not by rarity alone or local extension but by formal extension or internal quantity and consequently that a little matter under a great internal quantity is the principle cause of tenuity rarity and transparence to which the evenness of surfaces is also requisite in gross bodies So that Light consists in a proportion between the quantity and the matter of its subject and Light is great when the matter is little under a great quantity as in the Heavens on the contrary the body is dark when a very small quantity is joyn'd to a great deal of matter as is seen in the Earth To prove this you must observe that all simple bodies are luminous excepting the Earth which is opake and we find Light in sundry animated bodies as in the Eyes of Cats and of those Indian Snailes which shine like torches and in our Gloe-wormes whose Light proceeds from their Spirits which being of a middle nature between the Body and the Soul are the least material thing in the world Whence it follows that Light is a form with the most of essence amongst sensible formes as obscurity hath the least The Second said The wonder of Marsilius Ficinus was with reason how 't was possible that nothing should be so obscure as Light For if Transparence be the subject of it why doth Crystal heated red hot in the fire come forth more luminous and less transparent then it was The same may be said of Rarity for we see that Air and Aqua Vitae are well rarify'd by the fire which inflames them but cease to be transparent as soon as they are made more rare and luminous which is an evident sign that rarity and transparence are not causes nor yet conditions of Light So the whole remainder of Heaven is lucid but onely the less rare parts and such as you might call vapours in respect of the pure Air. And the light which proceeds from the Sun the most luminous of all those celestial bodies would never be visible but be depriv'd of all its effects which are heating and enlightning if it were not reflected by some solid body Then it not onely appears but exerts its activity And if things be produc'd by the same causes which preserve and multiply them the solidity of burning mirrors made of Steel the hardest of all metals which make the Sun-beams do more then their own nature empowers them to shews sufficiently that their Light cannot arise from a rare and diaphanous cause Nor may the Light of rotten wood be assign'd to its rarity alone since many other bodies of greater rarity shine not at all nor that of Gloe-worms and Cats Eyes to their spirits since the flesh of some animals shines after their death as 't is affirm'd of Oxen that have frequently eaten a sort of Moon-wort and not onely the scales of divers fishes shine after separation from their bodies but sparkles of fire issue from the hair of some persons in great droughts whereunto the spirits contribute nothing Which would perswade me to believe that Light is a Form to the introduction whereof several conditions are requisite according to the diversity of subjects just as we see the Souls of some irrational creatures need great dispositions for their reception a Brain a Heart and a Liver with their dependances whereas others as Insects require lesse and are contented with something that may supply this defect some are generated in an instant without any apparent preparation as Frogs in a summer showre and therefore to assign the cause of Light is to seek the reason of Formes which is unknown to us Which similitude the vulgar speech confirmes for the people say The Candle is dead when it is extinguish'd presupposing that it had life before as an Animal hath so long as its form is conjoyn'd with its body Moreover Fire hath a Locall Motion as Animals have to obtain its food The Third said Light is a substance for it was created by God but 't is a Sixth Essence more subtile then that of Heaven which is call'd a Quintessence in respect of the Four Elements A substance which subsisted before the Sun having been created three dayes before it and nothing hinders but it may be communicated in a moment from Heaven to Earth since the intentional species of visible things is so Indeed whereunto shall we attribute the effect of Light which heats at distance and blinds being too great which colours and gives ornament to the Universe if it be not a substance And the Penetration of Dimension objected hereunto is salv'd by saying that it hath no more place here then when an Iron is red hot with the Fire which yet none will affirm to be an accident and neverthelesse it enters into the whole substance of the Iron and Light with it for 't is transparent and luminous at its centre when 't is throughly heated in the Fire The Fourth said The excellence of Light appears in that nothing hath greater resemblance with the Deity Which made some Heathen Philosophers say that Light is Gods Body and Truth his Soul Moreover the Scripture teaches us that God dwells in inaccessible Light And the blessed Spirits are stil'd Angels of Light as Daemons Spirits of darknesse Light enlivens and animates all things it rejoyces all Creatures by its presence Birds begin to sing and even flowers to display their beauties at its arrival And because Nothing gives what it hath not therefore some have conceiv'd that Light the enlivener of all the world is it self indu'd with life and that 't is the Universal Spirit and the Soul of the whole world Whence Plato in his timaeus brings no other argument to prove that Fire is an Animal but that it is luminous And in the sixth Book of his Common-wealth he makes the Sun who is the known Father of all living things the son of Light without which Pythagoras forbad to do any thing Moreover it hath no contrary Darkness being oppos'd to it onely privatively For its being is so excellent that Nature found not her self so able to make any thing that might be equall'd with it that might alter and corrupt it as the nature of Contraries require whereas all Qualities have each their particular enemy And 't is upon this very reason that Light acts in an instant because having no contrary quality to expel from its subject it needs no time or successive motion which is necessary to other qualities as to heat to warm cold water The Fifth said Light is a real form produc'd in the medium by a luminous body Aristotle calls it the act of the Perspicuum as it is Perspicuum This Form is accidental and falls under the head of Patible Qualities because 't is sensible by it self which is the property of accidents alone whereas substance is not sensible that is falls not under the perception of sense but by means of accidents and as it is the principle of action which belongs onely to a Quality For it cannot
else but an execess of heat which is a meer Accident as well in its little degrees as in its excesses More and less making no change in the species Our Fire then is an excessive heat which adheres to Things that have some crass and oleaginous humour in them and continues there by a continual efflux and successive Generation without any permanence like the Water of a River which Heat lasts so long till that humour be consumed If it be said that it ascends upwards seeking its own place I answer that 't is the Exhalation that carries it up yea that it descends too as we see in a Candle blown out and still smoaking if it be held beneath another burning one the flame descendeth along the smoak and lighteth it again So that the Fire is indifferent of it self where it goes for it lets it self be govern'd and carry'd by the Exhalation And it appears further That Fire is less subtile then Air for flame is not transparent and it engendreth soot which is very gross The Third added That indeed Fire cannot be a Substance because it hath a Contrary viz. The Water Besides every Substantial Form preserves its own Matter and acts not against it but Fire destroyes its own Moreover a certain degree of some Quality is never necessary to a Substantial Form as the Earth ceaseth not to be Earth though it be less cold or dry and so of the rest But Fire cannot be Fire unless the supreme degree of heat be in it Add hereunto that Fire may be produc'd in a Substance without corrupting it as we see in a Flint or a burning Bullet Now a Substantial Form is not produc'd in a Subject till the preceding be destroy'd the Generation of the one being the corruption of the other Lastly Every substance produceth by way of Generation an indivisible substantial Form But Fire produceth a divisible Quality For that which was cold becometh first warm then hot and by degrees becometh Fire which cannot be with a mixture of cold non consist therewith unless as degrees of qualities The Fourth said That Fire is a most perfect Element hot and dry according to Aristotle of the most perfect form and activity of all the Elements according to Plato the principal instrument of Nature according to Empedocles the Father of Things Whence it was that the Assyrians ador'd it The Persians carry'd it out of Honour before their Kings and at the head of their Armies The Romans made so great account of it that they assign'd it to the care of certain Virgins to be kept immortal Pythagoras believ'd it to be an Animal because it is nourish'd as Animals and for want of Aliment dyes And because a lighted Torch being cast into the Water the Fire extinguishing sendeth forth such a noyse as Animals do at the gasps of Death But he esteemed its natural place to be the Centre of the Subterranean World Whence it is said he that we see so many Volcanoes and other Fires issue out of the entrals of the Earth as those of Monte Vesuvio in the Kingdom of Naples Monte Gibello formerly Aetna in Sicily and Monte Hecla in Iseland and so many other burning Mountains The Fifth said That as the Sea is the Principle from whence all the Waters come and the end whether they return So the Sun is the Element of Fire from whence all other Fires come and whether at length they reascend as to their Source 1. For that all Effects Qualities and Properties of Fire agree particularly to the Sun seeing he heats burnes dryes and is the cause of all the Generations that are made here below 2. Because the Elements stay in their natural places Now the Fire not onely ascendeth from the Subterraneous places where it is detain'd by reason of a sulphureous and bituminous Matter which serves it for food but it passeth also beyond the Heavens of the Moon Mercury and Venus as appears by Comets which are igneous and particularly by that which appear'd in the year 1618. acknowledg'd by all the Astronomers upon the reasons of Opticks to have been above the said places The Sixth denyed That the Sun can be the Element of Fire 1. Because 't is a Coelestial and Incorruptible Body and by consequence not Igneous or Elementary 2. If all Fires come from the Sun it will follow that all his rayes are Igneous Bodies for there cannot be imagin'd other Fires to come from the Sun hither but his beams Now the Sun-beams are neither Bodies nor Igneous Not Bodies since Illumination and Eradiation being made in an instant it will follow that a Body cometh from Heaven to Earth in a Moment Which is absurd because No Motion is made in an instant Besides being those Rayes penetrate Glass and such other solid and diaphanous Bodies there would be a penetration of Dimensions which is impossible Nor are they Igneous seeing Fire being of its own nature light descendeth not but the beams of the Sun descend down hither Moreover Fire is actually hot but the Sun-beams are onely so in power viz. when they are reflected by an opake body as appears in the Middle Region of the Air where it is colder then upon the Earth though its beams are nearer Wherefore it is more reasonable to hold to the common opinion which placeth the Fire immediately under the Heaven of the Moon For there is no fear that that Fire how great soever can burn the World it s hear being allay'd and dull'd by the extreme humidity of the Air its Neighbour and by the great coldness of the same Air which is in the Middle Region and counter-checketh that heat which on one side hath already lost its violence and acrimony by its natural Rarity Nor is there any trouble to be taken for its nourishment for being in its own Centre and Empire it hath no enemies nor contraries and needeth no food for its support as our common Fire doth What if we behold it not 'T is not because there is none but because it is so rare and so pure that it cannot fall within the perception of our Senses As there is such a thing as Air though we see it not How many Colours Odours Sapours and Sounds are there which we never knew And as for what is observ'd in a Candle newly put out it is clear that the Fire descendeth not to it but inflameth the unctuous Matter which it toucheth and this the next even to the Candle from whence that Matter proceedeth II Of the Vniversal Spirit Upon the Second Point it was said That it must First be known what is meant by Universal Spirit 2. Whether there be one 3. What it is As for the First By the word Universal Spirit is understood some universal cause and principle of all the actions and motions which are made in Generation Just as they assign one same First Matter for the Subject of all Formes so they speak of an Vniversal Form which containes all the rest in
Memory to make it better then to procure a good Judgement in him which wants it The Fifth saith He conceiv'd it no less difficult to remember the Places Images and odd precepts of this Art and apply them to the subject then to learn by heart at first the things themselves or their words which also when learnt by this Art are soon lost as being found upon chimeraes of which the Mind cannot alwayes so thorowly clear it self but there will be left some Idea thereof more apt to trouble the Memory then to assist it alwayes However I had rather learn a little labouronsly with the profit and impression ordinarily accompanying my pains then feed upon those vain pictures Wherefore I am prone to think that either there is no Art of Memory or else that it is unprofitable or mischievous and as such to be rejected by all the world The Sixth said Since where ever there is defect there is need of some Art to correct the same and remove from the Faculties the obstacles which they meet with in the exercise of their Offices why should Memory alone be destitute of this succour Considering it hath wayes so various that not onely words which signifie something but those which signifie nothing are of use to the Memory Therefore Aristotle saith He who would remember must make barbarismes And to six a name or word in the Mind a Man will utter many which come near it But as this Art is not to be despis'd so neither is it alwayes to be made use of much less in things which have some order of themselves as Anatomy Geography Chronology and History or in which a good natural Memory can contrive any They who have this Faculty vigorous from their birth or made it such by exercise wrong themselves in employing the precepts of this Art for that purpose as a Man of five and twenty years old should do if he made use of spectacles having no need thereof But it is onely fit for those who having a weak Memory would remember many barbarous names or some coats and numbers the variety whereof many times breeds confusion for the recollecting of which this Art teaches to remember certain shapes figures or species sometimes the most uncouth that can be excogitated to the end the Phancy may be more effectually moved by the same CONFERENCE XXIV I. Which of the Five Senses is the most noble II. Of Laughter I. Which of the five Senses is the most Noble AS he who hath the present sense of any Disease accounts that the greatest so they who exercise some one of their Senses more then the rest who get profit by it or are delighted in it willingly award the preceedence to the same Take the judgement of a Perfumer he values nothing but Odors and the smell which judgeth thereof He will tell you that if we had the perfect knowledge of Aromatical Compositions they would ravish all our Senses that Perfume must needs have something Divine in it because God so lov'd it that he particularly reserv'd it to himself and forbad all others to use a certain Composition under pain of death The same is also argu'd from the offence we take at the evil scent of any stinking thing that so the very name of it passing onely through our ears displeases us in such sort as to disparage the truth of the Proverb that Words do not stink as on the contrary the name alone of the Rose Violet and Jasmin seemes to recreate the smelling by the Ear. Poets and Lovers will be for the Eyes and the Touch. They who understand Opticks will hold that 't is the seeing which affordeth the greatest wonders Whence Comical Representations move so powerfully and Sight hath more influence upon us then Hear-say If you will take the judgement of Musitians the Hearing shall carry the Bell from the other senses and this Position is back'd with the experience of Melody Perswasion and the Art of Oratory which caus'd Antiquity to feign two sorts of Hercules the one who subdu'd monsters with the blows of his club and the other who captivated his Auditors with chains of Gold reaching from his Tongue to their Ears Philoxenus who wish'd a Crane's neck and they who live onely to drink and eat whereas we drink and eat to live will give the preheminence to the Taste Wherefore in my Opinion this Question is hard to be decided because it requires impartial Judges whose number is very small The Second said That for the right judging of the Cause all parties ought to be heard As for the Sight the fabrick of its Organ so artificially compos'd of Humours and Tunicles and guarded with Eye-lids and Brows as so many ramparts for its preservation sufficiently plead its excellence But that of the six Couple of Nerves for so many onely there are in the Brain the first and the second are peculiarly destinated to the Eyes this shews how highly Nature tenders them above all other parts Moreover Vision is perform'd in an Instant and makes present to us those things which are as remote from us as Heaven is from Earth and this by spiritual qualities for the Actions of Bodies are not expedited but in Time this is an other argument of its Excellence Further since nothing is more goodly then Light it seemes to follow that nothing is more excellent then the Sight whose Object it is Whence some Philosophers conceiv'd the Soul to have chosen the Eyes for its Mansion Next then for Hearing this Sense seemes to feed the Soul or rather to give it birth For if the Soul be consider'd naturally its food and life is to understand reason and discourse to which purposes the Hearing alone is serviceable being for this cause term'd the Sense of Discipline If the Soul be consider'd as it enjoyes a life more noble then the natural namely that of Grace the Sense of Hearing seemes the Author of this Life For the Just lives by Faith saith the Holy Scripture Now this Faith comes from Hearing as the Apostle testifies and not from Seeing For it is the evidence of things not seen and where we see there is no longer Faith As for the Smelling indeed good Odors recreate the Brain repair the Animal Spirits purifie and fit them to assist the Soul when it exerciseth its most noble operations but the weak Title of this Sense seemes to need a better Advocate then all the rest The Senses of Tasting and Touching remain but both in the same degree because one proceeds from the other Gustation being a sort of Contact In considering of these two Senses me-thinks I hear them complain of the ingratitude of Men for placing them in the lowest form notwithstanding their great service in the birth of Mankind by Generation which is a kind of Touching and in the subsequent preservation thereof incessantly by the Sense of Tasting And yet since all the commendation of an Instrument is to be measur'd by its end and benefit as the
seem to have been refractory to him ever since his sin yet the most part still acknowledge in him some tokens of their ancient Lord. The otherwise most unruly Horse suffers himself to be manag'd by him and a troop of Oxen is driven by a Child The most furious Animals become gentle and tremble at the occurse of Man's Countenance because they find therein the characters of Divinity But as 't is natural to other Animals to obey Man more perfect then themselves so it seemes to Man a thing against Nature for the more perfect to obey the less The Seventh said That the desire of commanding hath not place in all nor at all times The Master of the Ship willingly resignes the management of the helm to an experienc'd Pilot and disbanded Souldiers readily suffer themselves to be rally'd and conducted by those whom they judge the most worthy to command them Others farr from this desire submit and tye themselves by natural inclination to the pleasure of an other Moreover some Virtues are so heroical and eminent that they win hearts as it were by violence and constrain the most refractory and ambitious to confess that they ought to be obey'd By this means a multinous multude impatient of all command hath been brought to lay down their Armes But we see some Spirits so free that nothing can reduce them to obedience neither Promisings nor threatnings They have so high and extraordinary a genius that they will prefer poverty and misery yea beggary and torments themselves before obedience and never stoop to the pleasure and will of any other although they be but little befriended by Fortune or Nature Whence is this Why sometimes from greatness of Spirit and oftentimes from a disorderliness of Mind which breaks forth and is not capable of restraint The Eighth said That in the whole Universe the more noble commands the less the more potent quality predominates over the rest In Animals the Soul commands the Body as the Master his servant makes it move and act as it pleases and Man exercises sovereignty over beasts amongst Men Reason commands the Appetite in Oeconomy the Male as the more perfect commands the Female and generally the wise learned and virtuous ought to have the command over the foolish ignorant and vicious For I speak of things as they ought to be But 't is otherwise if we consider things as they are Many times the Appetite over-masters Reason usually fools and ignorants are the strongest Wherefore if there be found any one amongst Men that differs as much from others as the Soul from the Body Man from beast Reason from the Appetite the Male from the Female he ought to command For according to Aristotle Every Man who commands must be of a different Nature from him who obeyes And as the Shepherd is of another and more excellent Nature then his flock so he that commands over Men ought to be a God or at least a Heroe And can you wonder now that every one would have a good opinion had of himself and be accounted a Heroe or a God CONFERENCE XLI I. Of Comets II. Whether Pardon be better then Revenge I. Of Comets THe deceitfulness of our senses causes the difficulty of understanding the nature of Comets For as some Colours so some Lights are true others apparent Who would not affirm at a distance that Gloe-wormes some kind of rotten wood the scales of certain Fishes and the eyes of Cats are real fire And to get to further then Heaven who would not believe that the Moon and other Planets have a true light were it not for the reasons of Astronomy Nevertheless Experience convinces us of the contrary on Earth as well as Reason doth in Heaven Yet because in doubtful matters 't is best to keep to the common opinion I concur with that which holds a Comet to be a hot and dry Exhalation inflam'd in the highest Region of the Air if the Heaven be solid and amongst the coelestial orbes in case they be liquid which Exhalation resembles the unctuosity of a torch newly extinguish'd which serving for fewel to the fire which the reflection of the Sun-beams or the violence of motion excites there represents the figure according to which the matter is dispos'd to burn and appears so long to us till its matter be consum'd unless more be carry'd up which is proper to succeed it The Second said There is little probability that so thin and subtile matter as the afore-mention'd can burn for several moneths together Considering that the fires of our furnaces consume themselves in less then a day unless they be recruited with new matter and that the vast bulk of these Meteors allows us not to imagine that enough can be found for the sustenance of so great a flame For that which appear'd in this City in November 1618. occupied forty degrees of the Firmament notwithstanding its remoteness from our sight which alwayes makes things appear less then themselves And the matter which should be lifted up from the Earth to succeed that which is first consumed would not be inflamed because it could not arrive to the burning Comet in its first place by reason of its circular motion contrary to that of Exhalations which is made in a strait line Nor is this opinion less inconsistent with the place which they assign namely the Heaven inasmuch as many have been above the Planets as is evidenc'd by their Parallax For the Heavens being incorruptible 't is impossible to phancy any corruption in them since that which is Eternal cannot but be incompetible with that which is corruptible Now that they are Eternal the regularity of their motions domonstrates And although the Apogees and Perigees of the Planets which are the points of their greatest and least distance from the Earth are according to the affirmation of some Astrologers chang'd above twenty six degrees since Ptolomy's time yet this permutation of place induces no mutation of substance Nor can a Comet be the reflexion or occurrence of the light of some Planets as those Meteors are which we call la Rose and le Soldat for then no Comet could last longer then such occurse which is but momentaneous by reason of the continual motion of the Planets besides that they might be as certainly prognosticated as Eclipses But forasmuch as there are some things which we know no further then by negation I conceive it more easie to say what a Comet is not then to determine what it is The Third said A Comet is onely an appearing not a real light and 't is produc'd by the darting of the Sun-beams through an Exhalation which is fit for this purpose by its substance somewhat thin in the surface for intromitting the beams and dense within for reflecting them and giving them the colour of fire like as when the Sun casting his rayes upon the clouds at Morning or Evening gives them a ruddy colour And according as those are united or compacted enlighned
quantity of the Exhalations which cannot all get forth but in a long time or are not strong enough to break the gates of their prison The Fifth said That to move the most ponderous Body the Earth requires the most active of all Agents which is fire whose centre the Pythagoreans therefore plac'd in the middle of the Earth because the noblest Element deserves the noblest place which is the middle and for that 't is necessary to the generations which are made there Hence Maritime places where most Vulcano's are observ'd whose Fire is fed with the oylie and unctuous humours of the adjacent Sea are more obnoxious to Earthquakes and the last eruption of Mount Vesuvius was preceded by a horrible Earthquake As likewise the Island Sacrea above mention'd being first lifted up with a great noise and concussion open'd it self and cast forth flame and ashes as far as the City Lipara and some others of Italy Now according to the different matter of these Fires the concussions which they produce by attenuation of the inflam'd Air are different if it be nitrous they are very violent because Salt Petre being very Dry is suddenly fir'd in all its parts and being of a terrestrial nature takes up more room when inflam'd then Sulphur which is fat and aerious and consequently not so quickly inflameable in the whole but only in its surface by reason of its extreme humidity which checks the Fire and when it is inflam'd it takes not up so much room being of it self aerious and consequently needing less space when it is rarifi'd to be converted into Fire whence the tremors caus'd by it are less But when the matter which feeds those Fires is bituminous the tremors are moderate because Bitumen is of a middle nature between the two former Now because these materials when they begin to be inflam'd have not strength enough to make the Earth tremble till their Fire be increas'd proportionately to the enormous weight of the load which they are to move their first effect reaches no farther then to trouble and infect by their vapors the springs of Subterranean Waters as most susceptible of impression Hence according to the different taste smell and consistence of the water of Fountains and Wells some have fore-told Earthquakes as Apollonius saith that Pherecides having tasted the water of a spring in Scyros fore-told one which hapned three dayes after Moreover if these vapors infect the Air too the Earthquakes are follow'd by contagions The Sixth said That without determining the famous Question of the Earth's Motion it may be said that it moves about the Heaven as a stone in a circle it would have the same tremors and titubatious as those which Astronomers attribute to the Bodies of the Planets besides the regular motions of their spheres of which Agitations 't is not strange if Men who are mov'd with it discern not the differences so well as they do those of the Heavens since they who are in a Ship do not so well discern their own motion as that of others II. Of Envy Upon the Second Poynt it was said That 't is no wonder Man is so miserable since not onely the evil but also the good of others render him equally unhappy For if we think them unworthy of it it afflicts us and raises indignation If it begets sadnesse in us for not having obtain'd as much it causes Emulation but if this good disgusts us meerly because we are sorry that another enjoyes it it produces Envy and these several affections are not to be confounded For the two former are not any wayes vicious but oftentimes virtuous and signes of a Soul well dispos'd whereas the last is a grosse vice directly opposite to Charity which is the life of the Soul and to Humane Society violating virtue which is the principal bond of it and when the same is so bright and manifest as not to fear its assaults whose lustre it obscures as much as possible by its stinking breath and black calumnies Pride is the Mother of it Self-love the Father Treachery Dissimulation Detraction and Ruine its Daughters And as 't is the eldest of all vices so 't is the most enormous having cast Lucifer and millions of Angels out of Heaven and by his snares caus'd the fall of Man through the perswasion of the Woman who was ambitious to become a Goddess and who as more weak and proud is more inclin'd to this passion then Man Therefore Aristotle saith that the Peacock the proudest is also the most envious of all Animals The Second said Other Vices have alwayes some sort of pretext Covetousnesse the fear of want and Ambition doing service to the publick but Envy cannot find any because it malignes what ever is laudable and good out of it self herein much more pernicious then all other vices each of which is opposite but to one good as Lust to Continence Pride to Humility But this sets it self to ruine if it can all the goods of the Body of Forutne and of the Mind and so is a sworn Enemy of Mankind Such it was in extremity in that Man-hater Timon who invited all his fellow Citizens to come and hang themselves upon his Fig-tree before he cut it down to build with in one Mutius a Roman who being very sad it was said of him Either some Evill is hapned to Mutius or some good to some other For the Envious looks only askew upon others prosperity the thought of which incessantly gnaws his heart and consumes him by drying up the blood in his veins Which made the Poets represent Envy in the shape of a squinting woman with a dull dejected countenance of a livid complexion her head wreath'd with vipers and all the rest of the body lean and ugly Physitians say Melancholy persons are most subject to it by reason of that black humour which produces and is produc'd by it 'T was through envy that Tyberius put to death an excellent Architect being unable to behold with a good eye a pendant Porch which he had built and much less his invention of malleable Glass and it so tormented the spirit of Caligula that he burnt all he could of Virgil's Works and he could not endure the sight of handsome youths but caus'd their goodly locks to be cut off that they might become deform'd The Third said That envy as vicious as it is hath nevertheless some utility not only amongst private persons to excite emulation amongst Artists and make them strive who shall sell the best peny-worths but also for the State it being held a political maxime to hinder as much as possible the grandeur of neighbouring States And the Ostracism of Athens although a balance to preserve democratical equality was nevertheless an effect of Envy against such as had gotten most credit and authority in the City whom they banish'd for ten years Yea had envy no other good in it but to afford occasion of exercising vertue it were not unprofitable The attempt to
take thence a charme which the Spirit left there or to invoke the same Spirit signifies that you must go and take from under a stone agreed upon the cypher'd letter and decipher it by the same alphabet upon which it was cypher'd Vigenarius spends half his Book in speaking of the Cabala of the Jews and the Caldeans and the other half in many Alphabets of all sorts with Key and without he hath indeed abundance of Cyphers which seem undecypherable which he makes to depend on three differences 1. On the form of Characters which comprehends several figures lines and colours 2. On their order and situation but changing the Alphabet almost infinite ways 3. On their value and power giving such signification to one letter or character as you please All which are easily known for cyphers The second condition of a cypher and which follows that of secresie being not to appear such the least suspicion causing the stopping of the paper and so rendring it unprofitable to the writer which has given occasion to some to cover characters drawn in oyl with something that might be wash'd off besides other such inventions to take away suspicion such as that of having two Books of the same impression and under pretext of sending Tables of Astrology or Merchants Bills to design by cyphers the letter of the Book which you mean to express the first cypher signifying the fourth page the second the fourth line and the third the fourth letter of that line which you would denote CONFERENCE XCIX I. Of Ignes fatui II. Of Eunuchs I. Of Ignes fatui 'T Is a question whether 't would be more advantageous to mans contentment to be ignorant of nothing since then he would admire nothing which is one of his greatest pleasures Hence a Peasant beholding a flake of fire following him or going before him in the night time will be otherwise ravish'd with it then a Philosopher who knows or thinks he knows the cause of it there being little difference herein as to our satisfaction They conceive it to be an unctuous exhalation apt to be inflam'd like the fatty steam of a Candle newly put out which instantly conveighs down the neighbouring light to seek its aliment But the same example shews us that fire very suddenly devours its aliment when it is subtile and thin So that if a fire of straw which is much more material then an exhalation vanishes so quickly that we express the most transient momentary things thereby how can a far thinner exhalation keep this foolish fire so long which besides burns not as appears by its sticking innoxiously upon the hair of men and manes of horses and yet Aqua-vitae never so well rectified will singe the hair as was sometimes verified to the great prejudice of one of our Kings which would make me think that as all fire is not luminous as a hot dunghil burns your finger and fire excited by motion burns much more without blazing so there are some lights which are not igneous as in Heaven the Stars and in Earth some rotten woods certain fishes worms eyes flesh of animals and other more such subjects which cannot be more susceptible of those lights which burn not then the Air which is the prime diaphanous body and consequently most capable of receiving them although possibly we cannot truly know what temper the Air must acquire to become luminous no more then what is fit for it in other subjects For to attribute the cause thereof to purity or simplicity signifies little for earth and ashes are more simple then the flesh or other part dead or living of an Animal and yet this shines and those not The Second said That these fires may be referr'd to four sorts The first resemble falling Stars or lighted Torches which Plutarch saith were seen to fall upon Pompey's Camp the eve before the Battle of Pharsalia The second is that kind of flame which has appear'd upon the heads of some as of Ascanius in Virgil and of Servius Hostilius which was an omen to them of Royalty The third are those which appear at Sea about the Masts and Shrouds of the Ships named by the Ancient Castor and Pollux when they are two and when but one Helena and by the Moderns the fire of S. Elme The last are those which are seen in the Country in the night time and are thought to drive or draw Travellers into precipices As for the first 't is certain that the same exhalation which makes Comets in the highest Region of the Air and Thunders in the middlemost is also the matter of these falling Stars and being rais'd in small quantity from the earth is condens'd by the cold of the middle Region where finding no cloud strong enough to uphold it 't is inflam'd by the antiperistasis of its contrary or the swift motion of its fall by reason of its great heat and siccity And as they proceed from the same cause as dry winds do so they presage winds and drought especially in that quarter from whence they fall But as for the other sorts I conceive they are only lights and not fires For the Air being transparent and the first subject of Whiteness as Aristotle saith hath likewise in it self some radical light which is sustein'd by that of the Stars which shine in the night And this whiteness of the Air is prov'd by the appearance of it when t is enclos'd in moist bodies as in froth snow and crystal which whitness is very symbolical to light which it preserves and congregates as is seen by the same snow in a very dark night Yea to speak plainly whiteness is nothing else but light extinct luminous bodies appearing white neer a greater light and white luminous in darkness So 't is possible that the thinner parts of the Air being inclos'd in these unctuous vapours they appear enlightned and shining as well by reason of the condensation of its body as the inequality of its surfaces like a diamond cut into several facets or as the Stars appear luminous only by being the denser parts of their Orbs. And this kind of light has been seen upon the heads of children whose moister brain exhal'd a vapour proper for it such also as that is which forms the Will-i'th'-Wisp which may also proceed from the reflection of the Star-light from the Sea or Rocks For That two of these fires bode good to Seamen and one ill is but one of the superstitions of Antiquity unless you think that the greater number of fires argues greater purity of the Air and consequently less fear of tempest The Third said He accounted the common opinion more solid which teacheth two material principles of all Meteors Vapour and Exhalation but one and the same efficient the heat of the Sun which lifts the thinner parts of the water in a vapour and those of the earth in an exhalation the former hot and moist the latter hot and dry borrowing their heat from an extraneous heat but
Hierome speaks in his Epistles desiring at any rate to make a young Christian sin that he might afterwards avert him from the true Religion and finding that he had to no purpose employ'd tortures and other cruelties upon him at length shook him by the allurements of two immodest Women whose embraces he being unable longer to resist or fly from because he was bound with soft fetters he had recourse to grief biting his Tongue in two with his Teeth which were alone at liberty to moderate the excess of pleasure by that pain In fine as Enemies hid under the mask of Friends are more to be fear'd then open Enemies So Grief though a manifest Enemy to our Nature yet is not so much to be dreaded as Pleasure which under a false mask and pretext of kindness insinuates its sweet poyson into us And as of old the Psylli poyson'd Men by commending them becomes Mistress of the Man and blindes his Reason Wherefore Aristotle considering the power of Pleasure counsels him that would resist it not to behold its fore-part as it presents it self to us but the hinder-part when it parts from us and for all recompence leaves us nought but a sad repentance At the Hour of Inventions many wayes were spoken of conducing to the production or hindrance of Hair as also to the changing of its colour and some of the chief stupifyers were mention'd that serve to asswage Grief or Pain After which these two Points were chosen for that day seven-night First Of three Suns appearing at the same time Secondly Whether it be possible to love without interest and without making reflection upon one's self CONFERENCE XII I. Of Three Suns II. Whether an Affection can be without Interest I. Of three Suns HE that spake first said That the occasion of this Discourse of three Suns was the report that in August last upon the day of our Ladies Assumption there appeared three in a Village within two Leagues of Vernevil in Normandy But lest any should attribute the cause thereof to what Virgil saith made two Suns and two Cities of Thebes appear to Pentheus we read in the first book of the fifth Decade of Livius's History that there appear'd three Suns of Rome during the War against Perseus King of Macedonia and the night following many burning torches Faces Ardentes a kind of Meteor fell down in the territory of Rome which was then afflicted with a raging Pestilence The same hapned again when Cassius and Brutus were overthrown when the Civil Wars were between Augustus and Antonius and under the Emperor Claudius But the most remarkable were those two which appear'd under the Empire of Vitellius one in the East and the other in the West I come now to inquire into the Causes For if it be true that Man alone was created with a Countenance erected towards Heaven on purpose to contemplate its Wonders I conceive there are none more admirable then Meteors so nam'd by reason of the elevated aspect of Men when they admire them and amongst those Meteors there is none more excellent then that Triple Sun if the Copies resemble their Original the most admirable of all the Coelestial Bodies Nevertheless Reason given Man by God to render the most strange things familiar to him finds more facility in the knowledge of these then of many other things which are at our feet and that by Induction which it draws from Examples The Sun as every other Body fills the Air with its Images or Species which pass quite through the same unless they be reflected by some Body smooth and resplendent in its surface but opake at the bottome Such are Looking-glasses and Water whether it be upon the Earth or in the Clouds Now when a smooth Cloud that is ready to fall down in rain happens to be opposite against the Sun being terminated either by its own profundity or some other opake body it represents the figure or image of the Sun and if there happen to be another opposite to this first it reflecteth the figure in the same manner As a Looking-glass opposite to that wherein we look receives the species from the former and represents the same And if we believe Seneca there is nothing less worthy of admiration For if no body wonders to see the representation of the Sun here below in clear Water or any other resplendent body it ought to be no greater marvel that the same Sun imprints his image as well on high as below not in one Cloud or two onely but also in many as Pliny affirms that himself beheld This multiplicity of Suns which are call'd Parhelij happens usually but either at the rising or at the setting of the Sun First because the Refraction which is necessary for seeing them is not so well made to our eyes which is more remote when the Sun is in the Meridian Secondly because when the Sun is in the Meridian he is more hot and allows not the Cloud time to stay but dissolves it as soon as it becomes opposite to him which he doth not at his rising or setting being then more weak The same Cause that shews us three Suns hath also represented three Moons under the Consulship of Cn Domitius and C. Faminus as also three other which appear'd in the year 1314. after the death of S. Lewis three moneths together Which impression is called Paraselene and cannot be made but at full Moon The Second said That Parhelij do not onely appear upon the Clouds or at Sun-rise and Sun-set as the common opinion importeth for in the year 1629. on the twentieth of March the day of the Vernal Equinox four Parhelij appear'd at Rome about the true Sun between Noon and one a clock the Heaven being clear and the Sun encompass'd with a double Crown of a deeper colour then those which are seen sometimes about the Moon and are found in the circumference of a Rain-bow whose Circle is perfect Two of those false Suns occupi'd the intersections of the Solary Crown and the Iris and two others were opposite to the former in the same circumference of the Iris. Yet in my judgement this cause may be rendred of these five Suns As in the Night when the Air appears serene we many times see that the Moon radiating upon the Air of the lower Region which is more thick then the superior by reason of vapours and exhalations formes about it self a great bright Crown of about forty five degrees diametre which space is fit for the reflecting and uniting of the Lunar rayes to the Eye and by such reflection and union to cause the appearance of that Crown So also when the lower Region is full of vapours and exhalations which have not been dissipated by the Sun either because of their great quantity or viscosity or else of the coldness of the Air they render the Air more dense though serene in appearance and so more proper to receive the like impressions of the Sun In the
the dead and into which they return But the most common and us'd throughout all Europe is Black which also was always worne by the Romans when they went into Mourning except during sixty years that they wore white The wearing of Mourning continu'd ten moneths at Rome the Athenians wore it but one moneth the Spartans no more but eleven dayes The reason why they have all chosen Black for denoting Sadness is because Black is the privation of White and proceedeth from the defect of Light so Death is the privation of Life and Light Possibly too the reason why the Cypress Tree was esteem'd a Funeral Tree was because the leaves were of a dark Green and the Nutts tincture Black and being cut it never puts forth again as also Beans were in regard of the blackness which appears in them and their flowers The Second said That Experience shews us sufficiently that the Black colour doth not onely put us in Mind of our griefs and sadnesses pass'd but also is apt excite new This is known to the Senses and unknown to Reason by a certain Divine Appointment which hath caus'd that what is manifest to the one is hidden to the other As appears for that nothing is so natural to the Sense of Seeing as Light and Colours But yet there is nothing in which our Mind sooner finds its weakness then in the enquiry into the Nature and properties of Colours and Light Now there are two sorts of blackness the one Internal when the Soul turning it self towards the Images upon report of which a judgement is made if that Image is Black and deform'd the Soul must conceive that the Objects represented by it are so also and thence ariseth horror and sadness the other external for the explicating of which I must crave leave to deflect a little from the ordinary opinion touching the Nature of Colours I affirm that Colour and Light are one and the same thing and differ onely in regard of the Subject so that the lustre of a simple Body is Light but the lustre of a mixt Body is call'd Colour By which account Light is the Colour of a simple Body and Colour is the Light of a mixt Body Whence Mixts approaching nearest to the simplicity of the Element predominant in them are all Luminous as precious stones which are a simple Earth and without mixture of other Element and rotten Wood which having lost the little Air and Fire it had its humidity also being absum'd by the putrefaction and there remaining nothing almost but Earth you see how it keeps its splendour amidst the darkness of the night And this in my conceit is the meaning of what Moses saith when he saith that God created the Light before the Sun For God having created the Elements in their natural purity they were sometimes in that state before mixture the Earth appeared not but the Water cover'd its whole Surface Every Element was in its own place and the purity of its Nature for which reason they had then their first Colour which is splendour But as soon as God had mingled them for the forming of Mixts their Light became clouded and chang'd into Colour And hence it was necessary to form a Sun in Heaven far from all sort of mixture and composition to the end he might alwayes preserve his Light and enlighten the world therewith The Fire preserves it self the most of all in its purity by reason of its great activity which consumes what ever approaches near it The other Elements would do so too if they could preserve themselves in their purity as well as the Fire But because they would be unprofitable should they remain such it is necessary that they be mingled one with another as well to serve for the production of Compounds as for their Aliment and several uses Hence their Light becomes chang'd into Colour which is nothing else but a Light extinguish'd more or less and accordingly we see some Colours more luminous then others The White is still wholly luminous the Red wholly resplendent the Green less and the Brown begins to grow dark Lastly the Black is nothing but Light wholly extinct and a kind of darkness and consequently hath nothing of reality but is a pure Privation which our Eyes perceive not As our Ear discerneth or perceiveth not silence but onely by not hearing any sound so neither doth the Sight behold Black and darkness but when it sees neither Colour nor Light So that to hear Silence and see darkness is to speak properly a vain attempt of the Soul which would fain exert its action of seeing and hearing and cannot Hence ariseth the sadness and terror which a deep silence and the sight of extreme blackness and darkness excites in the Soul For the Soul knows well that Life is nothing else but Exercise of its Faculties of which as soon as any thing is depriv'd there remains nothing to be expected but death She would fain exert her action and cannot she distinguishes not whether it be through default of the Object or whether her Faculty be lost but she finds a privation of her actions and represents to her self to be in the state of Death whence ariseth Sadness and Fear For as our Soul dreadeth nothing so much as Death so the least suspition the least sign and umbrage of Death is apt to put her into great dejection And this makes way for the Second Reason why the Soul becomes sad at the sight of a black Colour namely because it never appears in the Body but Death is at hand For this Colour is produc'd by the mortification and extinction of the Spirits as a Gangrene which is either caus'd by Adustion whereby Coals become black or by extreme coldness thus Old Men are of a leaden Colour tending to blackness Now the excess of heat and coldness is equally contrary to Life Wherefore as often as the Soul perceives blackness either in her own Body or in another she remembers the Qualities which produc'd it and are contrary to Life which she loves hence ariseth sadness And hence also it is that we naturally love a Countenance well proportion'd with an agreeable Colour wherein there is found a redness mingled with whiteness bright and lively with Spirits which is nothing else but an effect of the Love which our Soul bears to Life For knowing this to be the Colour of Health it affects the same even in another as on the other side it abhorreth Death Look upon a living Body it is full of brightness but a dead one is gloomy and dismal and at the instant that the Soul parts from the Body a dark shade seemes as it were to veil the Countenance Now that the Soul may understand it must become like to its Object Whence Aristotle said that the Intellect is potentially all things forasmuch as it can form it self into as many shapes as there are Objects So then it will perceive blackness it must become conformable to Black which it
Inclinations of the Soul cannot be ascrib'd to a corporeal cause such as the Stars are For if all were govern'd by their influences we should see nothing but what were good as being regulated by so good causes I acknowledge but two virtues in the Heavens Motion and Light by which alone and not by any influences of occult qualities they produce corporeal effects Thus ought Aristotle to be understood when he referreth the cause of the continual Generation of Inferior things to the diversity of the Motions of the First Moveable and the Zodiack And Hippocrates when he foretelleth the events of Diseases by the several Houses of the Moon The Fourth said It is impossible to make an Art of predicting by the Celoestial Motions for five reasons besides the dominion which our Will hath over Effects without which it were free 1. The Connexion that is between the Celoestial Bodies and the Sublunary is unknown to Men. 2. The diversity of the Celoestial Motions causeth that the Heaven is never in the same posture as it ought to be for the making of a sure and certain Art grounded upon many repeated Experiments according to which like Effects are to be referr'd to like Causes 3. The extreme rapid and violent turning about of the Heavens doth not afford to find the precise minute of a Nativity for drawing the Theme or Figure of the true state of Heaven which they say is necessary 4. As of sixteen Consonants joyn'd with five Vowels are made words without number so of a thousand and twenty two Stars and more with seven Planets may be made Conjunctions and Combinations to infinity which surpass the comprehension of humane wit there being no Art of things infinite 5. Two persons or more born at the same time under the same Elevation of the Pole and disposition of the Heavens as they speak yea two Twins as Jacob and Esau are found oftentimes different in visage complexion inclination condition and end But is it probable that a hundred Pioneers stifled in the same Mine or ten thousand Men dying at the same battle have one and the same influence The Fifth said God having from all eternlty numbred the hairs of our Heads that is to say foreseen even the least Accidents which ought or may befall Men he hath establish'd an order for them in the Heavens disposing the course aspects and various influences of the Stars to draw out of Nothing those accidents at the time that they are to happen to Men whom they incline to meet the same yet so as to leave it in the power of their Free-will to avoid or expose themselves unto them without any constraint This truth is sufficiently confirm'd by the exact and admirable correspondence which is found between the most signal accidents of our lives and the hour of our Nativities so that Astrologers not onely conjecture by the time of the Nativity what is to come to pass but they also come to the knowledge of the true minute of the Nativity by the time at which accidents arrive and take this course to correct Horoscopes and Figures ill drawn And although long Experience may attest the certainty of this Art yet I confess since the faculties and qualities of the Stars are not perfectly known to us and we cannot alwayes precisely know the disposition of Heaven much less all the combinations of the Stars Astrology in respect of us is very uncertain and difficult but not therefore the less true and admirable in it self It is like a great Book printed in Hebrew Letters without points which is cast aside and sleighted by the ignorant and admir'd by the more intelligent So the Heavens being enamel'd by Gods Hand with Stars and Planets as with bright Characters which by their Combinations figure the various accidents which are to befall Men are never consider'd by the ignorant to dive into their Mysteries but onely by the Learned who themselves many times commit mistakes when they go about to read them because those shining Characters have no other Vowels or rather no other voice but that of God who is the true Intelligence thereof The Sixth said Three sorts of persons err touching the credit which is to be given to Astrological Predictions Some believe them not at all others believe them too little and others too much As for the first since they cannot deny that the Stars are universal causes of sublunary effects that such causes are of different natures and virtues and that their action and virtue is dispens'd by the motion which is successive and known they must of necessity confess that knowing the disposition of sublunary subjects the nature of the Stars and their motion many natural effects may be fore-seen and fore-told from them The Devil himself knows no future things certainly but by foreseeing the effects of particular causes in their universal causes which are the Stars They who believe too little confess that the Stars act upon the Elements and mixt Bodies for very Peasants know thus much besides many particular effects of the Moon But as for Man whose Soul of it self is not dependent upon any natural cause but free and Mistress of its own actions they cannot or for Religion's sake dare not affirm that it is subject to Coelestial Influences at least in reference to manners Yet it is no greater absurdity to say that the Soul is subject to the Stars then to say with Aristotle and Galen that it is subject to the Temperament of the Body which also is caus'd by the Starrs from the influence and action whereof the Soul cannot exempt its Body nor the Temperament thereof by which she acts Lastly they who give too much credit to the Stars hold that all things are guided by a fatal and irrevocable order of Nature contrary to Reason which admits the Author to be the Master of his own work and to Experience which assures us of the standing still of the Sun for Joshuah of his going backward for Hezechiah and of his Eclipse at full Moon during the Passion The Fourth Opinion is certain that there is truth in Astrological Predictions but it behoveth to believe them onely in a due measure since the Science of it self is but conjectural II. Whether is less blameable Avarice or Prodigality Upon the Second Point it was said That Avarice is less blameable then Prodigality For the latter is more fertile in bad actions then the former which though otherwise vicious yet refrains from the pleasures and debaucheries in which the Prodigal usually swims The Holy Scripture intending to set forth an example of Infinite Mercy relates that of the Prodigal Son who obtain'd pardon of the sin which is least worthy of it Moreover Prodigality doth far less good then Covetousness for this always looks at its own profit and takes care for its own benefit and the preservation of its dependents so that it exerciseth at least the first fundamental of Charity which is to do well to those who are nearest
afforded before God had curs'd it and so inseparably connected man's labour with those fruits that now a days to express a hundred acres of Land we commonly say A hundred acres of Labour And as a place ceases to be the Court when the King is no longer in it so the Divine Benediction withdrawn from the Earth it ceas'd to be Paradise Yea Adam having ceas'd to be King of it and by his sin lost the Dominion which he had over all even the fiercest Creatures the Earth became no longer a Paradise to him But if I be requir'd to assign a particular place to this Paradise leaving the description of places which I never saw to the belief of Geographers I find none more fit for it then France Its Climate is temperate especially towards the East and South It hath four Rivers which bring into it Gold and all the other Commodities attributed unto Paradise by the first Historian It so abounds with all sorts of flowers that it hath taken three Lillies for its Arms And with fruits that it hath for it self and its Neighbours yea above any other it produces every Tree fair to look upon and good for food to use the Scripture-words One interpos'd That he should think 't was Normandie so fruitful of goodly Apples were it not that no Vines grow there whose fruit is so pleasant to behold The fourth said As there is no great certainty in the consequences drawn from Allegories so neither are Allegories very successfully drawn from Histories and substituted in their places I know not what History is if that of our first Father be not nor where to stop if people will subtilize upon the first circumstance of his Creation and what he did afterwards But if we find difficulty in according the Geographical Tables of the present time with the truth of that why do not we likewise make Allegories of the Creation and all its sequels which are so many Miracles If we see no Angel that guards the access to it no more did Balaam see that which stood in his way though visible to his Asse And being the space of the Garden of Eden is not determinately set down nothing hinders but that it might be of very vast extent and this takes away the scruple of those who object the distance which is between all those great Rivers Besides being Enoch and Elias were since Adam's fall transported into this Paradise where they must be till the coming of Antichrist 't is a certain Argument of its real subsistence II. Of Embalmings and Mummies Upon the second point it was said That the Ancients were much more careful then we not only to preserve the Images of their Fore-fathers but also to keep their Bodies which they variously embalmed The Grecians wash'd them in Wine mingled with warm Water and then put them them into oyl of Olives Honey or Wax The Aethyopians first salted them and then put them into Vessels of Glass In the Canary Islands they season them in the Sea and afterwards dry them in the Sun The Scythians place them upon Mountains cover'd with snow or in the coolest Caves Indeed every one knows there is a Cave at Tholouze which hath a particular virtue to preserve carkasses from corruption and in which is seen at this day the entire body of the fair Saint Baume and many others dead above 200 years ago The Indians cover'd them with ashes The Aegyptians conceiving that bodies corrupted rose not again and that the Soul was sensible of the Bodies corruption did not yield to any people in curiosity of preserving them they fill'd with Myrrhe Cinamon and other Spices or with Oyl of Cedar then they salted them with Nitre whose aerimony consumes all the superfluous humidities which cause putrifaction 'T is from these bodies that we have that excellent Mummie whose admirable effects I ascribe to sympathy But concerning what is affirm'd that being transported by Sea they cause tempests and strange agitations in the Ship 't is an effect which is to be attributed to a more occult cause The Second said Man is so admirable an Edifice that even his Ruines have their use His Fat is one of the most excellent Anodynes His Skull serves against the Epilepsic This liquor which is drawn from his Tomb hath several vertues and the reasons of the great and admirable effects imputed to it as the healing of inwards Ulcers and Contusions of Blood arriving to such as have fallen from on high seem to me imputable to three Causes a Spiritual a Celestial and an Elementary The first ariseth hence that so perfect a Form as the reasonable Soul having inform'd part of this Compositum which by the mixture of some Ingredients as Myrrhe and Aloes hath been preserv'd from corruption the same thing arrives to it which the Chymists say doth to their white Gold when they have extracted its Sulphur and Tincture For being re-joyn'd to other Gold it easily resumes the same form and is sooner and more inseparably combin'd with it then any other thing as having been of the same species So when you put Mummie into a body of the same species it takes part with the nature whence it proceeded and siding with it incounters the disease and its symptomes like Succour coming to relieve a besieged City with provisions and ammunition The Celestial cause is drawn from the Heavens for that the light and influence of superiour bodies act upon all the sublunary but by the consent of all none is so susceptible of their actions as man and if his soul be not subject thereunto yet his body is undoubtedly to each part of which each part of Heaven not only answers as some hold but the whole to all Whence is seen the diversity of disposition inclinations and manners such and so great that 't is a palpable mistake to attribute the same to the meer mixture of the Elements Now Mummie having receiv'd not only while it was animated but afterwards all the influences whereof the humane body is susceptible it becomes as it were the abstract of all the Celestial powers and better then Talismanical figures communicates the same to him that uses it The last reason drawn from the mixture of the Elements and their qualities might suffice alone without the preceding For Man being the abridgement of the world ought also to contain all the faculties of it and his Mummie being inanimate but having liv'd the life of a plant an animal and a man it contains all these natures eminently The Third said That Man affecting nothing so much as immortality because he fears nothing more then death and being unable to secure himself from it do's all that he can to perpetuate himself in some fashion since he cannot wholly The desire of supporting his Individual person and defending it from all inconveniences which may abridge his life makes him count nothing difficult In Propagation he seeks the eternity of his species And though he is assur'd by Reason of
spares nothing to attain the same To this end he employs not only the four Elements but makes a distinct art of the ways of Prediction by each of them He makes use of all mixt bodies too and searches even the bowels of living creatures yea the very Sepulchres of the dead in quest of Presages of the future And although speaking absolutely such inventions are more capable to attract the admiration and consequently the money of credulous persons then to instruct them unless perhaps in prudence to take care of being so easily deceiv'd afterwards yet there seems to be a correspondence and connexion between present and future things as there is between the pass'd and the present for as he who perceives the corruption of unburied bodies after a Battle to have infected the air and begotten the Pestilence may certainly refer the cause of such Contagion to the War so he that shall behold a furious War in which great Battles are fought may conjecture an approaching Pestilence Possibly if we were as careful to contemplate the changes of all other bodies Minerals and Vegetables we should remark therein Presages as much more infallible then those of animals as their actions being more simple are likewise more certain as may be instanc'd in the Mulberry-tree which buds not till all the cold weather be pass'd but because the Local Motion which is proper to animals affects us more thence it becomes also more remarkable The Second said That man must not be forgotten in this Disquisition For not to speak of Prognostication in his diseases by means whereof the Physitian gets the esteem of a God we see old men and other persons so regular in the constitution of their bodies that they will tell you beforehand better then any Almanack by a Tooth-ach a Megrim or a Sciatica what weather is approaching whether rain frost or snow or fair This is commonly attributed to the rarefaction or condensation of the peccant humours in their bodies the same discharging themselves upon what part they find weakest as the weakest are commonly the most oppress'd and there making themselves felt by their acrimony but the parties are no longer sensible thereof then that intemperate weather continues a new disposition of the air causing a new motion and alteration in the humours When Cats comb themselves as we speak 't is a sign of rain because the moisture which is in the air before the rain insinuating it self into the fur of this animal moves her to smooth the same and cover her body wherewith that so she may the less feel the inconvenience of Winter as on the contrary she opens her fur in Summer that she may the better receive the refreshing of the moist season The crying of Cats Osprey's Raven's and other Birds upon the tops of houses in the night-time are observ'd by the vulgar to pre-signifie death to the sick and those creatures are thought to know the approach thereof by their cadaverous scent which appears not to us till after their death by reason of the dulness of our senses it being no less admirable that such carrion Birds smell better then we then 't is to see a dog distinguish by his smelling the traces of a Hare which are imperceptible to us But it may as well be that these Birds cry by chance upon the first house where they light and are heard onely by such as watch in attendance upon persons dangerously sick they being likewise Birds of but a weak sight and therefore flying abroad most commonly in the dark As for the fore-sight of fertility by the Honeton and of a calm by the Halcyon or Kings-fisher these ought to be referr'd to the same instinct of Nature which guideth the Spider to weave her nets and the Swallow to build her neast The Third said There is a close connexion between the superior and inferior bodies the chain whereof is to us imperceptible though their consecution be infallible This was signifi'd by Trismegistus when he pronounc'd that that which is below is like that which is on high and therefore 't is not to be wonder'd if one be the sign of the other The Fourth said Certain Animals are found under the domination of one and the same Starr of which subjection they have some character either external or internal And 't is credible that all bodies especially Plants have figures or characters of their virtues either within or without Thus they say those Plants which are prickly and whose leaves have the shape of a spears poynt or other offensive armes are vulnerary those which have the spots or speckles of a Serpent are noted to be good against poysons and all are serviceable for the conservation of such parts and cure of such diseases as they resemble in figure In like manner 't is probable that the Cock hath a certain internal character which particularly rank him under the dominion of the Sun and that this is the cause that he crows when his predominant planet possesses one of the three cardinal points of Heaven in which the same hath most power namely in the East when the light thereof is returning towards him in the South at which time he rejoyces to see it at the highest pitch of strength and at mid-night because he feels that it is then beginning again to approach to our Hemisphere But he crows not at sun-set being sad then for its departure and for that he is deprived of its light And for this reason in my opinion the Romans chiefly made use of young Chickens from which to collect their auguries because they conceiv'd that being Animals of the Sun and more susceptible of its impressions by reason of their tenderness they were more easily sensible and consequently afforded more remarkable tokens by their motions and particular constitution of the various dispositions of the Sun in reference to the several Aspects of good and bad Planets especially of Saturn their opposite Whence judging by the dulness and sadness of the Chickens that the Sun was afflicted by a bad Aspect of Mars or Saturn they drew a consequence that since this Luminary which besides its universal power was the Disposer of their fortune with Mars was found ill dispos'd when they were projecting any design therefore they could not have a good issue of it Thus people prognostice a great Famine or Mortality when great flocks of Jayes or Crows forsake the woods because these melancholy birds bearing the characters of Saturn the author of famine and mortality have a very early perception of the bad disposition of that Planet The Fifth said Thence also it is that if a flie be found in an Oak-apple 't is believ'd that the year insuing will be troubled with wars because that Insect being alwayes in motion and troublesome is attributed to Mars If a spider be found in the said Excrescence then a Pestilence is feared because this Insect hath the characters of malignant Saturn if a small worm be seen in it then this
would mingle it self with the substance of the Heavens which by this means would be no longer pure and free from corruption nor consequently eternal yea it might happen that such Meteors as should be form'd in the Heavens would disorder the motions of the Planets which we behold so regular And besides 't is not possible that the Stars of the Firmament should not have come nearer one another in these 6000. years and the Planets have been so exact in their wandrings unless the Heavens were solid The Third said That because the weakness of our reasoning cannot conceive how the creatures obey the Creator otherwise then by such wayes as Artificers use who fasten nails in wheels to make their motion regular therefore Men phancy the like in Heaven As if it had not been as easiy to God to have appointed a Law to the Stars to move regulary in a liquid space as fishes do in the water yea in a Vacuum if there were any in Nature as to have riveted and fix'd them to some solid body For 't is true we cannot make a durable Sphere but of solid matter But if Children make aiery spheres or balls with water and soap could not God who is an infinitely more excellent work-man make some of a more subtile matter Moreover The supposition of liquid Heavens serves better to interpret these openings of Heaven mention'd in the Scripture then if they be suppos'd solid The melted brass to which Job compares the Heavens proves the contrary to what is usually inferr'd from it for immediately after this comparison made by one of Job's friends God reproves him and taxes his discourse of ignorance Whereas it is said that Heaven is God's throne which is stable and which God hath established in the Heavens and also that it is called a Firmament the same construction is to be made of these expressions as of that in the beginning of Genesis where the Sun and the Moon are styl'd the two great Lights of Heaven not because they are so in reality but because they appear so But that which to me seemes most conclusive for the liquidity of the Heavens is That Comets have been oftentimes observ'd above some Planets which could not be were the Heavens solid Besides that all the Elements are terminated by themselves and need no vessel to be contain'd in The Fourth said If the matter of the Heavens were as firm as glass or crystal or onely as water our sight could no more perceive the Stars then it doth things in the bottome of a deep water how clear soever it be for the visual rayes or species of things cannot penetrate so thick a medium But although the Stars are exceedingly remote from us yet our eyes discern their different magnitudes colours and motions and distinguish such as twinckle from others Besides those who should behold the same Star from different places would perceive it of different magnitudes as it happens to those who look upon the same body through water or glass in regard of the diversity of the medium which is thicker in one place then in another Nor is it harder to conceive how the Stars hang in the Air then to imagine the same of the Terr-aqueous Globe The Fifth said Liquid is defin'd that which is hardly contain'd within its own bounds and easily in those of another which is the true definition of Liquid and not of Humid since Quick-silver Lead and all metals melted are difficultly contain'd in their own bounds and easily in those of another yet are not humid the Heaven must be solid and not liquid for it is contain'd within its own bounds yea according to the Scripture it upholds the Supercelestial Waters The Sixth said The great diversity found in the motions of the Celestial Bodies and especially in the Planets makes very much for the Fluidity of the Heavens For Astronomers observing that the Planets not onely go from East to West by their diurnal motion common to all the celestial bodies but have a particular one of their own after a sort contrary to the former which makes them stray from their situation whereunto they return onely at a certain time therefore they will have them to be turn'd about by a Heaven term'd by them Primum Mobile but add that each of the Planets hath a sphere of its own which is the cause of its second motion Moreover observing the Planets to be sometimes nearer and sometimes further off from the Earth therefore they assign'd them another sphere call'd an Excentrick But what needs this multiplication of spheres when as it may reasonably be affirm'd that God hath appointed to every Star the course which it is to observe as he hath assign'd to every thing its action what ever variety be found in Planetary bodies there being more in other Bodies If it be said That the wonder lies in their Regularity I answer There is nothing here below but ha's and keeps a rule Whence Monsters are so much wonder'd at Nor is there less wonder in the natural instincts of things and all their various operations which they alwayes inviolably observe then in Uniformity which hath much more ease in it as it is a more facile thing for a stone to move alwayes downwards then for an Animal to move according to all the diversities of place and exercise so many several actions The Seventh said The matter of the Heavens if they have any is according to Empedocles a most pure and subtile Air and that of the Stars is Light Wherefore they cannot be either solid or liquid Moreover the Centre of the World is most compact and it grows more and more subtile still towards the Circumference which therefore must be immaterial as Light is Now the Stars are onely the thicker parts of their Orbes like the knots in a Tree which density renders them visible to us multiplying and fortifying the degrees of Light by this union as on the contrary the rarity of the intermediate space between the Stars doth not terminate or bound our sight either because the species which it sends forth are not strong enough to act upon the Eye and cause perception which is the reason why we see not the Elementary Fire though we see the same Fire when it comes to be united and condensed into an igneous meteor or into our culinary flames The Heavens therefore may be more or less dense but not solid in that sence as we attribute solidity to Crystal Diamonds or other hard bodies which resist the touch But indeed we may call them so if we take the word solid for that which is fill'd with it self and not with any other intermix'd thing all whose parts are of the same nature according to which signification not onely the Water but the Air yea the Light it self if it be material may be said to be solid II. Whether is it easier to get or to keep Upon the Second Point it was said That the difficulty of acquiring and preserving is
not be made in the Eye but in the Air. CONFERENCE XLVIII I. Whether every thing that nourishes an Animal ought to have life II. Of Courage I. Whether every thing that nourishes an Animal ought to have Life EVery thing in the world is effected by an order and disposition of causes and means subalternate one to another God makes himself known to Men by the marvellous effects of Nature The immaterial and incorruptible Heavens communicate their virtues and influences here below first through the Element of Fire which is most subtile and then through the Air which is most pure in the upper Region more gross in the middle and in the lower infected by the vapours and exhalations of the Water and Earth and all compounds in the production whereof Nature observes such order as that she begins alwayes with the more simple and never passes from one extremity to another without a medium Thus the Plant springeth out of the ground like an herb becomes a shrub and then a tree The Embryo lives onely a vegetable life at first then arrives to motion and lastly is indu'd with reason Even in civil life too speedy advancements are taken ill whereas he who grows great by degrees do's not so much offend the Minds of others and provokes less jealousie Hence also the deaths and especially the violent astonish us more then the births of Men because they come into the world and grow up by little and little but are cut off in a moment So likewise the burning of Cities and overthrow of States cause the more admiration because sudden vicissitudes seem less conformable to the order of Nature then their progressive erections That which is observ'd in the composition and generation of bodies holds also in their nutrition for both of them proceed from the same Faculty and are almost the same thing For to nourish is to be chang'd into the substance of that which is nourish'd Nature makes no change from one term to another by a violent motion and progress but by little and little of a matter capable of being converted into the substance of the living thing as onely that is which hath life it being as impossible to make a living thing of that which never was such and consequently whose matter hath no disposition to become such as 't is to make a thing be which cannot be The Second said setting aside Cardan's opinion who extends life even to Stones as there are three orders of living things so there are three that have need of nutrition Plants Animals and Men. Plants are nourish'd with the juice of the earth Animals for the most part with Plants and Men better with the Flesh of Animals then with any other thing by reason of the resemblance of their natures The first order is not here spoken of because Plants must needs be nourish'd with that which hath not had life unless we will say that the universal spirit informing the earth gives it vertue to produce and nourish them The two latter are only in question and I think it no more inconvenient that what hath not had life may serve for aliment and be converted into the substance of a living creature then that the earth and water simple elements in respect of a Plant are assimilated by it and made partakers of vegetable life For as fire makes green wood combustible by exsiccating its humidity so an Animal may render such matter fit for its nourishment which was not so before Not only the Oestrich is nourish'd with Iron which it digests Pigeons and Pullen with gravel the stones of which are found in their crops smooth and round but also men may be nourish'd with bread made of earth And the Spaniards are much addicted to the use of an earth call'd Soccolante which they mingle with water and sugar its terrene consistence refuting their opinion who hold it to be the juice of a Plant. Yea some in Sieges have supported their lives with inanimate things as with bread of Slate as 't is reported of that of Sancerre And moreover 't is manifest that some sick people are nourish'd with water alone for many days together The Third said Nutrition is made by the help of heat which alters and divides the aliments and reduces them to a most simple substance capable of being converted into every similary part the property of heat being to separate heterogeneous things and conjoyn those of the same nature Hence things least compounded are more easily assimilated And as among Medicaments so among aliments the more simple are the best and make fewest excrements The air doth not only refresh the natural heat but serves for food and aliment to the spirits our best and noblest parts with which air alone as the common opinion holds the Camelion is nourish'd as the Grashopper with dew which is nothing but concreted air and the Jews were fed fourty years with Manna which is a kind of dew for the Scripture saith it vanish'd with the heat of the Sun yea the Manna which is found at this day in Calabria other places is capable of nourishing an animal and yet it never had life but fall's from heaven upon the stones from which it is collected The same may be said of hony which is a kind of dew too falling upon the leaves flowers of Plants and serving for food to Bees who only gather it without other preparation And a sort of Flyes call'd Pyraustae live with nothing but fire as many Fishes do of plain water Moles and Worms of simple earth Antimony and divers other Minerals purg'd from their malignant qualities serve for aliment and they who are expert in Chymistry make a kind of bread of them The Magistery of Pearls and Coral many precious Stones and Gold it self by the consent of all antiquity wonderfully repair our radical moisture by their fix'd spirits whence they are call'd Cordials The Fourth said If man were homogeneous and all of a piece he would be not only immortal according to Hippocrates but need no food which is necessary only for reparation of what substance is consum'd now nothing would be destroy'd in man were it not for the heterogeneous pieces of which he is made up Wherefore since we are nourish'd with the same things whereof we are compos'd and we are not compos'd of one pure and simple element but of four it follows that whatever nourishes us must be mix'd of those four Elements and therefore the more compounded it is as animate things are the more proper it is to nourish Otherwise were the aliment pure it could not be assimilated And although it could be assimilated yet it could not nourish the whole body but only either the terrestrial parts if it were earth or the humours if it were water or the spirits if it were fire or air The Fifth said The life of man cost Nature dear if it must be maintain'd at the expence of so many other animals lives If you say that being
or through a colour'd glass or neer some other lively colour Are any colours fairer then those of the Rain-bow and yet they are no more real then those of the Clouds The whiteness which we behold in the milky way ariseth only from the light of many small Stars The necks of Pigeons seem of a thousand more colours then they have The Heavens the Air and the Water have none but what we phancy or what their depth and the weakness of our sight gives them The scales of Fish some small worms and certain kinds of rotten wood shining in the night seem to us to be colour'd And Pictures are apprehended well or ill drawn according to their situation The Second said The object of Vision is colour the Organ the Eye the medium is a Diaphanous body illuminated Provided these three be rightly dispos'd the Organ and the medium free from all colours and the object at a convenient distance all men will necessarily behold colours as they are and always alike which would not be so if they were imaginary or fortuitous Besides being the object of the sight the surest of all Senses they ought to have a real existence as all the objects of the other Senses have For the object of the outward sense must be real otherwise it cannot act upon the Organ and the Agent and the Patient ought to agree in the same genus The Third said Colours as all other second qualities have a real existence since they arise from the commixtion of moist and dry caus'd by heat and determin'd by cold The first thing that happens in this mixtion is that the humidity is thickned by the accession of some dry substance and of this co-agulation is made a green colour which therefore is the first of colours as may be observ'd in water the grosser parts of which become green moss and in Plants when they first spring out of the earth But if heat exceed in the mixtion then ariseth the Red Purple and other lively and bright colours which according as they degenerate attain at length to Black which is made by adustion But when mixtions take a contrary course by cold then arise all dead colours which terminate in black too by a contrary cause namely the total extinction of heat as 't is seen in old men and dead persons who are of a leaden and blackish colour As therefore green is the first so Black is the last of colours yea 't is properly no colour especially when the humidity is already all consum'd as in coals or is separated from the dry parts as in things become black by putrefaction as the gangrenous parts of an animal Neither is white a colour but a mean between colour and light The rest are true colours The Fourth said Colours cannot proceed from the temperament or mixture of the four first qualities because mixt bodies of different temperature have the same colour Sugar Arsenic and all Salts are white the Crow and Raven are black and on the contrary one and the same mixt body of the same temperature in all its parts is nevertheless of several colours which it changes without mutation of its temper Ebeny is black in its surface and grey within Marble Jasper and Porphyry delight the sight chiefly by the variety of their colours yellow Wax grows white and white becomes black in the Sun Nor can any one say that the part of a Tulip which differs in colour from all the rest is therefore distinct in quality Wherefore since colours proceed not from the first elementary qualities they are no more real then the intentional species of the sight yea they are the very same thing for the visible species are nothing else but qualities streaming from every terminated body which alter the medium filling the same with their images which they diffuse even into the Organ Now colours are the same being qualities which actually change and alter the Diaphanous and illuminated body The Fifth said This argues that we are ignorant of the reason of the mixtion of every body and why such a body hath such a colour but not that colours are not true and real Yet with this distinction that the colours alone which are seen with the conditions requisite to sensation are real that is to say exist really and not in the Imagination For if it were not so we should see them as well by night as by day and with our eyes shut as open as that foolish Antiphon did who thought he always saw his own image before him And a sensible faculty ought to have a real and sensible object since the object must be of the same nature with the faculty But there are colours which are not really in the surface of bodies though they appear so to us by reason of the divers reception of light or of some other extrinsecal colour of a transparent diaphanous body or some other external cause which hinders the eye from discerning the true colour of the mixt body which colour though appearing otherwise then it is yet really exists but is hidden under another apparent one which continues as long as its external causes And colour'd bodies are no less so by night then by day but because vision cannot be made unless the medium be illuminated 't is only through the want of light that we see them not in the night For although we perceive in the dark the eyes of Cats Toad-stools Worms certain horns and rotten wood yet 't is not their true colour but a certain splendor different from colour which proceedeth either from their igneous spirits or because they approach neer simplicity There is therefore reality in colour but it is consider'd two ways either as a quality resulting from the mixture of the four Elementary qualities in which sence 't is defin'd by Aristotle the extremity of a perspicuum terminated or as being simply visible and is defin'd by the same Philosopher a motive quality of a body actually diaphanous In the first signification the colours seen in the Rainbow or the yellow colour cast upon a white wall by the Sun-beams passing through a glass or other medium of the same colour are no more real and true colours of those subjects then the blackness upon Paper by reason of the ink hiding its natural whiteness But in the latter signification every colour whatsoever is real since the one is as well visible as the other The Sixth said Colour differs not from light saving that colour is the light of mixt and light is the colour of simple bodies which the more simple they are they are also more luminous But if they communicate not their light 't is for want of density which is the sole cause of all activity The parts of Heaven are equally luminous and yet only the more dense and thick as the Stars can diffuse their light to us If this light grows weak it degenerates into a white colour as we see in the Moon and Stars if it be
as it is very excellent so 't is exceeding rare and being not us'd amongst us cannot come into comparison with the rest Whereas Sculpture and Statuary consisting only in paring away the overplus of matter or if the matter be fusible in casting it into a mould made from the original as the moulds of Plaster are from the faces of persons newly deceas'd need less industry The Second said Although Painting be sensible and visible yet it belongs to very few persons to judge well of it witness Alexander who going to see Appelles and offering to talk concerning Painting he spoke so ill that the Apprentices of that Artist could not forbear laughing Indeed Painting is one of the noblest parts of the Mechanicks and ought as well to be rank'd amongst the Mathematicks as Astronomy For if the reason of the Celestial motions gave cause for accounting this Science amongst the Mathematicks more justly may the reason of the motions and proportions of mans body the object of Painting more admirable and of which more certain and real knowledge may be had then of those remote bodies deserves to be of that rank considering that it makes use of the same Mathematical Rules Proportions whose Rules are so infallible that seven excellent Statuaries very distant one from the other being employ'd to make a brazen Colossus perform'd their tasks by the precepts of their Art and the parts which each of them made severally being put together represented a well proportion'd man According to which proportion a mans body must be eight lengths of his head from the less corner of the eye to the tip of the Ear is to be twice the length of the Eye the Feet and Hands stretch'd forth equally distant from the Navil and such other remarks The Third said The reason of the measures and proportions observ'd in Painting consists principally in four points viz. in the form and figure of the thing represented which is taken from the visual rays in the shadow which is to be taken from the rays of light in colour which is to imitate the natural and in the handsome posture or situation of the thing painted For Painting is the imitation of the affections of bodies with reference to the light made upon a solid Plane Hence a face is otherwise represented under the water then bare distant then neer in the Sun-shine then in the shadow by Candle-light or Moon-light And though the Painter represents also the dispositions of the soul as anger or sadness yet he doth it always by the features and qualities of the body The Fourth said They who blame Painting and Statuary because they represent unfitting objects and gave occasion to the Idolatry of antiquity may as justly blame beauty because 't is sometimes the occasion of sinning Painting hath this preeminence above all Arts that it imitates God more perfectly then they for God was the first Painter when he made man the goodliest piece of the world after his own image and likeness and all the bless'd spirits are but contracted copies of so perfect an original 'T is that which frees the body from the tombe and like a second table after shipwrack preserves the memory of virtuous men renders present those who are absent and makes almost as strong impressions upon our Soul as the thing it self witnesse the friendships of the greatest personages of the world contracted by its means And as if the desire of pourtraying it self were natural to all things there is no body but incessantly produces its own image which flies and wanders in the Air till it meet with some solid and smooth body whereon to represent it self as we see in Looking-glasses and polish'd marble where the images are much more exact then those which Art draws with a pencil yea then their own originals of whose corporeal matter they are wholly divested And as the beginning of all Arts are rude this of Painting is attributed to the Daughter of Belus who observing her Fathers shadow upon a wall delineated it with a coal For Pourtraiture invented by Philocles the Aegyptian is ancienter then Painting invented either by Gyges the Lydian in Aegypt according to Pliny or by Pyrhus Cousin to Daedalus according to Aristotle The Fifth said That in Painting as in other disciplines Ignorance of the principles is the cause that so few succeed well in it These principles are the methodical proportion of Mans Body Perspective the reason of shadows Natural Colours Designing and History all which must be found in a good Piece and the defect of some of them as it frequently happens causes us to wonder though we know not the reason that there is commonly something in all draughts that does not satisfie our Minds For oftentimes when all the rest is good Perspective hath not been well observ'd or the Design is nought or the History ill follow'd But as things are the more to be esteem'd which are the most simple so there is more of wonder in Painting to the life with a coal as Appelles did before Ptolomy to denote a person to him whom he could not name then with colours the least part of Painting which consists properly onely in proportion and this being the most divine action of Understanding 't is no wonder if there be so few good Painters For they are mistaken who place the excellence of painting in the smallness of the strokes because they fancy that Appelles was discover'd to Protogenes by having made a smaller line then he For on the contrary the most excellent strokes of Masters are many times the grossest and that this proportion may be exact it must imitate not onely particular subjects but generally the species of every thing Which Michel Caravague neglecting to do about 90. years since and instead of following Durer's excellent Rules addicting himself to draw onely after the life hath lead the way to all his successors who care not for his Rules but give themselves onely to imitation and this is the cause of the defects of painting at this day CONFERENCE LIX I. Of Light II. Of Age. I. Of Light I Conceive with a learned Physitian of the most worthy Chancellor that France ever had in his Treatise of this subject that Light is of two sorts one radical and essential which is found perfectly in the Stars the fire and some other subjects but imperfectly in colour'd bodies because Colour is a species of Light The other secondary and derivative which is found in bodies illuminated by the Light Both are made in Transparent Bodies those of the Stars in the Heaven and that of flame and bodies ignited in the fire whiteness in the Air and blackness in the Water But these transparent bodies must be condens'd that those Lights and Colours may appear and therefore the principle of Light is in transparence alone whereof neither purity rarity tenuity nor equality of surfaces are the causes but they all proceed from the quantity of matter some bodies having more matter then others
and their duration is their age the second are successive whose duration is time For duration follows the existence of every thing as necessarily as existence follows essence Existence is the term of production Duration is the term of conservation So that to doubt whether there be such a real thing in Nature as Time is to doubt of the duration and existence of every thing although the Scripture should not assure us that God made the day and the night which are parts of time Moreover the contrary reasons prove nothing saving that time is not of the nature of continuous beings but of successive which consists in having no parts really present This Time is defin'd by the Philosopher The Number of Motion according to its prior and posterior parts that is to say by means of time we know how long the motion lasted when it begun and when it ended For being Number may serve for Measure and Measure for number therefore they are both taken for one and the same thing Indeed when a thing is mov'd 't is over some space whose first parts answer to the first parts of motion and the latter parts of the space to the latter parts of the motion and from this succession of the latter parts of the motion to the former ariseth a duration which is time long or short according to the slowness or quickness of this motion And because by means of this duration we number and measure that of motions and of all our actions therefore it is call'd Number or Measure although it be onely a Propriety of Time to serve for a Measure and no ways of its essence The Fourth said That to understand time 't is requisite to understand the motion and two moments one whereof was at the beginning of that motion and the other at the end and then to imagine the middle or distance between those two extreams which middle is Time Therefore man alone being able to make comparison of those two extreams only he of all animals understands and computes time Hence they who wake out of a deep and long sleep think it but a small while since they first lay down to rest because they took no notice of the intermediate motions and think the moment wherein they fell asleep and that wherein they wak'd is but one single moment The same also happens to those who are so intent upon any action or contemplation that they heed not the duration of motions Now not only the motions of the body but those of the mind are measured by time Therefore in the dark he that should perceive no outward motion not even in his own body might yet conceive time by the duration of his soul's actions his thoughts desires and other spiritual motion And as Time is the Measure of Motion so it is likewise of rest since the reason of contraries is the same And consequently motion and rest being the causes of all things time which is their duration is also their universal cause The Fifth said That 't is ordinary to men to attribute the effects whereof they know not the causes to other known causes though indeed they be nothing less so they attribute misfortunes losses death oblivion and such other things to Heaven to Time or to place although they cannot be the causes thereof Hence some certain days have been superstitiously accounted fortunate or unfortunate as by the Persians the third and sixth of August in regard of the losses which they had suffer'd upon those days the first of April by Darius and the Carthaginians because upon the same day he had lost a Battle to Alexander and these were driven out of Sicily by Timoleon who was always observ'd to have had some good fortune upon his birth day Moreover the Genethliacks affirm that the day of Nativity is always discriminated by some remarkable accident for which they alledge the example of Charles V. whose birth day the 24th of February was made remarkable to him by his election to the Empire and the taking of Francis I. before Pavia Such was also that day afterwards solemniz'd in which Philip of Macedon receiv'd his three good tidings But as there is no hour much less day but is signaliz'd by some strange accidents so there is not any but hath been both fortunate and unfortunate As was that of Alexander's birth who saw Diana's Temple at Ephesus burnt by Herostratus and the Persians put wholly to the rout Yet the same Alexander as likewise Attalus Pompey and many others dy'd upon the day of their Nativity so did Augustus upon that of his Inauguration Wherefore 't is no less ridiculous to refer all these accidents to Time then to attribute to it the mutation oblivion and death of all things whereof it is not the cause although for this purpose Saturn was painted with a sickle in his hand with which he hew'd every thing down and devour'd his own children For Time as well as Place being quantities which are no ways active they cannot be the causes of any things The Sixth said Time is diversly taken and distinguish'd according to the diversity of Professions Historians divide it into the four Monarchies of the Medes the Persians the Greeks and the Romans and the States and Empires which have succeeded them The Church into working-Working-days and Festivals the Lawyers into Terms and Vacations the Naturalists consider them simply as a property of natural body Astronomers as an effect of Heaven Physitians as one of the principal circumstances of Diseases which they divide into most acute acute and chronical or long which exceed 40 days and each of them into their beginning augmentation state and declination as distinguish'd by the common indicatory and critical days II. Whether 't is best to overcome by open force or otherwise Upon the second Point it was said That Force being that which first caus'd obedience and admiration in the world the strongest having ever over-mastered others it cannot enter into comparison with a thing that passes for a Vice and even amongst Women as sleight and and subtlety doth and crafts in any action otherwise glorious greatly diminisheth its lustre So Hercules is more esteem'd for having slain the Nemaean Lion with his club then Lysimachus for having taken away the life of another by dextrously thrusting his hand wrap'd up in a piece of cloth into his open'd throat and so strangling him of which no other reason can be given but that the former kil'd him by his cunning and the other by plain strength Moreover General things are made of Particular duels and single fights are little pictures of battles Now every one knows what difference there is between him that overcomes his Enemy without any foul play and another that makes use of some invention or artisice to get advantage of him For though Duels are justly odious to all good men yet he that hath behav'd himself gallantly therein even when he is overcome gains more Honour then he that by some fraud
to another till they be come to the last step of the Ladder which is call'd Climax by the Greeks hence the name of Climacterical comes to be given to the years at which these changes are observ'd The most general opinion refers them to that number of seven though some have attributed them to the ninth others to every other second year but especially to the product of the one multiply'd by the other which is sixty three compos'd of nine times seven or seven times nine and therefore the most dangerous For seven and nine as Fermicus Maternus saith being very pernicious of themselves their malignity is conjoyn'd in that number of sixty three call'd upon this account the grand Climacterical as 7 14 21 28 35 41 49. very considerable amongst them for being the square of seven and 56. are call'd less Climactericals but 126. the greatest Climacterical of all because it contains the grand one twice being compos'd of eighteen Septenaries Now all these Climactericals are call'd Hebdomaticks because they go upon seven as those which are counted by nine are call'd Enneaticks amongst which the less are 9 18 27 36 45 and 54 the grand one is again 63 made also of nine multiply'd by seven the rest are 72 81 very notable too for being the square of nine 90 99 and so to the greatest Climaterical 126 made of twice nine Septenaries Amongst all which years 't is further observ'd that those are the most dangerous which ascend either by three weeks or three novenaries of years as 21 42 63 in the Hebdomaticks and 27 54 81 in the Ennecaticks The Second said That as the Septenary is considerable so is that of Nine for the number of the Hierarchies and Celestial Spheres together with the common number of moneths of womens pregnancy the time between the conception and the birth having a great resemblance with the remainder of Man's Life Likewise the Ternary proper to the Deity being multiply'd by it self must contain what ever wonder and efficacy there can be found in numbers since it belongs to innumerable things and nothing can be consider'd but with its three dimensions and its three parts beginning middle and end past present and future hence the assigning of three faces to Janus three names and three powers to the Moon according to its own that of Diana and that of Hecate together with the fiction of three Graces In brief as the three greatest changes came to pass in each of the three times of the world before the Law under the Law and after the Law so it seems just that this ternary number divide the actions of the less world as it hath done of the great The Third said That he accounted it more reasonable to make this division by the quaternary number comprehended in the ineffable name of four Letters the Elements and Humours to the contract or amity of which we owe our health our diseases death and all the accidents of our lives And the slowest motion of the dullest and most malignant of these humours is made in four dayes the reduplication whereof hath given ground to the error which attributes the Crises and indications of diseases to other numbers The fourth day is acknowledg'd the first of Natures motion and serves for a measure and foundation of all others The Crises of diseases are unanimously attributed to the Moon which hath but four quarters distinguish'd by as many faces which being denominated from the quaternary argue its power over that Planet and consequently over every thing that depends upon it And as there are four noble parts in Man comprehending with Galen those which preserve the species so there are four in the world East West North and South four parts of the earth Europe Asia Africa and America and four Monarchies But the considerableness of this number appears in that our Lord having been ask'd five questions namely of the time of his Death his Ascension the Calling of the Gentiles and the destruction of Jerusalem they were accomplish'd in the number of four times ten For he continu'd dead 40 hours he ascended into Heaven at the end of 40 dayes the vocation of the Gentiles typifi'd by the vision of unclean beasts offer'd by the Angel to Saint Peter to eat was at the end of 40 moneths which are about 3 years and a half so long also as Antichrist is to continue and the destruction of Jerusalem came to pass at the end of 40 years Whence some suspect that the end of the world which was another question made to him will probably happen after 40 times 40 years which added to the preceding would fall about the year 1640. Moreover the quaternary is not onely a square number but causing all others to be denominated such the cause of the change which happens in this number is for that a Cube cannot be vari'd and mov'd but with difficulty so that great causes are requisite to produce those changes which producing great effects become more sensible and remarkable then the ordinary ones which more easily cause variation in other numbers remote from the cubick figure The Fourth said That the Prince of Physitians having affirm'd that the Septenary is the dispenser of life and author of all its changes seven must be the true Climacterical For in seven hours the Geniture receives its first disposition to conception in seven dayes it is coagulated in seven weeks it is distinguish'd into members The Infant cannot come forth alive sooner then the seventh moneth and anciently it was not nam'd till after seven dayes being not accounted fully to have life till it had attaind that periodical day The Teeth spring out at the seventh moneth they shed and are renew'd in the seventh year at which time the Child begins to speak articulately and to be capable of Discipline At twice seven years it is pubes At twenty one the beard sprouts forth At twenty eight growing ceases At thirty five a Man is fit for marriage and the warrs At forty two he is wise or never At 49 he is in his Apogee or highest pitch after which he grows old and changes alwayes by Septenaries till he have accomplish'd the years of his life which Hippocrates for this reason distributes into seven Ages The virtue of this Number appears likewise in divine things God having sanctifi'd the seventh day by his own rest and ours and all Nations measuring their time by weeks But 't is not without mystery that Enoch the seventh after Adam was translated into Heaven that Jesus Christ is the seventy seventh in a direct line from the first Man that he spoke seven times upon the Cross on which he was seven hours that he appear'd seven times and after seven times seven dayes sent the Holy Ghost That in the Lords prayer there are seven Petitions contain'd in seven times seven words The Apostles chose seven Deacons All the mysteries of the Apocalypse are within this number mention being there made of seven seals
of the Book of seven horns of the Lamb and seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God sent throughout all the earth of the seven heads and seven questions of the Dragon of the seven heads of the Woman which are seven hills of seven Kings seven Angels seven Trumpets seven vials seven plagues The Scripture makes mention of seven resurrections to that of our Saviours The 1. of the Widows Son of Sarepta by Elias The 2. of the Shunamite's Son by Elisha The 3. of the Souldier who touch'd the bones of that Prophet The 4. of the Daughter of the Ruler of the Synagogue The 5. of the Widows Son of Naim The 6. of Lazarus And the 7. of our Lord. The Rabbins say that God employ'd the power of this Number to make Samuel so great as he was his name answering in value of the Letters to the Hebrew word which signifies seven whence Hannah his Mother in her thanks to God saith That the barren had brought forth seven Solomon spent seven years in building Gods Temple Jacob serv'd seven years for Leah and as many for Rachel The wall of Jericho fell down at the sound of Joshuah's seven Trumpets after the Israelites had gone seven times about it on the seventh day Nabuchadononosor did penance for his pride seven years amongst the beasts Moreover there are seven Penitential Psalms The Nile and the Danow have seven mouths There are seven hills at Rome Prague and Constantinople Noah entred into the Ark with seven persons and seven pairs of all clean Animals After seven dayes the waters fell from Heaven during seven times seven dayes On the seventh moneth the Ark rested upon the Mountain of Ararat The Ecclesiastes limits mourning to seven dayes There were seven years of plenty and as many of famine in Aegypt There were seven Lamps in the Tabernacle typifying seven gifts of the Spirit The Jews ate unleavened bread seven dayes and as many celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles They let their land rest every seventh year and after seven times seven had their Jubilee The strength of Sampson lay in seven locks of his Hair There are seven Sacraments in the Church as in Heaven seven Planets seven Pleiades seven Stars in the two Bears The Periodical course of the Moon is made in four times seven days at each of which septenaries it changes its face In brief there were seven miracles of the World and seven Sages of Greece There are seven Electors seven liberal Arts seven pairs of Nerves seven Orifices serving for gates to the Senses Natural sleep is limited to seven hours and this Number is by some justly esteem'd the knot or principal band of all things and the symbol of Nature The Fifth said It was not without cause that Augustus was so extreamly fearful of the Climactericals that when he had pass'd his 63d year he writ in great joy to all his friends but he dy'd in the second Climacterick after his 77th year consisting of eleven septenaries which was also fatal to Tiberius Severus T. Livius Empedocles S. Augustin Bessarion as the sixty third was to Aristotle Cicero who also was banish'd in his Climacterick of 49 Demosthenes Trajan Adrian Constantine S. Bernard the blessed Virgin and many others And the next Climacterick of 70 to three of the Sages of Greece to Marius Vespasian Antoninus Golienus David who was also driven from his Kingdom by his Son at his sixty third year and committed his adultery and homicide at his forty nineth both climactericals And as much might be observ'd of the fates and actions of other men were regard had of them Our first Father dy'd at the age of 931 years which was climacterical to him because it contains in it self seven times 133. Lamech dy'd at 777 years climacterical likewise as Abraham dy'd at 175 which contains 25 times seven Jacob at 147 consisting of 21 times seven Judas at 119 made of 17 times seven the power of which Climactericals many make to extend to the duration of States which Plato conceiv'd not to be much above 70 weeks of years The Sixth said That regular changes proceeding necessarily from a regular cause and no motion being exactly regular in all nature but that of the Heavens supposing there be climacterical years and not so many deaths and remarkable accidents in all the other numbers of days moneths and years had they been all as carefully observ'd as some of them have been their power of alteration cannot but be ascrib'd to the celestial bodies That which befalls us every seventh year arises hence as every Planet rules its hour so it makes every day moneth and year septenary beginning by Saturn and ending at the Moon which governs the seventh and therein causes all mutations which acquire malignity by the approach of Saturn presiding again over the eighth which is the cause why births in the eighth moneth are seldom vital II. Of Shame Upon the second Point it was said That the Passions consider evil and good not only absolutely but also under certain differences Desire hath regard to absent good not in general but in particular sometimes under the respect of Riches and then 't is call'd Covetousness sometimes of Honour and then 't is call'd Ambition sometimes of Beauties and then 't is an amorous inclination So grief looks upon present evil if it be in another it causes compassion in us if in our selves and apprehended prejudicial to our honour it causes shame which is a grief for an evil which we judge brings ignominy to us a grief so much the greater in that no offence goes more to the quick then that which touches our reputation It occasion'd the death of a Sophist because he could not answer a question and of Homer because he could not resolve the riddle of the Fishers and of others also upon their having been non-plus'd in publick For as nothing is more honorable then vertue and knowledge so nothing is so ignominious as ignorance and vice nor consequently that makes us so much asham'd being reproaches of our falling short of our end which is to understand and to will and so of being less then men but as Plato said Monsters of nature But amongst all the vices Nature hath render'd none so shameful as that of lasciviousness whereof not only the act but also the gestures and signs cause shame Hence an immodest or ambiguous word and a fix'd look make women and children blush whom shame becomes very well being the guard of chastity and the colour of vertue as it ill becomes old men and persons confirm'd in vertue who ought not to commit any thing whereof they may be asham'd The Second said That shame is either before vice and the infamy which follows it or after both In the first sence shame is a fear of dishonour In the second 't is a grief for being fallen thereinto Neither of the two is ever wthout love of honesty but lies between the two extreams or sottish and rustick
cloud by the inclos'd exhalation whence rain commonly follows it Fulgur is the exhalation inflam'd which impetuously breaks out at the sides of the cloud wherein it is oftentimes turn'd into a stone of the shape of a wedge the celestial heat then working the same effect in the cavities of the cloud that our common fire doth in crucibles in which equal portions of Sulphur Tartara and Antimony inflam'd turn into a very hard stone of the colour of the Thunder-bolt call'd Regulus Antimonii The Second said As fire is sometimes produc'd in the Air without noise and noise without fire so a great fire is made there with little noise as when what they call a Falling Star passes through a moist cloud in which it makes a hissing like that of hot Iron in cold water whence Winds proceed and sometimes a great noise with little fire as when an Exhalation inflam'd hollows and breaks the cloud which encloses it or else impressing a violent and rapid motion upon it makes it clash impetuously against other clouds For impetuousness supplies for hardnesse as is seen in Air which whistles when beaten by Winds there being some things which tension renders hard as Wind included in a foot-ball And what is reported of the Cataracts of Nile whose waters make so vehement a noise that it renders the people there abouts deaf is a sufficient evidence that two fluid bodies clashing violently together make as great a sound as two solid bodies mov'd with lesse violence The Third said That what is done below being the figure of what is done on high the one may be clearly explicated by the other Wherefore as Exhalation with vapor makes metals in the entrails of the Earth so in the Air it makes Thunder whither they ascend together the vapor being blended with the Exhalation or severally this latter being set on fire in the cold and vaporous cloud or being no longer containable there through its great rarity encounter'd by the coldness of the cloud and the Air it seeks some out-let which not finding 't is necessitated to hollow the bollow the belly of the cloud which obstructed it This rarity proceeds from its heat and drynesse which are commonly turn'd into fire by the sole motion of the Exhalation or by the rayes of the Sun or of some other Stars reflected by the smooth surface of an opposite cloud in the same manner as Burning-glasses set on fire such things as are plac'd at some convenient distance Which should be thought no more strange then mock-suns and mock-moons which are made in the same manner but in a flat or plain cloud not parabolical such as the figure of Burning-glasses must be Moreover fire may be excited by the Antiperistasis of the vehement cold in the middle Region of the Air which causes the degrees of heat to unite as those of other qualities strengthen one another in an enemy country and become flame Hence Thunders are more frequent in Southern then in Northern Countries in hot seasons then in Winter wherein the cold closing the pores of the Earth hinders the free issue of the Exhalations and the middle Region of the Air is found less cold But the most sensible example of Thunder is that of our Guns the powder being so suddenly inflam'd that it cannot reside in the barrel where it takes up a thousand times more room then it did whilst it remain'd in its terrene nature according to the decuple proportion of the Elements violently breaks forth and carries with it what ever resists it breaking the Gun unless the mouth be open though much stronger then a cloud whose spissitude nevertheless supplies for its rarity The Fourth said That the Nature of Thunder and Thunderbolts is so occult that all antiquity call'd them the weapons of Jupiter which he discharg'd upon the wicked as is testifi'd by their fables of the Giants Salmoneus Phaeton and some others Nor is there any so hardned in wickedness but trembles at the cracking of Thunder and Thunder-bolts which Socrates in Xenophon calls the Invisible Ministers of God And one Emperor acknowledg'd himself no God by going to hide himself in a cave while it thunder'd because Thunder-bolts are conceiv'd not to enter the Earth above five foot deep Others have thought that there is something supernatural in it and that Daemons have commonly a hand in it because its effects being unlike those of corporeal Agents seem to be produc'd by spirits who are able to move what ever there is in Nature and this the more easily being not ty'd to the conditions of the matter but mov'd in an instant and penetrating all bodies whatever For Thunder hath kill'd many who had no appearance of hurt upon them the Hair of some hath been taken off without other inconvenience it hath consum'd the Tongues of some or turn'd them downwards it hath melted the money in the purse and the sword in the scabbard without other mischief it sowres Wine in the vessel spoils Eggs under a Hen and makes Sheep abortive Moreover the Scripture tells us that God hath many times us'd Thunder either to punish or terrifie men as he did in Aegypt by the rod of Moses who calls Thunder-bolts God's swords as David doth his Arrows and the Thunder his voice The Law was given to the Israelites with Thunders and Lightnings and Saint John in his Revelation saith that Thunders and Lightnings proceed from Gods Throne Indeed nothing more visibly notifies his presence power and justice yet alwayes accompany'd with Clemency for he threatens by Lightning and speaks by Thunder before he strikes by the Thunder-bolt and the rumbling of this Thunder menaces a whole Region though commonly it carries the blow but upon one person or oftentimes none at all The Fifth said Fear which not onely sometimes made the Romans worship Famine and the Fever but makes it self an Idol in the Minds of the Ignorant has perswaded men that there is something Divine in Thunder because they dread the dismal effects of it and know not the cause although it be as natural as that of all other Meteors Hence some have had recourse to impertinent and superstitious remedies as to pronounce certain barbarous words to carry certain figures or characters about them and according to Wierus to lay a Thunder-stone call'd by the Greeks Ceraunium between two Eggs upon a Table in the house which you would preserve or hang an Egg lay'd on ascension-Ascension-day to the roof of the House and such other absurd and prophane means The Northern people were much more ridiculous who as Olaus reports shot Arrows up to Heaven when it Thunder'd thereby as they said to help their Gods who were assail'd by others The Thracians fell a howling against Heaven struck their shields with their swords and rung all their bells which latter is practis'd at this day to the end the vehement agitation of the Air may divert the Thunder-bolt from the steeples upon which as upon all other high places especially
besides loss of time renders mens minds soft and effeminate and more susceptible of the passions represented therein Tragedy is too sad to serve for divertisement to the soul. If you proceed to Gladiators is any thing more inhumane and that renders men more barbarous then to see our fellow-men kill one another in cold blood and expose themselves to wild beasts and 't is always a dangerous practise to accustom the eyes to murders and bloody spectacles nature being easily perverted by custom Moreover all these Mimes Actors Sword-players and the like were always held infamous and incapable of publick charges insomuch that the Emperor Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius in L. 4. C. de Spectaculis Scenicis and Lenonibus forbid to defile their sacred images by the society of those people who act upon the Theatre ranking them with the corrupters of chastity And the Romans who practis'd the same more then any Nation felt the inconvenience of them when the most potent became masters of the Commonwealth by means of the spectacles wherewith they allur'd the people to their party as Julius Caesar who being Aedile and having given Gladiators Huntings Sports Races and sumptuous Feasts to the people of Rome they created him Chief Pontife although Q. Catulus and Servilius Isauricus two great personages were his competitors which was his first step to Sovereignty and Suetonius observes that the conflux of people was so numerous that many and amongst the rest two Senators were smother'd in the throng The Third said That Spectacles or Shews are good or bad according to the things which they represent But absolutely speaking they ought to be permitted not only for the diversion of men but also for the exercising of youth and animating them to courage by rewards for their fortitude as the Greeks sometimes appointed Statues Crowns of gold Olive Palm Smallage and other such guerdons to those who overcame in Running Wrastling Caestus or fighting with Whorlbats and such exercises carrying them in a triumphal Charriot to the Town of their Birth shewing themselves so careful of the Olympick Games that they committed the charge thereof to the Sicyonians after Corinth the place where they were formerly celebrated had been raz'd by the Romans who transferr'd those Plays into their own City by the perswasion of Cato for the same end of educating their youth For as profit delights some spirits so pleasure allures all and of pleasures none is more innocent and communicable then that of the sight CONFERENCE LXXXVI I. Of the Dog-days II. Of the Mechanicks I. Of the Dog-days THat the Stars act upon sublunary bodies is agreed upon but not the manner some holding that they impress some qualities by motion others by light others by their influence others by both together producing heat by the two first and other more extraordinary effects by influences For every thing that is mov'd heats as also all sort of light united even that of the Moon whose rays may be made to burn with glasses as well as those of the Sun But because natural agents cannot act beyond the natural bounds of their power therefore heat produc'd of light and motion here below can produce only its like heat or such other alteration in inferior bodies not those strange and irregular changes not only in the temper of the air but of every other body As that it is sometimes hotter and sometimes colder in the same elevation of the Sun cannot be attributed to his approach or remotion or to the incidence of his perpendicular or oblique rays but it must proceed from the conjunction opposition or several aspects of other Stars Amongst which the Canicula or Dog-star hath very extraordinary effects as to weaken mens bodies to make dogs run mad to turn the wine in the vessel to make the sea boile to move lakes to heat the air so much that Pliny affirms that Dolphins keep themselves hid during the 30 Dog-days at which he wonders the more because they can respire neither in the water nor upon the earth but partly in the air partly in the water Moreover Experience shews that the Hyades or Pleiades stars in the back of the Bull have such a moist quality that they alwayes cause rain at their rising which happens in November as Arcturus never rises without bringing hail or tempest the Moon being full Oysters Muscles and the sap of Trees are so too and therefore being cut at this time they soon rot and Pliny counsels to cut them during the dog-Dog-dayes when the heat of the season ha's dry'd up all their aqueous moisture which is the cause of their corrupting The Second said That the vanity of Astrologers who have phancy'd monsters and sundry figures in Heaven and attributed imaginary effects to them the better to amuse mens minds with some resemblance of the truth hath also feign'd two dogs there one less consisting of two stars and another of eighteen the the greatest of which is the brightest in our Hemisphere and is in the tongue of this Dog whom the Greeks and Latins call Sirius and ascribe so much power to him that they conceive his conjunction with the Sun in the East causes the scorching heat of Summer yea the people of the Isle of Cea near Negropont as Cicero reports took their presages of the whole year from the rising of this star determining the same to be rainie in case this star appear'd obscure and and cloudy and the contrary But this cannot be true as well in regard of the great distance of the fix'd stars which also being of the same substance cannot have contrary qualities as also by reason of the retrogradation of their sphere which hath a motion contrary to that of the First Mover namely from West to East which motion though insensible in few years yet amounts to much at the end of many Ages As is justifi'd by the Dog-star which Ptolomy in the tables of his time places at 18. degr 10. min. of Gemini Alphonsus King of Castile at the 4. degr of Cancer and now 't is found at 9. degr 54. min. according to Tycho and at 9. degr 30. min. according to Copernicus Whereby it appears that after many years this star will be in the winter signes and that at the Creation it was in Aries at the Vernal Equinox and that consequently the Dog-dayes will be in the time of the greatest cold In brief were there such power in this conjunction the Dog-dayes would be hot and burning and yet in some years they are cold and rainie Which the Astrologers attributing to the several Aspects of Saturn or other cold stars see not that by weakning the force of some by others they subvert all Wherefore the Dog-star is at present the sign but not the cause of hot dayes that is the hapning of this Constellation in the Summer signes and its conjunction with the Sun during hot weather ha's been erroniously believ'd the principal cause thereof which in my judgement is to be
sought onely in the continuance of the Suns action during the Spring and half the Summer whereby the Air is hotter then when he was neerer us So 't is hotter at two a clock in the afternoon then at ten in the morning although the Sun be at the same distance yea then at noon although he be then nearest of all and we read that an Ambassador of Presbyter John dy'd with heat as he landed at Lisbone although the heat be not so great there as in his Country but of louger continuance If it rains sometimes during the said season 't is by reason of too great attraction of Vapours by the heat of the Sun as is seen in the torrid Zone where when the Sun is in the greatest Apogaeum it rains continually The Second said That the Longitude of the Dog-star call'd by the Arabians Athabor is at this day about the 9. degr of Cancer and its meridional latitude 39. degr and a half Now the Ancients observing the greatest heat of the whole year to be commonly when the Sun is at the end of Cancer and beginning of Leo and at the same the Dog-star to rise with the Sun which the Astronomers call the Cosmical Rising nam'd those dayes Dog-dayes which begin with us about the two and twentieth of July whether they believ'd the cause of this heat to be that star assisting the Sun or else according to their order of distinguishing seasons before years and moneths were regulated by the course of the Sun they denoted those dayes by the rising of this star conceiving that it did not change place any more then the other stars of the Firmament As not onely the Poets but also Hippocrates distinguishes the four Seasons of the year by the rising and setting of the Pleiades and Arcturus And thus the name of the day hath remain'd to these dayes although the star be not in the same place following Ages observing that besides the eight motions admitted by the Ancients in the Heavens namely of the seven Planets and the First Mover there 's another peculiar to the starry Heaven which is finish'd according to some in 36000 years whereby it comes to pass that the Dog-star is no longer in the same place where it was at the first observation of these Dog-dayes For 't is about two thousand years since this star arose exactly with the Sun in the dayes which we call Canicular the heat whereof hath alwayes continu'd and yet the star hath pass'd forward and at this day rises not with the Sun till about the eighth of August when the Dog-dayes and strength of heat begins to expire Since therefore the effect continues and the pretended cause exists not at that time as the Astronomical Tables justifie it follows that it is not the cause of that effect Wherefore some have conceiv'd that the star which made the Dog-dayes was another star in the little Dog call'd Procyon But this Procyon did not rise with the Sun in the dayes of the Ancients till about the beginning of July which is three weeks before the Dog-dayes which consequently cannot be attributed to the fix'd stars by reason of their particular motion which causes them to vary situation the Dog-star by its proper motion proceeding 52. min. every year which make about 1. degr in 70. years 3. degr in 200. years and one sign in 2000. Besides if the stars had any force the same would be sensible at their coming to the meridian of the place with the Sun then when they rise with him because their greatest strength is when they are under the meridian being then in their greatest elevation above the Horizon and nearest the Zenith and consequently most active as experience shews in the Sun Therefore the true cause of the heat of Dog-dayes is because the Sun being towards the end of Cancer and the beginning of Leo we have more causes concurring together to produce heat then in any other season of the year namely the elevation of the Sun above the horizon the length of the days and shortness of the nights For then the dayes are not sensibly diminish'd nor the nights sensibly encreas'd the Sun hath not yet suffer'd any considerable change in his altitude above the Horizon but above all the preparation of the earth which hath been heated during the three moneths of the Spring and a moneth and half of the Summer whereby all the aqueous humidity which refrigerates is dissipated and the heat so far impacted into the earth that the night it self is less cold then in any other season The Fourth said As 't is absurd to seek in the stars for causes of effects when we see them manifest in the qualities of inferior bodies and the various concourse of so many different natural causes So 't is stupidity to deny all virtue to those great superior orbs rejecting wise Antiquity and all the most learned judiciary Astrologers who ascribe a particular virtue to each star as to the Dog-star to heat and scorch the Air. Moreover the Divine Hippocrates lib. de Affect inter Sect. 5. affirms that the disease call'd Typhos happens commonly in Summer and in these Dog-dayes because it hath a power to stir the choler through the whole Body And in his book De Aere locis aquis he adds that the rising of the stars is diligently to be observ'd especially that of the Dog-star and some few others at which times diseases turn into other kinds for which reason he saith Aph. 5. Sect. 4. That purging is dangerous when the Dog-star rises and some while before The Fifth said That all purging medicaments being hot t is no wonder if they are carefully to be manag'd during very hot weather in which there is a great dissipation of the spirits and strength so that our Bodies being then languid cannot be mov'd and agitated without danger Not that the Dog-star contributes any thing thereunto but onely the heat of the season caus'd by the Sun which attracting from the centre to the circumference and purging from the circumference to the centre there are made two contrary motions enemies to Nature which is the cause that many fall then into fevers and fainting fits II. Of the Mechanicks Upon the Second Point 't was said That as the object of the Mathematicks is two-fold either intellectual or sensible so there are two sorts of Mathematicks Some consider their object simply and abstracted from all kind of matter namely Geometry and Arithmetick others consider it as conjoyn'd to some matter and they are six Astrology Perspective Geodaesie Canonick or Musick the Logistick and the Mechanick Art which is nothing less then what its name imports being otherwise the most admirable of all because it communicates motion which is the most exquisite effect of Nature 'T is divided into Organical which composes all instruments and engines of war sordid which makes utensils necessary to the uses of life and miraculous which performs strange and extraordinary things 'T is this
of Art which we learn'd from them for the most part but they have also virtues as Chastity Simplicity Prudence Piety On the contrary God as the Philosopher teaches exercises neither virtues nor any external actions but contemplation is his sole employment and consequently the most divine of all though it were not calm agreeable permanent sufficient proper to man and independent of others which are the tokens of beatitude and the chief good The Third said since 't is true which Plato saith that while we are in this world we do nothing but behold by the favour of a glimmering light the phantasms and shadows of things which custom makes us to take for truths and bodies they who amuse themselves in contemplation in this life cannot be said contented unless after the manner of Tantalus who could not drink in the midst of the water because they cannot satisfie that general inclination of nature who suffers nothing idle in all her precincts to reduce powers into act and dead notions into living actions If they receive any pleasure in the knowledge of some truths 't is much less then that which is afforded by action and the exercise of the moral virtues of the active life the more excellent in that they are profitable to many since the most excellent good is the most communicable Moreover all men have given the pre-eminence to civil Prudence and active life by proposing rewards and honours thereunto but they have punish'd the ingratitude and pride of speculative persons abandoning them to contempt poverty and all incommodities of life And since the Vice which is opposite to active life is worse then ignorance which is oppos'd to the contemplative by the reason of contraries action must be better then contemplation and the rather because virtuous action without contemplation is always laudable and many times meritorious for its simplicity on the contrary contemplation without virtuous acts is more criminal and pernicious In fine if it be true that he who withdraws himself from active life to intend contemplation is either a god or a beast as Aristotle saith 't is more likely that he is the latter since man can hardly become like to God The Fourth said That to separate active life from contemplative is to cut off the stream from the fountain the fruit from the tree and the effect from its cause as likewise contemplation without the vertues of the active life is impossible rest and tranquillity which are not found in vice being necessary to contemplate and know Wherefore as the active life is most necessary during this life so the contemplative is more noble and divine if this present life be consider'd as the end and not as the means and way to attain to the other life in which actions not contemplations shall be put to account Contemplation is the Sun Action the Moon of this little World receiving its directions from contemplation as the Moon of the great World borrows its light from the Sun the former presides in the day of contemplative life the second which is neerer to us as the Moon is presides in the darkness of our passions Both of them represented in Pallas the Goddess of Wisdom and War being joyn'd together make the double-fronted Janus or Hermaphrodite of Plato square of all sides compos'd of Contemplation which is the Male and Action which is the Female CONFERENCE XCIII I. Of the spots in the Moon and the Sun II. Whether 't is best to use severity or gentleness towards our dependents I. Of the spots in the Moon and the Sun THere is nothing perfect in the world spots being observ'd in the brightest bodies of Nature And not to speak of those in the Sun which seem to proceed from the same cause with those observ'd in our flame according as 't is condens'd or rarifi'd we may well give account of those in the Moon by saying with the Pythagoreans and some later excellent Mathematicians that the Moon is an earthly habitable Globe as the eminences and inequalities observ'd therein by the Telescope the great communications of the Moon with our earth depriving one another of the Sun by the opacity rotundity and solidty of both and the cold and moist qualities which it transmits hither like those of this terr-aqueous Globe since the same apparences and illumination of the Earth would be seen from the Heaven of the Moon if a man were carri'd thither And because solid massie bodies as wood and stone reflect light most strongly therefore the brightest parts of the Moon answer the terrestrial dense parts and the dark the water which being rarer and liker the air is also more transparent and consequently less apt to stop and reflect light This we experience in the prospect of high Mountains very remote or the points of Rocks in the open Sea which reflect a light and have a colour like that of the Moon when the Sun is still above the Horizon with her whereas the Sea and great Lakes being less capable of remitting this light seem dark and like clouds So that were this Globe of Ocean and Earth seen from far it would appear illuminated and spotted like the Moon For the opinion of Plurality of Worlds which can be no way dangerous of it self but only in the consequences the weakness of humane wit would draw from it much less is it contrary to the faith as some imagine is rather an argument of Gods Omnipotence and more abundant communication of his goodness in the production of more creatures whereas his immense goodness seems to be restrain'd in the creation of but one world and of but one kind Nor is it impossible but that as we see about some Planets namely Jupiter and Saturn some other Stars which move in Epicycles and in respect of their stations and those Planets seem like Moons to them and are of the same substance so that which shines to us here below may be of the same substance with our earth and plac'd as a bound to this elementary Globe The Second said That the spots of the Sun and Moon cannot be explicated without some Optical presuppositions And first 't is to be known that Vision is perform'd three ways directly by reflection and by refraction Direct Vision which is the most ordinary is when an object sends its species to the eye by a direct way that is when all the points of one and the same object make themselves seen by so many right lines Reflective Vision is when the species of an object falling upon the surface of an opake body is remitted back to the sight as 't is in our Looking-glasses Vision by refraction is when the species of an object having pass'd through a medium diaphanous to a certain degree enters obliquely into another medium more or less diaphanous for then 't is broken and continues not its way directly but with this diversity that coming from a thicker medium into a thinner as from water into air the species in breaking
the terrestrial mass and the dark the water or the contrary it will be necessary that this earth also have its Heaven that its stars and so to infinity The Fourth said That they who have imagin'd spots in the Sun had them in their Eyes it being improbable that there is any defect of light in that Star which is the fountain of it but they are produc'd by the vapours between the Sun and the Eye and therefore appear not at full noon and change with the vapours and clouds As for those which appear in the Moon 's face there is great diversity of opinions as of the Rabbines and Mahometans of the ancient Philosophers reported by Plutarch in his treatise thereof and of the moderns The first are ridiculous in believing that Lucifer by his fall and the beating of his wings struck down part of the light of this great Luminary or that the same was taken away to frame the Spirits of the Prophets Those Philosophers who attributed the cause to the violence of the Sun-beams reflected from the Moon to our Eyes would conclude well if the like spots appear'd in the Sun as do in the Moon because the rayes coming directly from the Sun to the Eyes have more brightness and dazle more then those reflected by the Moon Nor can these spots be the Images of the Sea and its Streights for the Ocean surrounding the Terrestrial Globe that part of it which remains in the lower part of the Globe cannot send its species so far as the Moon whilst she enlightens the upper part the Moon being able to receive onely the species of that part which she enlightens according to the principles of Theodosius who teaches us that from the Zenith of one Hemisphere right lines cannot be drawn to the other Hemisphere by reason of the solidity of the Globe the caliginous fire the wind the condensation of the Air and the like opinions of the Stoicks and other ancient Philosophers though erroneous yet seem to me more probable then those of some Moderns who will have the Moon inhabited not considering that 't is too small to make an habitable earth her body being the fortieth part of the Terrestrial Globe and its surface the thirteenth of that of the Earth or thereabouts besides that she comes too near the Sun whose Eclipse her interposition causeth They who make the Moon and the Earth to move about the Sun may indeed with Copernicus explicate the most signal motions and phaenomena But the stability of the Pole and the Stars about it requires a fix'd point in the Earth with which the inequality of the dayes and seasons could not consist if the Sun were stable and in one place Moreover the difference of dayes proceeds from the obliquity of the Ecliptick which is the cause that the parallels of the Solstice are nearer one to another and the dayes then less unequal then at the Equinoxes which cannot hold good in this Scheme But 't is less reasonable to say that the hollow places in the Moon seem dark for by the rules of perspective they should remit the Sun's rayes redoubled by their reflection by reason of the cone which is form'd in hollow parts nor can they be eminences which appear obscure because in this case the spots should not appear so great or not come at all to us being surpass'd by the dilatation of the rayes redoubled by the conical figure of the cavities of the Moon 'T is therefore more probable that as a Star is the thicker part of its Orbe so the Moon hath some dense then others which are the most luminous as those which are more diaphanous letting those beams of the Sun pass through them which they are not able to reflect for want of sufficient density seem more obscure and make the spots The fifth said The spots of the Sun cannot be from the same causes with those of the Moon which experience shews us changes place and figure those of the Sun remaining always alike and in the same figure whereby we may also understand the validity of what is alledg'd by some That the Sun moving upon his own Centre carries his spots about with him For granting this motion yet if these spots interr'd in the Sun they would always appear in the same manner and at regular times by reason of the Sun 's equal and uniform revolution Nevertheless the most diligent observers find that some of them are generated and disappear at the same time in the Solar face Which would incline me to their opinion who hold those spots to be generated out of the body of the Sun in the same manner that exhalations are out of the bosom of the earth did not this derogate from the receiv'd incorruptibility of the Heavens For it cannot be any defect of our sight mistaking the vapours between the eye and the Sun for spots inherent in his body since they are seen by all almost in the same number and figure which should alter with the medium if this were the cause of them and 't is impossible that vapours should follow the Sun in his course for so many days together as one of these spots appears for it must move above 6000 leagues a day though it were not much elevated above the earth Nor do our Telescopes deceive us since without them we behold these spots in a Basin of water or upon a white paper in a close Chamber whereinto the Sun is admitted only by a small hole Nor Lastly are they small Stars call'd by some Borboneae and Mediceae because we perceive both their nativity and their end II. Whether 't is best to use â—â—verity or gentleness towards our dependents Upon the second Point 't was said That he who said a man hath as many domestick enemies as servants imply'd that we are to use them as such converse with them as in an Enemy-Country and according to the Counsel of good Captains build some Fort therein for our security Which Fort is severity and its Bastions the reasons obliging us to this rigour The first of which is drawn from the contempt ensuing upon gentleness and familiarity and from the respect arising from severity and gravity especially in low and servile souls which being ill educated would easily fall into vice to which men are more inclin'd then to vertue if they be not restrain'd by fear of punishment which makes deeper impression upon their minds then the sweetness and love of virtue wherewith they are not acquainted Besides that servants are apt to grow slack and luke-warm in their duties unless they be spurr'd up by severity And 't is a great disorder when a servant becomes equal to his master as it happens by mildness nor was Paganism ever more ridiculous then in the Saturnalia when the servants play'd the masters It must likewise be confess'd that severity hath a certain majesty which exacts such honour and service as gentleness cannot obtain By this virtue Germanicus became so considerable and was