the humours which make the Pox appear of several colours sometimes Red Yellow Black or White according as the Blood Choler Melancholy or Flegm flow thither Wind or Water only cause bladders or blisters Nevertheless it must be confessed that this serosity acquires some particular malignity as appears by the deformity caused by the pustules which not only pit the skin and flesh but sometimes even corrode and rot the bones The Fifth said That the Small Pox is a new and hereditary disease and that as all other new maladies of these last ages have always had their causes but only wanted fitting dispositions without which nothing is produced so the causes of the Small Pox have always been existent but the particular dispositions of bodies not lighting upon the point requisite for its production it hath not appeared till these late times whether through the influence of Heaven or through the Malignity of the Air or the intemperance of men the most apparent cause of most diseases formerly unknown or else through contagion and contact by which way the great Pox is communicated For the Small is likewise contagious and which is remarkable more amongst Kindred than Strangers because they being issued of the same blood have greater affinity of dispositions than Strangers CONFERENCE CXXVII Whether we profit best by Precepts or Examples AS there is nothing so hard as to judg of the worth of things so it is the highest point of prudence to understand the goodness of the means that may conduce to some end Precepts and Examples are the two Means to attain Vertue 't is demanded which is the best and most proper At first view Example seems to have the same advantage over Precept that the Whole hath over the Part for a Good Example besides being of its own nature a vertuous action holds the place of a Moral Rule but a Precept is only a General Maxim not necessarily follow'd by a particular Action whence it follows that Precept regards only the Understanding whereto it affords some light but Example makes impression upon both Faculties together the Understanding and the Will by an order necessary in civil life which is regulated by the example of others Therefore Great Persons are oblig'd to good Example which derives its dignity from that of the giver Moreover Moral Propositions are so reasonable and conformable to the instinct we have of good that all the World assents to them as consider'd in the General There is no body but acknowledges that what belongs to each man ought to be render'd to him that we ought not to do that to another which we would not have done to our selves yet in the circumstances and particular cases we do not always apply those precepts because then they appear clog'd with difficulties to which our passion or interest give birth Wherefore Example beng Particular is more considerable in Morality wherein people are govern'd more by opinion then reason but Precept is Universal and affects the mind only at a distance our actions being oftentimes contrary to the secret dictates of the Understanding In Example we feel the force and application of a precept in a particular subject and know not only that which ought to be done but how it ought to be done by seeing it practis'd Experience it self shew us that Doctrine alone is weak and little perswasive unless it be animated by the examples of a good life whose silence is more eloquent than all precepts Moreover we are like those with whom we live and the maladies of the body are not so contagious as those of the mind which notwithstanding may as well profit by bad examples as good the Understanding being able to turn bad food into good nourishment And as a brave Action excites good Motions in us by its beauty resulting from its conformity to Reason so a bad Action by its deformity and contrariety to Reason gives us aversion against it and an inclination to its opposite Socrates judg'd no Lesson so fit to moderate Anger as for a Man to behold himself in a glass when he is agitated with that Passion Which cannot be said of a bad Precept for this being a bad seed can never produce any fruit but of the same Nature On the other side Men are such Lovers of Pleasures that Virtue separated from Delight stumbles them and seemes too severe But Precept is a pure Rule of Duty without any attractive whereas Example which appears to our Eyes and is an Action cloth'd with circumstances perswades us more sweetly because we are naturally prone to Imitation whence it comes to pass that Comedies are so charming And Example is the subject of Imitation but Precept cannot be so for it is general of it self and all Moral Actions are singular The Second said That if it be true as the Stoicks say that Virtue is nothing else but a Science then Precepts must be the foundations as of Science so also of Virtute which indeed being a habit of a reasonable Faculty must be more promoted by Precepts which are infallible verities and supply light to that Power than Examples which have no force to convince a strong Mind They who follow Virtue by Example and not by Reason have more of the Ape than of the Man and all the power Example hath is onely to move the Will to admire and desire Virtue but not to teach the way of attaining it as Precept doth which besides being invariable and always alike to its self is more easie to be applyed than Example which puts on a new face according to the circumstances of times places and persons there being no Actions how contrary soever but have Examples to countenance their goodness Moreover they are either of the time past and so move us not much or of the present in which there are few of Virtue besides that they are of less duration than Precepts which are eternal If vicious Examples attract more powerfully to Vice than vicious Precepts the same cannot be said of the practice of Virtues since these have not all the External
it to the Voluptuous to say whether it be the Cock the Sparrow or the amorous Dove those that love Musick to determine whether 't is the Nightingal and to those that esteem the sight the most ravishing of all the Senses whether it be the Eagle whose eye discovers the remotest objects and turns not aside even from the beams of the Sun The Second said That since nothing is intirely happy in the World the Question should rather be put Which is the least unhappy of all Animals Man the only competent judge acknowledges 't is not himself for he seems to be the Butt of all the miseries in the World of which also he is so much more sensible then Beasts by how much he hath a mind more qualified to apprehend and resent them For whereas they say he alone is capable of felicity 't is true indeed in reference to the future not the present life no age whereof is capable of relishing an intire contentment and if one drop of Gall mingled with a good quantity of Milk denominates the same bitter certainly we cannot term mans life pleasant whilst it hath abundantly more pain then delight He comes into the World weeping and naked without any Arms or defence wherein he is more unhappy then Beasts whom nature hath guarded with covertures against the injuries of the air His first Child-hood is not yet capable of any sort of pleasure Adolescence would taste thereof indeed but is denied liberty by its Pedagogues Youth precipitates it self into more kind of evils then it tastes of good besides that it sees most pleasures forbidden by Divines Physicians and Civilians who seem to have endeavoured to take from us all contentment in this World which if old age makes us the less loth to part with yet there is no so great resignation of spirit but is thwarted by temptations of the flesh nor security so carnal but is startled with the records of conscience Moreover the true mark of felicity being the satisfaction and contentment of him that possesses it no person can be happy in this world since none is contented For man being design'd to a more perfect life then this naturally desires the Supream Good and all that is below it displeases him as uncapable to satisfie him and because he cannot find it here therefore neither can he find contentment which consists in satisfying the Appetite Beasts on the contrary having no other knowledg but that of Sensual and Delectable Good desire no other but are fully satisfi'd and contented therewith and consequently more happy in this World then men The Third said If Felicity consist in action that Animal must be most happy which acts most perfectly So doth man whether you consider him as to the Body or the Soul For to say nothing of the divine functions of his Understanding and Will the sole structure of his Body which was made erect that he might behold Heaven whereof he is capable and which alone is indu'd with beauty one of the effects of Health sufficiently proves it For though some Animals possibly surpass him in some one sense yet he alone excells equally in all and knows the differences of colours sounds odours sapours and tactile qualities in the participation of which he finds pleasure whereof beasts are incapable The Fourth said That to believe Man can be happy here is to contradict the opinion of all the Sages of Antiquity who have acknowledg'd Man the weakest and pitifullest of all Creatures and the Scripture it self which terms his life full of sorrows and this World his banishment And indeed if we place Felicity in the knowledg of possessing it Misery must also consist in the knowledg or opinion we have of being miserable of which reflection Man alone being capable he must be also more too of unhappiness then felicity and the more inasmuch as there are more things that can afflict then content him some always bringing present inconvenience with them others leaving somewhat to be desir'd after them and never satiating our Appetite For the Reasonable Soul which is held the subject of Mans happiness is the principal obstacle to attaining it since having for its object a more perfect and absolute Good then it can possess in this life it cannot establish a true Felicity which of its own nature must be as lasting as the Existence of him who enjoys it upon things acknowledg'd frail and perishing as Natural and Sensible goods are which being sutable to the duration and appetite of other Animals their enjoyment thereof fills them with perfect happiness But amongst these Fishes seem to me most happy whether you measure their happiness by the largeness of their habitation which is the vast Ocean of far greater extent then the Earth from which being more severed then Birds who are forced to descend thither for their food and rest they are also less subject to the ambushes of men and in this regard more happy or whether you consider corporal health the foundation of all felicity of which Fishes are so well provided that it hath occasion'd the Proverb As sound as a Fish or lastly whether you place felicity in the privation of pain which resides chiefly in the sense of Touching which being more dull in them then in other Animals they are also less sensible of inconveniences and for this reason were made mute by nature which hath given a voice to Animals chiefly to testifie thereby the grief which they resent The Fifth said If there be so great a number of opinions wherein the felicity of one single Animal Man consists there may justly be great variety of judgments concerning which is the happiest of all Animals To determine which we must imitate Painters who before they couch their Colours propose a perfect Idea of their work which the nearer it approaches the more excellent it is reputed In like manner we must first form an Idea of this felicity and then see which Animal comes nearest it whether the Servant or the Master the brute Beast or Man whose mind whereby he infinitely surpasses all the rest of the Creatures seems to be ingenious to its own loss not imploying it self but to find out reasons to prove him unhappy since in favour of other Animals we lay aside that ambition which is so natural to us and are willing to yield to the vilest of them what we would dispute with the most perfect of men Now that which makes most people mistaken in their judgment is that being no person injoys an intire felicity they imagine that all happiness lyes in that thing which is wanting and so esteem him alone happy that possesses it Thus a poor spirit perswaded that all happiness consists in strength and courage will say that the Lyon is the happiest of all Animals since his courage gives him empire over all those of his condition The sick person accounting health the most desirable of all goods prefers Beasts before Man whom his exact tempers renders more
't is the multitude of persons excelling in all sort of Arts and especially in the Sciences whereof never were so many Doctors Regents and Professors seen in one single Age as in this that makes us less esteem the ingenious that are now living for 't is onely rarity that gives price to things and that made him pass for a great Clerk a few Ages ago who could but write and read he that spoke Latine was a Prodigy though now 't is a Tongue almost as universal and common as the Native Now Admiration being the Daughter of Ignorance the esteem had of most of the admired in former Ages is rather an Argument of the Rudeness and Ignorance of the Times than of the excellence of their Witts Nor were they better than we in their Manners but onely more simple and yet culpable of as many Crimes But were we the more wicked this were no Argument of want of Witt which is the matter in question And if there have been sometimes a Ceres a Bacchus a Pallas a Vulcan and others advanc'd to Deities for finding out the way to sow Wheat plant Vine-yards spin Wool and forge Iron we have had in these last Ages the Inventors of the Compass the Gun Printing the Tubes of Galileo and a thousand other Inventions both more difficult and excellent the easiest having been first discover'd The Modesty of those that govern us who no less hate the vanity of praise than they know how to exercise Actions deserving it permits me not to shew you that all pass'd Ages have nothing that comes near the grandeur of their Souls and that their conduct is the more to be admir'd in that their business is both to keep themselves up with Friends and give reason to Enemies who also help to verifie that there are greater States-men and Captains in this Age than in any of the preceding CONFERENCE CXLV Of the Serene which is a hurtful Dew falling in Summer Evenings AS Painters find it harder to represent a calm smooth Sea than the rampant foaming billows of a storm which require more variety of Colours and afford the Pencil more liberty and as a History of Peace is harder to write and less pleasant to read than the Troubles and Commotions of Warr So I think it less difficult to describe the several impressions of Tempests than those of a calm Air which nevertheless at certain times produces pernicious Effects so much more remarkable in that they proceed from a very simple Cause no-wise malignant of it self to wit from a clear and serene Air free from Clouds and Vapours which in the Evening being cool'd by the reason of the Sun's Elongation acquires a certain Refrigerating and Catarrhous quality call'd by the vulgar The Serene because it happens either in the Evening or more commonly in fair weather when the Air is serene than when it is pluvious and full of Vapours Which quality some ascribe to the Influence of the Stars especially to the Moon term'd for that reason by the Psalmist Infrigidans which hath indeed a notable dominion over all Humid Bodies particularly those of Men who find sensible alterations in themselves according to the several faces of that Planet But because the Heavens diffuse their Influences upon those that are under covert as well as upon those that are in the open Air where onely the Serene is felt I should rather pitch upon the alterations of the refrigerated Air which acts but so far as it is near us and 't is always more proper to attribute Effects here below to proximate Causes than to recur to the Heaven which is but an equivocal Cause thereof The Second said If Cold were the Cause of the Serene the same should happen where-ever it were cold and be more hurtful according to the vehemency of that quality as towards Midnight or Morning and likewise in Winter Yet the Serene is never spoken of but in the temperate Seasons of Spring and Autumn and some little portion of the Seasons bordering upon them Besides in Summer the air of our cold Caves should be capable of producing it at mid-noon Wherefore I cannot think the Serene an effect of bare cold but of the vapors wherewith the air howsoever apparently pure is always charg'd whence proceeds the diversity of refractions In the Planets especially at Sun-rise and Sun-set which is never without some clouds which vapours being destitute of the diurnal heat and so coming to be condens'd fall down upon our heads just as Dew doth which is produc'd after the same manner but of a matter somwhat thicker and more copious And as there is no Dew so there is no Serene but in temperate Seasons and Regions never in Winter or the midst of Summer for violent cold congeals these vapours into Frost and Ice and vehement heat dissipates and consumes them The practice of our Ladies who use to remain in the Serene thereby to whiten their complexion and soften their flesh shows that this evening-air having a cleansing and levigating vertue must be impregnated with a quality like Dew which is detersive by reason of the salt which it drew from the earth by means whereof it not only whitens Linen and Wax but also purgeth Animals as appears by the fluxes hapning to Sheep driven out to grass before the Sun has consum'd the Dew and by Manna which is nothing but a condens'd dew and hath a purgative vertue The Third said Mans body being subject to the injuries of all external Agents receives so much greater from the impressions of the Air as the same is more necessary to life capable of subsisting for some time without other things but not a moment without Air which is continually attracted into our Bodies not only by respiration but also by insensible transpiration through the Pores of the Body which is pierc'd with holes like a Sieve for admission of air which is taken in by the Arteries in their motion of Diastole or Dilatation And being most agile and subtle it easily penetrates our Bodies altering them by the four first qualities wherewith it is variously impregnated according to the vicinity of the Bodies environing it which make the four Seasons of the Year wherein it variously disposes the bodies upon which it acts changing even their natural temperament And because the parts of a natural day have some proportion with those of a year upon account of the several changes caus'd by the common and proper revolutions of the Sun hence the Morning is like the Spring hot and moist or rather temperate and the Blood then predominates Noon resembles Summer hot and dry at which time Choler is in motion the following part is cold and dry Melancholy and correspondent to Autumn the Evening and whole Night by its coldness and humidity which puts Phlegm in motion is a little Winter the coldness whereof proceeds not from the vapors which are always accompani'd with some extraneous heat whereby they are retain'd in the Air and kept
from falling but from the bare privation of the heat of the Sun who as by his presence he actually causes heat in the Air so by his absence he causes coldness in the same which penetrating our Bodies calefi'd by the diurnal heat easily therein condenses the vapors which are not yet setled or laid and squeesing them out of the Brain and all the parts just as we do water out of a wet spunge they fall upon the weakest parts where they cause a fluxion and pain The Fourth said That the Air being of it self very temperate can never do any mischief unless it be mix'd with some extraneous substances as Vapors and Exhalations which continually infect the first Region wherein we reside And because those subtle parts of Earth and Water exhal'd into it are imperceptible 't is not strange if they produce such sudden and unexpected effects as we see the Serene doth which is caus'd by vapors rais'd after Sun-set by the force of the heat remaining upon the surface of the Earth like those arising from heated water after it is taken off the fire So that the Serene is that vapour whilst it mounts upwards not when it falls downwards for it cannot descend till it be render'd heavier by condensation into Water Clouds or Mists which make the Air nubilous and not serene as in this effect it uses to be But at their first elevation they are more volatile rare subtle and invisible The Fifth said That the chief cause of this hurtful accident is the change of one contrary into another without medium which is always incommodious to Nature who for that reason conjoyns all extreams by some mediums which serve for dispositions to pass from the one to the other without difficulty And as the alteration of the body from cold to hot is painful witness those who hold their cold hands to the fire after handling of Ice in like sort that from hot to cold is very incommodious whence the hotter the preceding day hath been the more dangerous is the serene because the pores of the Body being open'd and all the humors disorder'd and mov'd by the diurnal heat the cold insinuates into and works upon the same with more liberty just as heated water is soonest frozen by reason its parts are more open'd by the heat and consequently more capable of receiving the impressions of Agents Which is also the reason why the first cold hurts us rather then the greatest frosts namely because it finds the body more open then ensuing hard weather doth So though in Winter the air be colder yet because 't is almost continually the same it makes less impression in the evening upon our bodies already accustomed to its rigor and though the air is colder at midnight then at Sun-set yet the serene is only at the beginning of the night when our bodies more sensibly receive alteration from the same Wherefore 't is only the sudden change of the air which makes the serene whereof our bodies are the more sensible according to the openness of the pores and of the futures of the head and the softness of the flesh which renders the body obnoxious to external causes as hardness which secures it from them makes it subject to internal causes through want of transpiration Hence Peasants Souldiers and all such as are hardned by labour and are of a firm and constant constitution feel no inconvenience from the Serene although they breathe an air more subtle and consequently more capable of being impregnated in the evening with qualities noxious to the body CONFERENCE CXLVI Whether the French are Light and Inconstant and why THere is no more perfect Mirror of Inconstancy then Man as appears by the pleasure his body takes in the change of Pasture his mind in that of Objects and both in that of Condition Hence men look not upon present honours but as so many steps whereby to ascend to new the possession of present goods bringing no other satisfaction then that of their Stomack that is till a second Appetite be excited by new Meats Whereunto the nimbleness of their volatile Spirits the fluidity and mobility of their humours which constitute the temperament too notoriously furnish the efficient and material cause to inquire elsewhere for them for which reason the melancholick are less subject to this defect this earthy humour being less susceptible of change whence they prove more wise But amongst all Nations there is none to whom the vice of Levity is more imputed then to the French Caesar who had long convers'd with them frequently objects the same to them and experience sufficiently shews by what is pass'd that they are very far from the constancy of other Nations as not only their Statutes and Edicts which they cannot long observe but all their Modes and Customs and their desire of novelty abundantly testifie The causes whereof are either from the Climate or the Soil For 't is observ'd that where the Heaven is always in the same posture as toward the Poles or where the Sun heats almost in the same degree as near the Equator which makes the days and nights equal the Manners and Inclinations of the People are also equal on the contrary those that by the several remotions and approaches of the Sun have different constitutions of Air receive sutable impressions from the same which are afterwards manifested in their actions And because what is below is the same with what is on high the Earth consequently partakes of the same alterations which the Heaven produces in the Air and retains them longer Thus our Soul being heated and cooled moistned and dry'd in one and the same day suffering contrary changes in a very little time 't is no wonder if the Aliments it affords make the parts humors and spirits like it self that is to say flitting inconstant and mutable which parts being communicated from Father to Son can no more be chang'd by us even by Travels and Alteration of Soil than the Moor can change his skin which the temper of his native climate hath in like manner given him Add hereunto that the French Courtesie receiving all strangers more civilly than any Nation of the World is also more easily lead by their perswasions and examples And whereas the roughness and rusticity of many other people thinks shame and scorn to change as implying preceding Ignorance the sincerity and frankness of the French is such that he easily alters his Mind and way as soon as another seems better to him than his own other Nations what-ever Pride they take in being always constant and equal to themselves and especially more patient than we in our Adversities surpassing us onely in this particular that they better know how to dissemble their discontents The Second said Lightness of Minds is like that of Bodies respective onely not absolute And as Air is term'd Light in respect of Water and Earth so dull people those of the North and such others as would have gravity alone
in words gestures and actions pass for Wisdom call the French light because they are more nimble and active then themselves and being really what others are onely in appearance affect not that false mask of Wisdom whereof they possess the solidity and Body whilst these content themselves with enjoying its shadow and ghost For 't is not the change of habits or modes that argues that of the Mind but in great Matters as Religion and State in maintaining whereof the French may be affirm'd more constant than any Nation 'T is not an Age yet since France bad reason to glory as well as in Saint Jerom's time of never having produc'd Monsters but of planting the Faith well amongst all its Neighbors whose rigorous Inquisition is less a testimony of the Constancy than of the lightness or baseness of their Spirits since they are kept in their Religion by fear of the Wheel and the Gallows Then as for the State the French Monarchy is the ancientest in the world and hath been always maintain'd amidst the ruines and downfalls of other States by the exact observation of its fundamental Laws which is an eminent Argument of the Constancy of the French the Nations who have most charg'd them with this Vice shewing themselves the most inconstant whilst this puissant body of France remains always like it self which it could not do if the members which compose it were light and inconstant the greatest Vice where-with they can asperse us For since according to Seneca Wisdom is always to will and not-will the same things Inconstance and Irresolution in willing sometimes one thing sometimes another is a certain testimony of Folly Imprudence and weakness of Mind which coming to change intimates either that it took not its measures aright nor apprehended the fit means of attaining to the proposed end or that it had not Courage and Resolution enough to go through with its designes And not onely he who hath an inconstant and flitting Spirit is incapable of Wisdom which requires a settled Mind not mutable like that of the Fool who as the Scripture saith changes like the Moon but also of all sort of Virtue which consisting in a mediocrity is not attainable but by Prudence which prescribes its Bounds and Rules and by Stability and Constance which arms the Mind against all difficulties occurring in the way of Virtue in which as well as in the Sciences and Arts the French having more share than any other Nation 't is injurious to accuse them of Inconstancy The Third said 'T is not more vanity to believe one's self perfect in all things than temerity in going about upon blind passion for his Country to exempt it from a Vice whereof all strangers who know us better than we do our selves are universally agreed Let us confess therefore that we are inconstant since in comparison of the Vices of other Neighbouring Nations this will not onely appear light but make it doubtful whether it be a Vice since 't is grounded upon Nature which is in perpetual change whereby she appears more beautiful and agreeable than in identity and rest which is not found even in the prime Bodies and universal Causes which as well as others are in a continual mobility and change which is no-wise contrary to Wisdom which requires that we accommodate our selves to the circumstances of places persons and times which alter incessantly and that we consequently alter our Conclusions according thereunto besides that change of Opinion is a testimony of a free and ingenuous Spirit as that of the French is and it may be attributed to the power of example in a people environ'd with sundry Nations extreamly different and consisting of Spirits which are imbu'd with the qualities of them all For this Country lying under the forty third degree and the forty eighth the mixture of these people which partake a little of the Southern and a little of the Northern Neighbours sometimes conforms to the modes of one sometimes to those of the other And as in the change of Colours the difference is not seen but in the two extreamities those of the middle appearing changeable and diversifi'd so France situated between the Germans Italians and Spaniards mixing and tempering in it self the qualities of those Nations which are in its extreamities appears to them changeable and uncertain The Fourth said Though the French are not more inconstant than others yet their boyling and impetuous humor and the quickness of all their Actions having made them be esteemed such by all their Neighbors I shall rather refer the Cause thereof to their abundance of Spirits which are the sole Motors and Principles of all Actions produc'd by the purity of their Air and the variety of their Aliments than to the Aspects of Heaven or such other Causes since Nations under the same parallel with France as Podolia Hungary Tartary and many others should be subject to the same Vice which was sometimes imputed to the Grecians the most fickle and inconstant of all people without referring the Cause to the Winds as Cardan held that such as are most expos'd thereunto to have volatile Spirits otherwise the French and other Nations subject to Winds should quit their levity when they came into Climates less windy CONFERENCE CXLVII Of the sundry Motions of the Sea and Rivers NOthing ravishes us more than the Motion of Inanimate Bodies Automata or Bodies moving by Artifice having in the beginning made Idolaters who were undeceived when they came to know the Springs of them But above all the Motions of the Sea seem the more marvellous in that they are very different and contrary And they are of two sorts One Internal and common to all heavy Bodies whereby the Water descends downwards the agitated Sea becomes calm by returning to its level and Rivers follow the declivity of the Lands through which they pass The other violent which is either irregular render'd so by the irregularity of the Winds or regular which again is of two sorts namely that of reciprocation in the flux and reflux of the Sea and that which depends upon the several parts of the World being either from East to West or from North to South 'T is true Water being naturally fluid and moveable and not to be contain'd within its own bounds it were more strange if this great Body were immoveable than to see it move as it was necessary it should for Navigation and to avoid corruption The wonder onely is to see in one sole Body so great a diversity of Motions whereof onely the first is natural to it the others arise from some extrinsick Causes amongst which none acting more sensibly upon the Elements than the Celestial Bodies 't is to the diversity of their Motions that those of the Sea must be imputed but particularly that of its flux and reflux which being regular and always alike in one and the same Sea cannot proceed but from as regular a Cause such as the Heaven is and chiefly the
attribute Crisis to the Moon viz. her moving by quaternaries and septenaries her notablest changes hapning every seventh day is too general For though she rules over Moistures or Humidities and a Crisis is only in Humoral Diseases yet she cannot introduce any change in the above-mentioned Critical Days rather then in others because then she must have this power either from her self or from some other and the several Aspects of the Sun Not from her self for then no change would happen in the Moon her self nor consequently in us by her means since things which are of themselves in some subject continue always the same Not from the Sun for then these alterations in Diseases should happen onely at certain postures of the Moon and not in all Now suppose Alexander fall sick to day and Aristotle to morrow yet neither of them shall have a Crisis but on the seventh day Besides the opposition of the Moon being less at the seventh then at the thirteenth day the Crisis should be rather on the latter then on the former And the same effect of the Septenary in the Conception Life Nutrition and Actions of Animals which is not observ'd hitherto the stomach digesting not better on the seventh day and the seed not being stronger that day in the matrix then on any other and the eighth day wherein the Moon is further from the first then she was on the seventh should cause the Crisis and not the seventh In brief the septenaries of diseases rarely agree with the Septenaries of the Quarters of the Moon whose motions being unequal according to the different elevation of her Epicicle would render Crisis uncertain Wherefore Galen not finding his reckoning hit with the Lunar Motion feign'd a Medicinal Moneth consisting of six and twenty days and some hours but he hath had no followers therein Fracastorius went a better way attributing the cause of Crises to the motion of Melancholly which is on the fourth day but as the bilious humor moving alone on the third day without melancholly doth nothing so melancholly alone produceth not any Crisis on the fourth day The fifth hath also the motion of Bile alone and consequently is without effect The sixth is quiet in reference to these humors being the day of neithers motion but on the seventh these two Biles concurring together make a great critical agitation But if the matter be not then sufficiently fermented and concocted the Crisis will not come till the fourteenth when the same motion of those two humors is again repeated The Third said That this opinion of Fracastorius makes Crises fall upon dayes not critical as the tenth thirteenth sixteenth ninteenth and two and twentieth contrary to all antiquity and daily experience and is founded in an errour namely that one humor cannot putrifie in the body whilst the rest remain pure seeing Quotidian Fevers are caus'd by Phlegm alone Tertians by Choler alone and Quartans by Melancholly alone and that no other reason can be given of the regular motion of Crisis but that of the motion of the Heavens CONFERENCE CLXIX What Bodily Exercise is the most healthful WHat motion is to the Aire and Water yea and to Fire too which it maintains that is it to our Bodies Ease makes them heavy and of the nature of the Earth which of all the Elements alone delights therein For the Body consisting of the Elements it necessarily without motion falls into the corruption which Rest introduces into them and the excrements remaining after nutrition either recoile back into the masse of Blood or else resting in that part of the body which is satiated with them overcharge the same and cause that plenitude which is so much suspected by Hippocrates On the contrary Motion awakens the natural heat drives out the excrements collected by ease strengthens the Members and renders all the Faculties more vigorous provided onely that it be us'd after evacuation of the grosser Excrements and before meat because then rest is necessary otherwise the food in the Stomach will be subverted and the motion of the outward parts will too soon attract from the inward the food undigested whence many diseases arise And this right use of Exercise is so necessary to health that the Athenians purposely dedicated a place for exercises call'd Gymnasiun to Apollo the God of Physick for which word the Art which treats of exercises is call'd Gymnastica and the Sorceries of Medea may be better understood of Exercises which make young and strengthen bodies formerly soft and effeminate than of Herbs wherewith she stuffed the bodies of old men whom she had jugulated an Art without which Plato and Aristotle thought a Commonwealth could not be good and to which chiefly is to be attributed the difference found between our modern Souldiers and the Roman Legionaries yea between the good habitude of their bodies and the weakness of ours who have so intermitted their exercises that onely the names of many are left Now since motion which to deserve the name of exercise must alter the respiration of the Animal is violent to it and of violent things we cannot take too little I conceive that such exercise as holds the mean between rest and extream motions is the best As Riding or going on Horseback which giving us motion diminishes the labour thereof and stirs all the parts of the body which happens not when only one part of the same body is exercis'd and the rest remain unmov'd The Second said That Exercise which is a voluntary motion and agitation of the Body with respiration increas'd whereby 't is distinguisht from the labour of Artisans and Labourers and from Actions accompany'd with no striving as playing on Instruments was transferr'd to the use of Physick by one Herodicus according to Plato in the third Book of his Republick and 't is taken two wayes either for that which is made by the proper motion of the Body or for such motion as is external to it as Swinging the Petaurum of the Latins Navigation going in a Coach or Litter As for those made by the Body alone they are of three sorts Athletical Military and Ludicrous or Pass-times The Athletick though the ancientest yet to me seem the most unprofitable serving onely to harden the surface of the body and the extream parts as the Armes and Legs such were Wrastling which is still in use among our Britains and at Constantinople before the Grand Seignior's Gate amongst some Tartars whom they call Pluyanders Acrochirism which consisted onely in keeping the fingers interlac'd one within the other Fifty-cuffs call'd anciently Pugilatus and imitated at this day by the Gondoliers at Venice Cae'stus wherein the hands were arm'd with plates of Copper and Pancratia which was compounded of Wrastling and Pugilate Of this sort were also Running commended by Seneca in his fifteenth Epistle for the Chief of Exercises and by Plato in the eighth Book of his Republick Leaping on high and in length either on both Feet or on
his Books to cure diseases by words and to produce men by inchantment in a great bottle with other such abominable proposals not to be accomplish'd but by Diabolical assistance Moreover we seldom see any persons so bold as to attempt to overthrow so ancient an Institution as Physick both in Theory and Practise but who are led to that enterprise either by God or the Devil And the continual calumnies and detractions whereof this evil spirit is the Author and for which Paracelsus and his followers so signalize themselves give farr more probability of the latter than of the former Whence possibly to disguise the matter most Magicians pretend to have learnt their Characters out of some Book as particularly that which they call Clavicula Solomonis The Third said That it may be Magick and yet lawful to wit true and Natural Magick such as was profess'd by the Indian Magi three of whom having discover'd our Saviour's Birth came to worship him the other black and infamous Magick no more deserving that name than Empiricks and Mountebanks do that of Physicians Now Natural Magick is the knowledge of the nature and properties of all things hidden to the vulgar who take notice only of manifest qualities and reduce all to generalities to avoid the pains of seeking the particular virtues of each thing and therefore 't is no wonder if they see only common effects and successes from them Thus Plants bearing the signature or resemblance of a disease or the part diseased as Lungwort Liverwort Pepperwort cure by a property independent on the first qualities though few understand so much Of this kind are many excellent Secrets whose effects seem miraculous and as much surpass those of ordinary remedies whose virtues are collected only from their appearing qualities as the Soul doth the Body and Heaven Earth The Fourth said That by the Book M. cannot be meant Mundus since the World cannot be turn'd into Arabick and Latine and 't is not a Secret but a Figure and Metaphor to call the World a Book If it be lawful to admit a Figure in it I think 't is more likely that this Book is nothing else but a Talismanical Figure or Character engraven in a Seal and employ'd by the Rosie-Crucians to understand one another and call'd the Book M because it represents an M cross'd by some other Letters from whose combination results the mystery of the Great Work designing its matter vessel fire and other Circumstances the first whereof is Dew the true Menstruum or Dissolver of the Red Dragon or Gold In brief so many things are compriz'd in this figure by the various combination of the Letters represented therein that it deserves well to be term'd a Book The Fifth said If this be the Secret of the Brethren of the Rosie-Cross they are Invisible in all their proceedings because no Secret is seen in it but only many absurdities As amongst others to call that a Book which is neither Paper nor Parchment nor Leaf but a Figure in which 't is no wonder if they find what they please since in these three Letters Sic variously interlac'd one with another you may find not only all the Letters but also by their combination all the Books and all the things which are in the World and it requires no more industry than to found all sorts of notes upon a Flageolet Let us therefore rather say That Authors who puzzle their Readers minds with such Figures are as culpable as those are commendable who feed them with true and solid demonstrations and whereas we thought that this M signifi'd Mons we now see that it signifies no more than Mus according to the ancient Fable of the labouring Mountains out of which upon the concourse of people to the spectacle issu'd forth nothing but a Mouse The Sixth said That high Mysteries have alwayes been veil'd under contemptible and oftentimes ridiculous Figures as if the wisdom of the sublimer Spirits meant to mock those of the vulgar who judge of things only by appearance Which may have place in common effects but as for extraordinary things their causes are so too whereof we have experiences in Nature sufficiently manifest There is no affinity between a word and the death it gives to a Serpent yet the Poet attests the thing in this Verse Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur Anguis between the sight of a little bird call'd a Wit-wall and the Jaundies which it cures between the Figure call'd Abacus Lunae and the Meagrim which is also cur'd thereby between a point ty'd and the Generative Power which it hinders In brief the most excellent effects are of this kind and deserve not the name of admirable unless when our mind finds no connexion between the effect and the cause that produceth it Why then may not the same reality be admitted between this Character and the effects pretended by those Brothers of the Rosie-Cross CONFERENCE CXCV. Of the Art of Raimond Lully SOme Wits are fitter for Invention than Imitation and so was that of Raimond Lully who invented an Art how to find many Attributes Propositions Questions and Means of speaking to any Subject propounded to the end to be never surpriz'd but to be and always appear ready By this Art which upon account of its use and because it pretends to shorten vulgar studies he stiles Great he endeavors to out-do Aristotle who having reduc'd all Logick to Definitio Proprium Genus and Accidens and in his Books of Topicks set down some few places out of which to draw Mediums for arguing Lully hath propos'd others not only drawn from all the preceding but increas'd with many others invented by himself This Art he divides into two parts The first treats of simple terms which he calls Principles whereunto he hath joyn'd general Questions and this part he calls the Alphabet because it comprizes each of those terms reduc'd to nine by as many Letters of the Alphabet The second treats of the connexion of these Principles and makes Propositions and Syllogisms of them this part he intitles De Figuris either because 't is illustrated by Tables or Figures representing the combination of those Principles or because Arguments are compos'd of them as the Celestial Figures are of Stars His Alphabet is thus delineated by Pacius b Goodness Difference whether it be 1 c Greatness Concordance what it is 2 d Durātion Contrariety whence and from whō 3 e Power Principle or beginning why 4 f Wisdom Middle how much 5 g Appetite End of what quality 6 h Virtue Majority when 7 i Truth Equality where 8 k Glory Minority how 9 This Table as you see contains three Columns each of which hath Nine Squares and every one of these a word The first Column contains Absolute or Transcendent Principles the second Relative Principles the third Questions On the side of these Squares are set the nine first Letters of the Alphabet namely from b to k because Lully reserv'd a to denote the
deadly to Men is not warranted by any Example Antiquity whose Judgement is venerable even in doubtful things allowing this Beast capable of doing mischief only in the place where he resides CONFERENCE CCIX. Whether a Dead Body can be preserv'd naturally many years THis Question is divided in two points First Whether a dead Body can be kept without art Secondly Whether it can be so by art Nature being here oppos'd not to Art but to what is supernatural The first is hard every Carkase having in it self the principles of Coruption because the harmony of qualities which caus'd to subsist being dissolv'd it advances of it self to an annihillation And Nature should cease her continual motion if her subject depriv'd of animal life should always remain in one and the same state Yea if Nature should stop her course in dead Bodies and not be able to resolve them into other works the Influences of the Heavens would be useless in respect of them as also their motion which is in order to generations which would cease if there were no more corruption whence the destruction of the Universe in its parts would follow Nor would the Elements act any more one against another remaining pure and simple and incapable of any generation since siccity could no more act upon humidity nor heat upon cold It remains to enquire Whether a dead Body may be preserv'd by art which seems possible because we may by art destroy the activity of the Elements and reduce them to a just and equal temperament capable of long preservation For if impurities and superfluities lead mixt Bodies to Corruption 't is easie to separate them by Chymistry otherwise this art would be incapable of reducing them as it doth every day to a just Temperament Yea if we consider the Principles of Preservation it will appear that those of Art are more powerful than those of Nature in regard of the means and Instruments it employs to separate them which Nature cannot do because She mixes things without choice and depuâ—ation and consequently since Art hath so much power in so many Agenâ—s 't is possible to preserve a dead body for many years Moreover our own Experience and that of Antiquity teach us that Balms are able to preserve bodies a long time as appears in the Mummies of Aegypt and in some Embryo's which â—re preserv'd long in spirit of Salt and other Liquors repugnant 〈…〉 The second said That a dead body may be preserved long not only by 〈◊〉 but also naturally as that of a Lady deceased fifty six years ago which was found lately intire and gave occasion â—o this Conference Whence it may be presum'd That Women are not so easily corruptible because their bodies are made of flesh more elaborate then that of man which was immediately taken from the dust and consequently is more prone to return into its first Original Now the way to preserve dead bodies from corruption is to prevent the dissolution of their parts which is done by maintaining the connexion of humidity with driness to which end all extrinsical heat and moisture must be kept from them as much as possible Hence it is that dead bodies are plac'd in subterraneous places and inclosed in leaden Coffins to the end the cold and dry vapours symbolizing with the qualities of Saturn which the Chymists make as justly preservative as the Poets make it destructive may withstand extrinsecal heat and moisture and maintain the marriage of 〈◊〉 with humidity which is also the scope of the Gums and Spices we employ to imbalm bodies which having some heat with a certain Unctuousness suck up the superfluous moisture and preserve the Natural Moreover the Sex Age and Temperament are considerable in this matter A Habit of body moderately fleshy which Galen accounts the most laudable and which denotes a good Constitution is fittest for this purpose and 't is probable that the bodies of those that die of a sudden death resist putrefaction longer than those that have been extenuated by a longer Sickness or brought to the Grave by a Feaver because in these cases the body is in a great tendency to putrefaction even before Death CONFERENCE CCX Of the Remora T Is a small Fish half a foot long called by the Greeks Echeneïs and by the Latins Remora because 't is thought to stop the motion of Ships by means of two scales wherewith it closely imbraces the keel This common belief is founded upon many experiences reported by Authors worthy of Credit Pliny writes That Periander having sent a Ship to Gnidos with orders to castrate all the principal Children of that Island it was stopp'd in the main sea so long time as was requisite to send for other Orders contrary to the former by another Ship and that in remembrance of this happy retardment the two scales of this little fish were in his time seen hanging up near the Altar of Gnidia and Venus The like happen'd to a Pretorian Ship of Anthony at the battel of Actium so that he could not advance to give Orders to his Naval Army The Emperor Caligula having set sail from Asturia with a Gally of five banks was likewise constrain'd to stay by the way with his Vessel the other Ships not suffering the same obstruction at which this Prince was so incens'd that he presently commanded divers to seek out the cause who at length found this Fish sticking to the helm of the Vessel which they shew'd him about the bigness of a Snail and he was more surpris'd when he saw that it had not the like effect within the Ship as without as 't is said the foot of a Tortoise being in a Vessel makes it move slowly Plutarch in the second book of his Symposiacks affirms That this Fish was found sticking to the Ship which he hired to sail into Sicily and Rondeletius saith That the Cardinal of Tourain being imbarked for Rome in a Vessel of three banks was a long time stopp'd in a place at Sea by this little Fish which being taken was serv'd up to his table though others write that it is not fit to eat But what they add That its vertue of retarding is such that it is made use of to hinder the Judgment of a Law-suit whereof the issue is fear'd and also in filtres to retain a Lover that despises his loving Mistris is as hard to believe as 't is to find considerable reasons for it without having recourse to the ancient asylum of those who despair to find any which is the specifick form of this Fish which hath the same faculty of stopping Ships that a Diamond hath of retaining the Vertue of the Loadstone and Garlick of hindering it to act as the Ship appeaseth the fury of the Elephant the Fig-tree that of the Bull and many other such things which though small in bulk are yet very great and virtuous as they make appear in their Qualities which are as sensible in their Effects as they are occult in their
the prosecution of their designs or forc'd them to pronounce such as should be to their advantage This course was taken by Alexander the Great and Cleomenes by the former when he consulted the Pythian by the other when he consulted the Delphick Oracle both which they forc'd to say what they pleas'd themselves Thence it came that most of the ancient Philsophers exclaim'd against them and the Platonists who made a greater account of them then any of the other Sects acknowledge that they are no other then the most despicable Devils and those of the lowest rank who engage themselves in that employment which they must needs practise in desert and dreadful places to the end there might be fewer witnesses of their weakness and impostures These are apparent in their very Answers which if not false were so ambiguous or at least so obscure that many times there needed another Oracle to explain them Nor were they in vogue but during the darkness of Paganism which being dispell'd by the light of the Gospel those Oracles never durst appear in that glorious day which would have discover'd their lying and falshood The Second said That the Art of Divination being conjectural and grounded on experience as well as several others of that nature it is not to be admir'd that the Answers of those who heretofore made profession thereof were not always true and therefore it is as irrational a procedure to draw any consequences thence to its prejudice as to infer that the Precepts of Medicine are false because the Physician does not always make his Prognosticks aright The General of an Army may sometimes proceed upon wrong grounds and the expert Pilot may run upon those shelves and rocks which he most endeavours to avoid True it is that the subtilty of the Devil and depravedness of Mankind have foisted abundance of abuses into the business of Oracles especially in the erecting of those Statues to those fabulous Divinities which they commonly made of Olive-tree Lawrel Vine Cedar or some such kind of wood full of unctuous moisture which they said were the tears or sweat of their false Gods as also in the pompous Ceremonies wherewith they amused the credulous Vulgar Such were those of Trophonius among the Thebans who answer'd only those who being clad in white descended through a hole of the cave into his Temple and there offered cakes to the Spirits which inhabited it after which they were convey'd out at another place of the cave where they drunk the Water of the Fountain of Memory which caus'd them to remember whatever they had heard as they had drunk that of Lethe before they had entred into it which had caus'd them to forget all affairs of the World But we are not hence to conclude that all Oracles were false nor doubt of the validity of that sublime Art upon its being disparag'd by those who have profess'd it since it hath its grounds not only in the inclination of mens minds who having an extraordinary earnestness to know things to come there must needs be some Science for the attaining of that Knowledge otherwise Nature who had imprinted that desire in him should contrary to her custom have done something in vain but also in the dispositions of that Temperament which is subject to Melancholy or black Choler For the former of these is the Temperament of the more ingenious sort of people according to the Philsopher in his Problems and the other being more resplendent is that of persons enclin'd to Divination occasion'd by the clear representation of the Species in that humour which being bright and smooth as a Mirrour cannot so well be discover'd by those who are not of that Constitution to which Plato in his Memnon attributes the cause of Apollo's Priestesse's pronouncing the Oracles in Hexameter Verse though she had never learnt Poesie and Pompanatius in his Books of Enchantments affirms that it caus'd a Woman who never was out of Mantua where she was born to speak several strange Languages The Third said That Divination being above the reach of our Understanding as much as this latter is below the Divinity which hath reserv'd to it self the priviledge of a distinct knowledge of things to come it is to no purpose to seek for the true causes of it in our selves but we are to find them in the Heavens whence if we may believe the Professors of Astrology that quality of Divination or Prediction is communicated to Men by the interposition of the Intelligences whereby those vast Bodies are moved and that Science taught by making it appear how great a correspondence there is between the effects of the sublunary Bodies and the superior causes on which they depend and wherein they are potentially comprehended even before they are actually existent Whereto if you add the concourse of the Universal Spirit which equally animates the whole world and the parts whereof it consists and which meeting with convenient dispositions in the minds of men and the several places where Oracles have been given inspir'd those extraordinary motions which have rais'd the Spirit of man and open'd its way into effects the most at a distance from his knowledge Admitting I say such a concourse there may some probable reason be given of these Predictions not only of things whose causes being natural and necessary their effects are infallible such as are Eclipses the Rising Setting and Regular Motions of the Planets or of those whose causes are only probable as it is reported that Pherecydes foretold a dreadful Earth-quake by the boyling up of the water in his own Well and Thales foresaw the scarcity of Olives in the Territories of Athens But also of effects which having only contingent or free causes lie not so obvious to discovery and yet these being denoted by the general causes such as are the Heavens and the Universal Spirit those persons who have clear-sighted and illuminated Souls may perceive them therein even before they happen The Fourth said That there are three general causes of Oracles one Supernatural another Artificial and the third Natural and that not to speak any thing of the Supernatural whereof the Devils were the Authors and made use of it to continue still in their first Rebellion when they attempted to ascend into the Throne of God and be like him nor yet of their Artificial Cause which was certain persons devoted to their worship who retiring into Caves and Subterraneous places were incited by those evil Spirits to that sordid Ministry that so by that means they might lay snares for the simple who were easily drawn away by these false Lights The Natural Cause of those Oracles especially such as were pronounc'd out of the celebrated Caves and Grots of Antiquity was a subtile Exhalation rais'd out of those places which fastening on the Spirits of the Prophet or Prophetess already dispos'd to receive that impression had the same Influence on them as the fumes of Wine have on those who drink it to
not be attributed to the Heaven but to the Earth which produceth all other varieties of Animals especially of men as is observ'd in the Patagons who are Gyants To whom are oppos'd the Pigmies which their soil likewise produceth And to shew that the tincture of the skin is not the only particularity observable in Negroes they have many other Properties whereby they are distinguish'd from other Nations as their thick lips saddle-noses coarse short hair the horny tunicle of the eye and the teeth whiter than the rest of men Besides they are not only exempted from the Pox and other Venereous Maladies but their Climate alone airs the same Not to mention the Qualities of their minds which are so ignorant that though they have plenty of Flax yet they want Cloth because they want skill how to work it they abound with Sugar-canes yet make no trade of them and esteem Copper more than Gold which they barter for the like weight of Salt and are wholly ignorant of Laws and Physick Which ignorance renders their spirits more base and servile than those of other Nations and they are so born to slavery that even free men among the Abyssins the most considerable people of all Aethiopia when they are employ'd by any one take it not ill to be lash'd with a Bull 's Pizzle provided they be paid and when their Priests exhort the people they whip them till the blood comes for the better inculcating of their Instructions those being held in most reverence who whip them most severely though they were the first Pagans who were converted to the Faith by Queen Candace's Eunuch who was instructed by S. Philip. And as pusillanimous persons are commonly the most treacherous these two vices having both the same principles and presupposing ignorance of the point wherein true Honour consists so the Moors are ordinarily base and unfaithful to their Masters as is verifi'd by abundance of Histories which meanness and poorness of Courage reaches from the second next the King's person to the most inferior amongst them all bowing down and touching the ground with their hand when they hear the name of their King Prete-Jun before whose Tent they make a Reverence though he be not there and flatter him so excessively that if one of their Kings happen to lose an Eye or other member they deprive themselves of the same too Moreover they are so credulous that they perswade themselves that this King is descended in a direct line from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba who they say was nam'd Maqueda when she came to see him as they report for some other cause besides admiring his Wisdom The Third said That the case is the same with the Negroes in respect of the color of their skin and the other above-mention'd particulars as with the long heads of the Children of Paris which Nature produceth at this day of herself ever since the Midwives had form'd the first after that manner upon a belief that this figure was more becomming and suitable to the functions of the Soul than roundness So likewise the heat of the Sun first blacken'd the skin of the Moors of either Sex by little and little amongst whom the blackest hides the thickest lips and most evers'd being in esteem every Mother endeavor'd to make her Childrens lips and nose of that figure and Nature helpt by their Imagination mov'd by the occurrence of like objects hath produc'd such ever since But 't is no wonder if the people of some Countries under the same parallels and latitude indeed but defended from the heat of the Sun by opposite Mountains are exempt from the effect of that heat as there are places in France where upon the same reason fruits are a month or two later in ripening than those of their Neighbors Moreover the frisl'd short hair of Negroes is an effect of the same heat as also their being exempted from the Pox which being a phlegmatick cold poyson as appears by its invading the spermatick parts and the encreasing of its pains in the night more than day 't is more reasonable that the Temperaments opposite thereunto such as theirs whose flesh is very dry and void of Phlegm be free from the same Now that Negroes abound not in Phlegm and Moisture appears in that they never spit in their Churches not only out of custom but express Law which would never have been made if it had not been easie to observe Moreover the whiteness of their teeth is augmented by the blackness of their faces And as for their wits Scaliger thinks them not really dull but only out of design and craft which always argues wit Whence Geographers who reckon Southern people amongst the most ingenious say They could never be brought to their duty by Reason but suffer themselves to be rul'd only by Religion Because where Humane Reason holds not as in matters of Faith there the greatest wits are oblig'd to become subject to the less when they speak to them as from God Besides their Characters are handsomer and more agreeable than either the Arabick or Turkish They are addicted to Navigation and have a Military Order under the protection of Saint Anthony to which every Gentleman is bound to design one of his three Sons except the eldest which serves for their King's Guard and amounts to 12000. Horsemen And if there be no other reason to esteem them ignorant but their having no wrangling Lawyers many other Nations would be happy if they had none neither And though Physick be not reduc'd to an Art nor taught by a Method amongst them as neither was it of old amongst us yet they want not Remedies useful for health Their want of Linnen proceeds from their abundance of Cotton and the comparison of Gold and Copper depends upon Phansie And lastly the paucity of the people finding food enough at home have less cause to be eager upon Trade abroad CONFERENCE CCXII. Of Ecstacies THough the union between the Body and the Soul be so strict as to serve for a model to all other unions observable in Nature yet is it not so strong but that sometimes it admits of a dissolution which the Philosophers conceiv'd possible both those parts continuing entire This separation is call'd an Ecstacy wherein the Platonists who first brought it into Vogue plac'd the Summum Bonum or greatest Felicity inasmuch as they pretended that mens minds were thereby disengag'd from all material things nay from their very Bodies by the clouds and humidities whereof they imagin'd that the mind was disturbed in its functions which being equally spiritual are the more compleatly perform'd the more the Understanding whereby they are produc'd is disengag'd from this corporeal mass Whence it comes that old men especially such as are near death or in their sleep have clearer visions and more certain predictions than young men and those who are in perfect health of a moist Temperament who are waking and perform all their other functions And whereas there is