Capacities and our Laws And to serve our selves at the Expence of the Divinity with that small Portion of Knowledg he has been pleas'd to impart to our natural Condition And because we cannot extend our Sight to his glorious Throne to have brought him down to our Corruption and our Miseries Of all human and ancient Opinions concerning Religion that seems to me the most likely and most excusable that acknowledg'd God an Incomprehensible Power the Original and Preserver of all things all Bounty all Perfection receiving and taking in good part the Honor and Reverence that Man paid unto him under what Method Name or Ceremonies soever Jupiter omnipotens rerum regúmque Deûmque Progenitor Genitrixque This Zeal has universally been look'd upon from Heaven with a gracious Eye All Governments have reap'd Fruit from their Devotion Men and impious Actions have every where had suitable Events Pagan Histories acknowledg Dignity Order Justice Prodiges and Oracles employ'd for their Profit and Instruction in their fabulous Religions God peradventure through his Mercy vouchsafing by these temporal Benefits to cherish the tender Principles of a kind of a brutish Knowledg that natural Reason gave them of him through the deceiving Images of their Dreams Not only deceiving and false but impious also and injurious are those that Man has forg'd from his own Invention And of all the Religions that St. Paul found in Repute at Athens that which they had dedicated to an unknown Divinity seem'd to him the most to be excus'd Pythagoras shadow'd the Truth a little more closely Judging that the Knowledg of this first Cause and Being of Beings ought to be indefinite without Limitation without Declaration That it was nothing else than the extream Effort of our Imagination towards Perfection every one amplifying the Idea according to the Talent of his Capacity But if Numa attempted to conform the Devotion of his People to this Project to ty them to a Religion purely mental without any prefixt Object and material Mixture he undertook a thing of no use Human Wit could never support it self floating in such an infinity of inform Thoughts there is required some certain Image to be presented according to its own Model The Divine Majesty has thus in some sort suffered himself to be circumscrib'd in corporal Limits for our Advantage His supernatural and celestial Sacraments have Signs of our earthly Condition His Adoration is by sensible Offices and Words for 't is Man that Believes and Prays I shall omit the other Arguments upon this Subject But a Man would have much ado to make me believe that the sight of our Crucifixes that the Picture of our Saviours Passion that the Ornaments and Ceremonious Motions of our Churches that the Voices accommodated to the Devotion of our Thoughts and that Emotion of Senses do not warm the Souls of the People with a Religious Passion of very advantagious Effects Of those to whom they have given a Body as Necessity required in that universal Blindness I should I fancy most encline to those who Ador'd the Sun la lumiere commune L'aeil du monde si Dieu au chef porte des yeux Les rayons du soleil sont ses yeux radeux Qui donnent vie a tous nous maintiennent gardent Et les faits des humains en ce monde regardent Ce beau ce grand soleil qui nous fait les saisons Selon qu'il entre ou sort de ses douze maisons Qui remplit l'univers de ses vertus cogneües Qui d'vn traict de ses yeux nous dissipe les nuës L'esprit bame du monde ardant flamboyant En la course d'un jour tout le Ciel tournoyant Plein d'immense grandeur rond vagabond ferme Lequel tient dessoubs luy tout le monde pour terme En repos sans repos oysif sans sejour Fils aisnè de Nature le Pere du jour The common Light that Shines indifferently On all alike the Worlds enlightning Eyes And if th' Almighty Ruler of the Skies Has Eyes the Sun-Beams are his radiant Eyes That Life to all impart maintain and guard And all Mens Actions upon Earth regard This Great this Beautiful and glorious Sun That Seasons gives by Revolution That with his Influence fills the Universe And with one Glaunce does sullen Shades disperse Life Soul o th' World that flaming in his Sphear Surrounds the Heavens in one Days carreer Immensly great moving yet firm and round Who the whole World below has fix'd his Bound At Rest without Rest Idle without Stay Natures first Son and Father of the Day Forasmuch as besides this Grandeur and Beauty of his 't is the only piece of this Machin that we discover at the remotest distance from us and by that means so little known that they were pardonable for entring into so great admiration and reverence of it Thales who first inquir'd into this sort of matter believ'd God to be a Spirit that made all things of Water Anaximander that the Gods were always dying and entring into Life and that there were an infinite number of Worlds Anaximines that the Air was God that he was procreated and immense always moving Anaxagoras the First was of Opinion that the description and manner of all things were conducted by the Power and Reason of an infinite Spirit Alcmaeon gave the Divinity to the Sun Moon and Stars and to the Soul Pythagoras has made God a Spirit sprinkled over the Nature of all things from whence our Souls are extracted Parmenides a Circle surrounding the Heaven and supporting the World by the Ardour of Light Empedocles pronounc'd the four Elements of which all things are compos'd to be Gods Protagoras had nothing to say whether they were or were not or what they were Democritus was one while of Opinion that the Images and their Circuitions were Gods another this Nature that darts out those Images and then our Science and Intelligence Plato devides his Belief into several Opinions He says in his Timaeus That the Father of the World cannot be nam'd In his Laws That Men are not to inquire into his Being And elsewhere in the very same Books he makes the World the Heavens the Stars the Earth and our Souls Gods admitting moreover those which have been receiv'd by Ancient Institution in every Republick Xenophon reports a like Perplexity in Socrates his Doctrine One while that Men are not to inquire into the Form of God and presently makes him maintain that the Sun is God and the Soul God and the first that there is but one God and afterwards that there are many Speucippus the Nephew of Plato makes God a certain Power governing all things and that he has a Soul Aristotle one while says it is the Spirit and another the World one while he gives this World another Master and another makes God the Ardour of Heaven Zenocrates makes eight five nam'd amongst the Planets the sixth
Nations at this Day to hurt themselves in good earnest to gain credit to what they profess of which our King relates notable Examples of what he has seen in Poland and done towards himself But besides this which I know to have been imitated by some in France when I came from that famous Assembly of the Estates at Blois I had a little before seen a Maid in Picardy who to manifest the Ardour of her Promises as also her Constancy give her self with a Bodkin she wore in her Hair Four or Five good lusty Stabs into the Arm till the Blood gush'd out to some purpose The Turks make themselves great Skars in Honour of their Mistresses and to the end they may the longer remain they presently clap Fire to the Wound where they hold it an incredible time to stop the Blood and form the Cicatrice People that have been Eye-witnesses of it have both Writ and Sworn it to me But for Ten Aspers there are there every day Fellows to be found that will give themselves a good deep slash in the Arms or Thighs I am willing though to have the Testimonies nearest to us when we have most need of them for Christendom does furnish us with enow And after the Example of our Blessed Guide there have been many who would bear the Cross. We Learn by Testimony very worthy of belief that the King St. Lewis wore a Hair-shirt till in his old Age his Confessor gave him a Dispensation to leave it off and that every Friday he caus'd his Shoulders to be drubb'd by his Priest with Six small Chains of Iron which were always carried about amongst his Night Accoutrements for that purpose William our last Duke of Guienne the Father of this Eleanor who has Transmitted this Dutchy into the Houses of France and England continually for Ten or Twelve Years before he Died wore a Suit of Arms under a Religious Habit by way of Penance Fulke Count of Anjou went as far as Jerusalem there to cause himself to be Whipt by Two of his Servants with a Rope about his Neck before the Sepulchre of our Lord But do we not moreover every Good Friday in several places see great number of Men and Women Beat and Whip themselves till they Lacerate and Cut the Flesh to the very Bones I have often seen this and without Enchantment when it was said there were some amongst them for they go disguis'd who for Mony undertook by this means to save harmless the Religion of others by a contempt of Pain so much the greater as the Incentives of Devotion are more effectual than those of Avarice Q. Maximus Buried his Son when he was a Consul and M. Cato his when Praetor Elect and L. Paulus both his within a few Days one after another with such a Countenance as express'd no manner of Grief I said once Merrily of a certain Person that he had disappointed the Divine Justice for the Violent Death of Three grown up Children of his being one Day sent him for a severe Scourge as it is to be suppos'd he was so far from being Afflicted at the Accident that he rather took it for a particular Grace and Favour of Heaven I do not follow these Monstrous Humours though I lost Two or Three at Nurse if not without Grief at least without Repining and yet there is hardly any Accident that pierces nearer to the quick I see a great many other occasions of Sorrow that should they happen to me I should hardly feel and have despis'd some when they have befallen me to which the World have given so Terrible a Figure that I should Blush to Boast of my Constancy Ex quo intelligitur non in Natura sed in opinione esse aegritudinem By which it is understood that the Grief is not in Nature but Opinion Opinion is a Powerful Party Bold and without Measure Who ever so greedily hunted after Security and Repose as Alexander and Caesar did after Disturbances and Difficulties Terez the Father of Sitalcez was wont to say that when he had no Wars he fancied there was no difference betwixt him and his Groom Cato the Consul to secure some Cities of Spain from Revolt only interdicting the Inhabitants from wearing Arms a great many 〈◊〉 themselves Ferox gens nullam vitam 〈◊〉 sine armis esse A Fierce People who though there was no Life without Arms. How many do we know who have forsakeâ— the Calms and Sweetness of a Quiet Life at Home amongst their Acquaintance tâ— seek out the Horrour of Inhabitable Dâ—â—sarts and having precipitated themselveâ— into so Abject a Condition as to become the Scorn and Contempt of the World have hug'd themselves with the Conceit even to Affectation Cardinal Barromeuâ— who Died lately at Milan in the midst of all the Jollity that the Air of Italy 〈◊〉 Youth Birth and great Riches inviteâ— him to kept himself in so Austere a way of Living that the same Robe he wore 〈◊〉 Summer serv'd him for Winter too 〈◊〉 only Straw for his Bed and his Hours oâ— vacancy from the Affairs of his Employment he continually spent in Study upon his Knees having a little Bread and a Glass of Water set by his Book which waâ— all the Provision of his Repast and all the time he spent in Eating I know some who consentingly have Acquir'd both Profit and Advancement from Cuckoldry 〈◊〉 which the bare Name only affrights so many People If the Sight be not the most necessary of all our Senses 't is at least the most pleasant But the most pleasant and most useful of all our Members seem to â—e those of Generation and yet a great many have conceiv'd a Mortal Hatred against them only for this that they were 〈◊〉 Amiable and have depriv'd themselves of them only for their Value As much thought he of his Eyes that put them out The generality and more solid sort of Men look upon abundance of Children as a great Blessing I and some others think it as a great Benefit to be without them And when you ask Thales why he does not Marry he tells you because he has no mind to leave any Posterity behind him That our Opinion gives the value to things is very manifest in a great many of these which we do not so much regard to prize them but our selves and never consider either their Vertues or their Use but only how dear they cost us As though that were a part of their substance And we only repute for value in them not what they bring to us but what we add to them By which I understand that we are great managers of our Expence As it weighs it serves for so much as it weighs our Opinion will never suffer it to want of its value The Price gives valeue to the Diamond Difficulty to Vertue Suffering to Devotion and Griping to Physick A certain Person to be Poor threw his Crowns into the same Sea to which so many came from all
parts of the World to Fish and Rifle for Riches Epicurus says That to be Rich is no Advantage but only an alteration of Affairs In plain truth it is not Want but rather Abundance that Creates Avarice Neither will I stick to deliver my own Experience concerning this Affair I have since my Child-hood Liv'd in Three sorts of Conditions the First which continued for some Twenty Years I past over without any other means but what were Accidental and depending upon the allowance and assistance of others without Stint or certain Revenue I then spent my Money so much the more chearfully and with so much the less care how it went as it wholely depended upon my over-confidence of Fortune and never Liv'd more at my ease I never had the repulse of finding the Purse of any of my Friends shut against me having enjoin'd my self this Necessity above all other Necessities whatever by no means to fail of Payment at the appointed time which also they have a Thousand times respited seeing how careful I was to satisfie them so that I practis'd at once a Thrifty and withal a kind of alluring Honesty I naturally feel a kind of pleasure in Paying as if I eas'd my Shoulders of a troublesome Weight and in freeing my self from that Image of Slavery as also that I find a ravishing kind of satisfaction in pleasing another by doing a Just Action Those kind of payments excepted where the trouble of reckoning and dodging are requir'd and in such cases where I can meet with no Body to ease me of that hateful Torment I avoid them how scandalously and injuriously soever all I possibly can for fear of those little wrangling Disputes for which both my humour and way of speaking are so totally improper and unfit There is nothing I hate so much as driving on a Bargain 't is a meer Traffick of Couzenage and Impudence where after an Hours cheapning and dodging both Parties abandon their Word and Oath for Five Sols profit or abatement And yet I always borrow'd at great disadvantage for wanting the confidence to speak to the person my self I committed my Request to the perswasion of a Ticket which usually is no very successful Advocate and is of very great advantage to him who has a mind to deny I in those Days more jocundly and freely referr'd the Conduct of my Affairs to the Stars than I have since done to my own Providence and Judgment Most good Husbands look upon it is a horrible thing to Live always thus in incertainty and are not aware in the first place that the greatest part of the World Live so How many Worthy Men have wholely slighted and abandon'd the certainty of their own Estates and yet Daily do it to trust to the inconstant Favour of Princes and fickle Fortune Caesar ran above a Million of Gold more than he was worth in Debt to become Caesar. And how many Merchants have begun their Traffick by the Sale of their Farms which they sent into the Indies Tot per impotentia freta In so great a Siccity of Devotion as we see in these Days we have a Thousand and a Thousand Colledges that pass it over commodiously enough expecting every Day their Dinner from the Liberality of Heaven Secondly They do not take notice that this Certitude upon which they so much relie is not much less uncertain and hazardous than Hazard it self I see Misery as near beyond Two Thousand Crowns a Year as if it stood close by me for besides that it is in the power of Chance to make a Hundred Breaches to Poverty through the greatest strength of our Riches there being very often no Mean betwixt the highest and the lowest Fortune Fortuna vitrea est tum quum splendent frangitur Fortune is Glass the brighter it doth shine More frail and soonest broken when most fine And to turn all our Barricado's and Bulworks Topsie Turvy I find that by divers Causes Indigence is as frequently seen to Inhabit with those who have Estates as with those that have none and peradventure it is then far less Grievous when alone than when accompanied with Riches which flow more from good Managery than Income Faber est suae qiusque Fortunae Every one is the Hammerer of his own Fortune and an uneasie necessituos busie Man seems to me more Miserable than he that is simply Poor In divitiis in opes quod genus egestatis gravissimum est Poor in the midst of Riches which is the most insupportable kind of Poverty The greatest and most wealthy Princes are by Poverty and Want driven to the most extream Necessity for can there be any more Extream than to become Tyrants and unjust Usurpers of their Subjects Goods and Estates My Second Condition of Life was to have Mony of my own wherein I so order'd the matter that I had soon laid up a very notable Summ out of so mean a Fortune considering with my self that that only was to be reputed having which a Man reserv'd from his ordinary Expence and that a Man could not absolutely relie upon Revenue to receive how clear soever his Estate might be For what said I if I should be surpriz'd by such or such an Accident And after such like vain and vicious Imaginations would very Learnedly by this hoarding of Mony provide against all Inconveniences and could moreover answer such as objected to me that the number of them was too infinite that it I could not lay up for all I could however do it at least for some and for many Yet was not this done without a great deal of Solicitude and Anxiety of Mind I kept it very close and though I dare talk so boldly of my self never spoke of my Mony but falsely as others do who being Rich pretend to be Poor and being Poor pretend to be Rich dispensing with their Consciences for ever telling sincerely what they have A ridiculous and shameful Prudence Was I to go a Journey methought I was never enough provided and the more I loaded my self with Mony the more also was I loaded with Fear one while of the danger of the Roads another of the Fidelity of him who had the charge of my Sumpters of whom as some others that I know I was never sufficiently Secure if I had him not always in my Eye If I chanc'd to leave the Key of my Cabinet behind me what strange Jealousies and Anxiety of Mind did I enter into And which was worse without daring to acquaint any Body with it My Mind was eternally taken up with such things as these so that all things consider'd there is more trouble in keeping Mony than in getting it And if I did not altogether so much as I say or was not effectually so scandalously solicitous of my Mony as I have made my self yet it cost me something at least to govern my self from being so I reapt little or no advantage by what I had and my Expences seem'd nothing less to
it And 't is a good way to retinue and keep any thing safe in the Soul to solicite her to lose it And this is false Est situm in nobis ut adversa quasi perpetua oblivione obruamus secunda jucundè suaviter meminerimus And it is in our power to bury as it were in a perpetual Oblivion all adverse Accidents and to retein a pleasant and delightful Memory of our Successes And this is true Memini etiam quae nolo Oblivisci non possum quae volo I do also remember what I would not but I cannot forget what I would And whose Counsel is this His qui se unus sapientem profiteri fit ausus Who only durst profess himself a Wise Man Qui genus humanum ingenio superavit omnes Praestrinxit Stellas exortus uti aetherius Sol. Who from Mankind the prize of Knowledge won And put the Stars out like a rising Sun To empty and disfurnish the Memory is not this the true way to Ignorance Iners malorum remedium ignorantia est Ignorance is but a dull remedy for Evils We find several other like Precepts whereby we are permitted to borrow frivolous apparences from the Vulgar where we find the greatest reason cannot do the Feat Provided they administer Satisfaction and Comfort Where they cannot cure the Wound they are content to palliate and benumn it I believe they will not deny this that if they could add Order and Constancy in an estate of Life that could maintain it self in Ease and Pleasure by some Debility of Judgment they would accept it potare spargere flores Incipiam patià rque vel inconsultus haberi I 'll drink and revel like a jovial Lad Though for my pains the World repute me mad There would be a great many Philosophers of Lycas his Mind This Man being otherwise of very gentle Manners living quietly and contentedly in his Family and not failing in any Office of his Duty either towards his own or Strangers and very carefully preserving himself from hurtful things was nevertheless by some Distemper in his Brains possessed with a Conceit that he was perpetually in the Theatre a Spectator of the finest sights and the best Comedies in the World and being cur'd by the Physitians of his Frenzy had much adoe to forbear endeavouring by Suit to compel them to restore him again to his pleasing Imaginations pol me occidistis amici Non servastis ait cui sic extorta voluptas Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error By Heaven you have kill'd mee Friends outright And not preserv'd me since my dear delight And pleasing error by my better sence Unhappily return'd is banish'd hence With a madness like that of Thrasylaus the Son of Pythodorus who made himself believe that all the Ships that weigh'd Anchor from the Port of Pyreum and that came into the Haven only made their Voyages for his Profit Congratulating them for their happy Navigation and receiving them with the greatest Joy whom his Brother Crito having caused to be restored to his better Understanding he infinitely regretted that sort of condition wherein he had lived with so much delight and free from all Anxiety of Mind 'T is according to the Old Greek Verse that there is a great deal of convenience in not being over-wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Ecclesiastes In much Wisdom there is much Sorrow And who gets Wisdom gets Labour and Trouble Even that to which Philosophy consents in general that last Remedy which she applys to all sorts of Necessities to put an end to the Life we are not able to endure it Placet Pare Non placet Quacunque vis exi Pungit dolor Fodiat sanè Si nudus es da jugulum Sin tectus armis vulcanis id est fortitudine resiste Does it please Obey it Not please Go out how thou wilt Does Grief prick thee Nay if it stab thee too If thou art naked present thy Throat If covered with the Arms of Vulcan that is Fortitude resist it And this word so us'd in the Greek Festivals aut bibat aut abeat That sounds better upon the Tongue of a Gascon who naturally change the V. into B. than upon that of Cicero Vivere si rectè nescis decede peritis Lusisti satis edisti satis atque bibisti Tempus abire tibi est ne potum largius aequo Rideat pulset lasciva decentius aetas If to live well and right thou doest not know Give place and leave thy Room to those that doe Th' ast eaten drank and plaid to thy content 'T is time to make thy parting Complement Least being over-dos't the younger sort Laugh at thee first and than exclude thee for 't What is it other than a Confession of his Impotency and a sending back not only to Ignorance to be there in safety but even to Stupidity Insensibility and Nonentity Democritum postquà m matura vetustas Admonuit memorem motus languescere mentis Sponte sua letho caput obvius obtulit ipse Soon as through Age Democritus did find A manifest Decadence in his Mind He thought he now surviv'd to his own wrong And went to meet his Death that stay'd too long 'T is what Antisthenes said That a Man must either make provision of Sense to understand Or of a Halter to hang himself And what Crysippus alledged upon this Saying of the Poet Tyrteus De la vertu ou de mort approcher Or to arrive at Vertue or at Death And Crates said That Love would be cur'd by Hunger if not by time And whoever disliked these two Remedies by a With. That Sextius of whom both Seneca and Plutarch speak with so high an Encomium having applyed himself all other things set aside to the Study of Philosophy resolv'd to throw himself into the Sea seeing the Progress of his Studies too tedious and slow He ran to find Death since he could not overtake Knowledge These are the words of the Law upon this Subject If peradventure some great inconvenience happen for which there is no remedy the Haven is near and a Man may save himself by swimming out of his Body as out of a leaky Skiff for 't is the Fear of Dying and not the Love of Life that ties the Fool to his Body As Life renders it self by Simplicity more pleasant so more innocent and better as I was saying before The simple and ignorant says St. Paul raise themselves up to Heaven and take possession of it and we with all our Knowledge plunge our selves into the infernal Abyss I am neither swaid by Valentinian a profest Enemy to all Knowledge and Literature nor by Licinius both Roman Emperours who called them the Poyson and Pest of all Politick Governments Nor by Mahomet who as 't is said interdicted all manner of Learning to his Followers But the Example of the Great Lycurgus and his Authority with the Reverence of the Divine Lacedemonian
any Correspondence or Similitude to so abject things as we are without extream Wrong and manifest Dishonor to his Divine Greatness Infirmum Dei fortius est hominibus Et stultum Dei sapientius est hominibus For the Foolishness of God is wiser than Men and the Weakness of God is stronger than Men. Stilpo the Philosopher being ask'd whether the Gods were delighted with our Adorations and Sacrifices You are Indiscreet answered he let us withdraw apart if you talk of such things Nevertheless we prescribe him Bounds we keep his Power besieg'd by our Reasons I call our Ravings and Dreams Reason with the Dispensation of Philosophy which says that the wicked Man and even the Fool go Mad by Reason but by a particular form of Reason We will subject him to the feeble Apparences of our Understanding him who has made both us and our Knowledg Because that nothing is made of nothing God therefore could not make the World without Matter What has God put into our Hands the Keys and most secret Springs of his Providence Is he oblig'd not to exceed the Limits of our Knowledg Put the Case O Man that thou hast been able here to mark some Footsteps of his Effects Dost thou therefore think that he has employed all he can and has crowded all his Forms and Idea's in this Work Thou seest nothing but the Order and Revolution of this little Vault under which thou art lodged if thou dost see so much Whereas his Divinity has an infinite Jurisdiction beyond This Part is nothing in Comparison of the Whole omnia cum caelo terráque marique Nil sunt ad summam summai totius omnem All things both Heaven Earth and Sea do fall Short in the Account with the great All of All. 'T is a municipal Law that thou alledgest thou knowest not what is Universal Tye thyself to that to which thou art subject but not him he is not of thy Brotherhood thy Fellow-Citizen or Companion If he has in some sort communicated himself unto thee 't is not to debase himself to thy littleness nor to make thee Comptroler of his Power A human Body cannot fly to the Clouds 'T is for thee the Sun runs every day his ordinary Course The Bounds of the Seas and the Earth cannot be confounded The Water is Unstable and without Firmness A Wall unless it be broken is impenetrable to a solid Body A man cannot preserve his Life in the Flames he cannot be both in Heaven and upon Earth and corporally in a thousand places at once 'T is for thee that he has made these Rules 't is thee that they concern He has manifested to Christians that he has enfranchis'd them all when it pleased him And in truth why Almighty as he is should he have limited his Power within any certain Bounds In favour of whom should he have renounced his Privilege Thy Reason has in no other thing more of likelyhood and Foundation than in that wherein it persuades thee that there is a plurality of Worlds Terramque solem lunam mare caetera quae sunt Non esse unica sed numero magis innumerali That Earth Sun Moon Sea and the rest that are Not single but innumerable were The most eminent Wits of elder times believed it and some of this Age of ours compelled by the apparences of human Reason do the same Forasmuch as in this Fabrick that we behold there is nothing single and one cùm in summa res nulla sit una Vnica quae gignatur Et unica soláque crescat Since nothing's single in this mighty Mass That can alone beget alone encrease And that all the kinds are multiplied in some number By which it seems not to be likely that God should have made this Work only without a Companion And that the Matter of this Form should have been totally drain'd in this sole Individual Quare etiam atque etiam tales fateare necesse est Esse alios alibi congressus materiai Qualis hic est avido complexu quem tenet aether Wherefore 't is necessary to confess That there must elsewhere be the like congress Of the like matter which the airy space Conteins holds with a most strict Embrace Especially if it be a living Creature which its motions renders so credible that Plato affirms it and that many of our People do either confirm or dare not deny No more than that ancient Opinion that the Heaven the Stars and other Members of the World are Creatures compos'd of Body and Soul Mortal in respect of their Composition but Immortal by the determination of the Creator Now if there be many Worlds as Democritus Epicurus and almost all Philosophy has believ'd what do we know but that the Principles and Rules of this of ours may in like manner concern the rest They may peradventure have another Form and another Policy Epicurus supposes them either like or unlike We see in this World an infinite difference and variety only by distance of Places Neither the Corn Wine nor any of our Animals are to be seen in that new corner of the World discovered by our Fathers 't is all there another thing And in times past do but consider in how many parts of the World they had no Knowledg either of Bacchus or Ceres If Pliny and Herodotus are to be believed there are in certain Places a kind of Men very little resembling us And there are mungrel and ambiguous Forms betwixt the human and brutal Natures There are Countries where men are born without Heads having their Mouth and Eyes in their Breast Where they are all Hermaphodrites where they go on all four where they have but one Eye in the Forehead and a Head more like a Dog than one of us Where they are half Fish the lower part and live in the Water Where the Women bear at five years old and live but eight Where the Head and Skin of the Forehead is so hard that a Sword will not touch it but rebounds again Where Men have no Beards Nations that know not the use of Fire and others that eject Seed of a black Colour What shall we say of those that naturally change themselves into Woolves Colts and then into men again And if it be true as Plutarch says that in some place of the Indies there are men without Mouths who nourish themselves with the smell of certain Odours how many of our Descriptions are false He is no more risible nor peradventure capable of Reason and Society The disposition and cause of our internal Composition would then for the most part be to no purpose nor of no use moreover how many things are there in our own Knowledg that oppose those fine Rules we have cut out for and prescribed to Nature And yet we must undertake to circumscribe God himself How many things do we call miraculous and contrary to Nature This is done by every Nation and by every Man according to
noise and that some honest man after chooses out and raises from the shade to produce it to the light upon its own account Mihi quidem laudaliora videntur omnia quae sine venditatione sine populo teste fiunt All things truly seem more laudable to me that are perform'd without ostentation and without the testimony of the People Says the proudest man of the World I had no care but to conserve and to continue which are silent and insensible effects Innovation is of great lustre but 't is interdicted in this time when we are press'd upon and have nothing to defend our selves from but Novelties To forbear doing is oft as generous as to do but 't is less in the light and the little of good that I have in me is of this kind In fine occasions in this Imployment of mine have been confederate with my Humour and I thank them for it Is there any one who desires to be sick that he might see his Physicians Practice And would not that Physician deserve to be whip'd who should wish the Plague amongst us that he might put his Art in practice I have never been of that wicked Humour and common enough to desire that the troubles and disorders of this City should elevate and honour my Government I have ever willingly contributed all I could to their tranquility and ease He who will not thank me for the order sweet and silent calm that has accompanied my Administration cannot however deprive me of the share that belongs to me by the title of my good Fortune And I am of such a Composition that I would as willingly be happy as wise and had rather owe my successes purely to the favour of Almighty God than to any industry or operation of my own I had sufficiently publish'd to the World my unfitness for such publick Offices but I have something in me yet worse than incapacity which is that I am not much displeased at it and that I do not much go about to cure it considering the course of Life that I have propos'd to my self Neither have I satisfied my self in this Imployment but I have very near arrived at what I expected from my own performance and have yet much surpass'd what I promised them with whom I had to do For I am apt to promise something less than what I am able to do and than what I hope to make good I assure my self that I have left no impressions of Offence or Hatred behind me and to leave a regret or desire of me amongst them I at least know very well that I did never much affect it méne huic confidere monstro Méne salis placidi vultum fluctusque quietos Ignorare Would'st thou I should a quiet Sea believe To this inconstant monster credit give CHAP. XI Of Cripples 'T Is now two or three years ago that they made the year ten days shorter in France How many changes may we expect should folow this reformation This was properly removing Heaven and Earth at once and yet nothing for all that stirs from its place my neighbours still find their seasons of sowing and reaping the opportunities of doing their business with the hurtful and propitious days just at the same time where they had time out of mind assign'd them There was no more errour perceived in our old usance than there is amendment found in this new alteration So great an incertainty there is throughout so gross obscure and dull is our understanding 'T is said that this regulation might have been carried on with less inconvenience by substracting according to the example of Augustus the Bissextile which is in some sort a day of trouble till we had exactly satisfied that debt which is not perform'd neither by this correction and we yet remain some days in arrear And yet by the same means such order might be taken for the future ordering that after the revolution of such a year or such a number of years the supernumerary day might be alwayes thrown out so that we could not henceforward erre above four and twenty hours in our computation We have no other account of time but years the World has for many Ages made use of that only and yet it is a measure that to this day we are not agreed upon such a one that we still doubt what form other Nations have variously given to it and what was the true use of it What does this saying of some mean that the Heavens in growing old bow themselves down nearer towards us and put us into an uncertainty even of hours and days And that which Plutarch says of the Months that Astrology had not in his time determin'd of the motion of the Moon So what a fine condition are we in to keep Records of things past I was just now ruminating as I often do upon this what a free and roving thing humane judgment is I ordinarily see that men in things propos'd to them more willingly study to find out the Reason than to find out the Truth they slip over presuppositions but are curious in examination of consequences They leave the things and fly to the causes Pleasant praters The knowledge of Causes does only concern him who has the conduct of things not us who are only to undergo them and who perfectly have full and accomplish'd use of them according to our need without penetrating into the Original and Essence Neither is Wine more pleasant to him that knows its first faculties On the contrary both the Body and the Soul alter and interrupt the right they have of the use of the World and of themselves by mixing with it the Opinion of Learning Effects concern us but the means not at all To determine and to distribute appertain to superiority and command as it does to subjection to accept it Let me reprehend our Custom They commonly begin thus How is such a thing done Whereas they should say Is such a thing done Our prattle is able to create a hundred other Worlds and to find out the beginnings and contexture it needs neither Matter nor Foundation Let it but run on it builds as well in the Air as on the Earth and with Inanity as well as Matter dare pondus idonea fumo I find that almost throughout we should say there is no such thing and should my self oft make use of this answer but I dare not for they cry that it is a defect produc'd from ignorance and weakness of Understanding And I am forc'd for the most part to juggle for Company and prate of frivolous and idle Subjects that I believe ne're a word of Besides that in truth 't is a little rude and quarelling flatly to deny a Proposition and few People but will affirm especially in things hard to be believ'd that they have seen them or at least will name such Witnesses whose Authority will stop our Mouths from Contradictions By this means we know the Foundations
People suffered therein very much then not present dammages only undique totis Vsque adeo turbatur agris but future too The living were to suffer and so were they who were yet unborn They rob'd and stript them and consequently they did me even to their hope taking from them all they had laid up in store to live on for many years Quae nequeunt secum ferre aut abducere perdunt Et cremat insontes turba scelesta casus Muris nulla fides squallent populatibus agri What they can't bear away they spoil and spurn And lewd Rabble harmless houses burn Walls can't secure their Masters and the field Through waste and spoil does an ill prospect yield Besides this shock I suffer'd others I underwent the inconveniences that moderation brings along with it in such a Disease I was pill'd on all hands to the Gibelin I was a Guelph and to the Guelph a Gibelin some one of the Poets in my Study expresses this very well but I know not where it is The scituation of my House and my friendliness to my Neighbours presented me with one face my Life and my Actions with another They did not lay form'd accusations to my charge for they had no foundation of so doing I never slink nor hide my head from the Laws and whoever would have question'd me would have done himself a greater prejudice than me They were only mute suspitions that were whisper'd about which never want apparence in so confus'd a mixture no more than envious or idle heads I commonly my self lend a hand to presumptuous injuries that Fortune scatters abroad against me by a way I have ever had of evading to justifie excuse or explain my self conceiving that it were to referr my Conscience to arbitration to plead in its behalf Perspicuitas enim Argumentatione elevatur For the Perspicuity of a cause is clouded and darken'd by Argumentation And as if every one saw as clearly into me as I do my self instead of retiring from an accusation I step up to meet it and rather give it some kind of colour by an ironical and scoffing confession if I do not fit totally mute as of a thing not worth my answer But such as look upon this kind of behaviour of mine as too haughty a Confidence have as little kindness for me as they who interpret it the weakness of an indefensible cause namely the great ones towards whom want of submission is a very great fault Rude to all Justice that knows and feels it self and is not submiss humble and suppliant I have oft knock'd my head against this Pillar So it is that at what then befell me an ambitious man would have hang'd himself and a covetous man would have done the same I have no manner of care of getting Sit mihi quod nuno est etiam minus ut mihi vivâ—m Quod superest â—vi si quid superesse volent Dii I only pray that small estate which I Now have may tarry with me till I dye And those few days which I have yet to live If Heaven to me any more days will give I may enjoy my self But the losses that befell me by the injury of others whether by theft or violence go almost as near my heart as they would do to that of the most avaricious man The offence troubles me without comparison more than the loss A thousand several sorts of mischiefs fell upon me in the neck of one another I could better have born them all at once I have already been considering to whom amongst my Friends I might commit a helpless and decrepid Age and having turn'd my Eyes quite round I found my self at a loss To let a man's self fall plum down and from so great a height it ought to be in the arms of a solid vigorous and fortunate Friendship They are very rare if there be any At last I concluded that it was safest for me to trust to my self in my greatest Necessity and if it should so fall out that I should be but upon cold terms in Fortunes favour I should so much more pressingly recommend me to my own and look so much the better to my self Men on all occasions throw themselves upon foreign Assistances to spare their own which are the only certain and sufficient ones with which they can arm themselves Every one runs elsewhere and to the future forasmuch as no one is arriv'd at himself And I was satisfied that they were profitable Inconveniencies forasmuch as ill Scholars are to be admonish'd with the Rod when Reason will not do as a crooked piece of Wood is by fire and straining to be reduc'd to straightness I have a great while preach'd to my self to stick close to my own Concerns and separate my self from the affairs of others yet I am still turning my Eyes aside A bow a kind word or look from a great Person tempts me of which God knows how little scarcity there is in these days and how little they signifie I moreover without wrinkling my forehead hearken to the perswasions are offer'd me to draw me into some place of Traffick and so gently refuse it as if I were half willing to be overcome Now to so indocile a spirit blows are requir'd and this Vessel which thus chops and cleaves and is ready to fall one piece from another is to have the hoops forc'd down with good sound stroaks of a Mallet Secondly that this accident serv'd me for Exercise to prepare me for worse if I who both by the benefit of Fortune and by the condition of my Manners hop'd to be the last should happen to be one of the first should be trapt in this storm Instructing my self betimes to force my Life and fit it for a new Estate The true liberty is to be able to do what a man will with himself Potentissimus est qui se habet in potestate He is most potent who has himself in his own Power In an ordinary and quiet time a man prepares himself for moderate and common accidents but in the Confusion wherein we have been for these thirty years every French-man whether in particular or in general sees himself every hour upon the point of the total ruin and overthrow of his Fortune By so much the more ought he to have his Courage munited with the strongest and most vigorous Provisions Let us thank Fortune that has not made us live in an effeminate idle and languishing Age some who could never have been so by other means will be made famous by their misfortunes As I seldom read in Histories the confusions of other States without regret that I was not present better to consider them so does my curiosity make me in some sort please my self with seeing with my own eyes this notable spectacle of our publick Death its form and symptoms And seeing I could not hinder it am content to be destin'd to assist in it and thereby to instruct my self Thus
no effect of Vertue to have stronger Arms and Legs 't is a Dead and Corporeal quality to be Active 't is an Exploit of Fortune to make our Enemy stumble or to dazle him with the light of the Sun 't is a trick of Science and Art and that may happen in a mean base Fellow to be a good Fencer The Estimate and Valour of a Man consist in the Heart and in the Will there his true Honour Lives Valour is Stability not of Legs and Arms but of the Courage and the Soul it does not lie in the Valour of our Horse or our Arms but in our own He that falls obstinate in his Courage Si succiderit de genu pugnat If his Legs fail him Fight upon his Knees He who for any danger of apparent Death abates nothing of his assurance who Dying does yet dart at his Enemy a fierce and disdainful Look is overcome not by us but by Fortune he is Kill'd not Conquer'd the most Valiant and sometimes the most Unfortunate There are also Defeats Triumphant to Emulation of Victories Neither durst those Four Sister-Victories the fairest the Sun ever beheld of Salamis Platea Mycall and Sycyly ever oppose all their united Glories to the single Glory of the Discomfiture of King Leonidas and his Army at the Pass of Thermopyle Whoever ran with a more glorious Desire and greater Ambition to the winning than the Captain Ischolas to the certain loss of a Battel Who could have found out a more subtle Invention to secure his safety than he did to assure his Ruine He was set to defend a certain Pass of Peloponesus against the Arcadians which considering the nature of the place and the inequality of Forces finding it utterly impossible for him to do and concluding that all who were presented to the Enemy must certainly be left upon the place and on the other side reputing it unworthy of his own Vertue and Magnanimity and of the Lacedemonian name to fail in any part of his Duty he chose a mean betwixt these two Extreams after this manner The Youngest and most Active of his Men he would preserve for the Service and Defence of their Country and therefore sent them back and with the rest whose loss would be of less consideration he resolv'd to make good the Pass and with the death of them to make the Enemy Buy their Entry as dear as possibly he could as it also fell out for being presently Environ'd on all sides by the Arcadians after having made a great Slaughter of the Enemy he and his were all cut in pieces Is there any Trophy dedicated to the Conquerours which is not much more due to these who were overcome The part that true Conquering is to play lies in the Encounter not in the coming off and the Honour of Vertue consists in Fighting not in Subduing But to return to my Story these Prisoners are so far from discovering the least Weakness for all the Terrors can be represented to them that on the contrary during the two or three Months that they are kept they always appear with a chearful Countenance importune their Masters to make haste to bring them to the Test Defie Rail at them and Reproach them with Cowardize and the number of Battels they have lost against those of their Country I have a Song made by one of these Prisoners wherein he bids them come all and Dine upon him and welcome for they shall withal Eat their own Fathers and Grandfathers whose Flesh has serv'd to feed and nourish him These Muscles says he this Flesh and these Veins are your own Poor silly Souls as you are you little think that the substance of your Ancestors Limbs is here yet but mind as you Eat and you will find in it the Taste of your own Flesh In which Song there is to be observ'd an Invention that does nothing relish of the Barbarian Those that paint these People Dying after this manner represent the Prisoner spitting in the faces of his Executioners and making at them a wry Mouth And 't is most certain that to the very last gasp they never cease to Brave and Defie them both in Word and Gesture In plain truth these Men are very Savage in comparison of us and of necessity they must either be absolutely so or else we are Savager for there is a vast difference betwixt their Manners and ours The Men there have several Wives and so much the greater number by how much they have the greater Reputation and Valour and it is one very remarkable Vertue their Women have that the same Endeavour our Wives have to hinder and divert us from the Friendship and Familiarity of other Women those employ to promote their Husbands Desires and to procure them many Spouses for being above all things sollicitous of their Husbands Honour 't is their chiefest care to seek out and to bring in the most Companions they can forasmuch as it is a Testimony of their Husbands Vertue I know most of ours will cry out that 't is Monstrous whereas in truth it is not so but a truly Matrimonical Vertue though of the highest form In the Bible Sarah Leah and Rachel gave the most Beautiful of their Maids to their Husbands Livia preferred the Passion of Augustus to her own interest and the Wife of King Dejotarus of Stratonica did not only give up a fair young Maid that serv'd her to her Husbands Embraces but moreover carefully brought up the Children he had by her and assisted them in the Succession to their Fathers Crown And that it may not be suppos'd that all this is done by a simple and servile Observation to their common Practice or by any Authoritative Impression of their Ancient Custom without Judgment or Examination and for having a Soul so stupid that it cannot contrive what else to do I must here give you some touches of their sufficiency in point of Understanding besides what I repeated to you before which was one of their Songs of War I have another and a Love-Song that begins thus Stay Adder stay that by thy Pattern my Sister may draw the Fashion and work of a Noble Wreath that I may present to my Beloved by which means thy Beauty and the excellent Order of thy Scales shall for ever be preferr'd before all other Serpents Wherein the first Couplet Stay Adder c. makes the Burthen of the Song Now I have converst enough with Poetry to judg thus much that not only there is nothing of Barbarous in this Invention But moreover that it is perfectly Anacreontick to which their Language is soft of a pleasing Accent and something bordering upon the Greek Terminations Three of these People not foreseeing how dear their knowledg of the Corruptions of this part of the World would one Day cost their Happiness and Repose and that the effect of this Commerce would be their Ruine as I presuppose it is in a very fair way Miserable Men to suffer
themselves to be deluded with desire of Novelty and to have left the Serenity of their own Heaven to come so far to gaze at ours came to Roane at the time that the late King Charles the Ninth was there where the King himself talk'd to them a good while and they were made to see our Fashions our Pomp and the form of a great City after which some one ask'd their opinion and would know of them what of all the things they had seen they found most to be admired To which they made Answer Three things of which I have forgot the Third and am troubled at it but Two I yet remember They said that in the first place they thought it very strange that so many tall Men wearing Beards strong and well Arm'd who were about the King 't is like they meant the Swiss of the Guard should submit to Obey a Child and that they did not choose out one amongst themselves to Command Secondly they have a way of speaking in their Language to call Men the half of one another that they had Observ'd that there were amongst us Men full and cramm'd with all manner of Conveniences whilst in the mean time their halves were Begging at their Doors Lean and half starv'd with Hunger and Poverty and thought it strange that these Necessitous halves were able to suffer so great an Inequality and Injustice and that they did not take the others by the Throats or set Fire to their Houses I talk'd to one of them a great while together but I had so ill an Interpreter and that was so perplex'd by his own Ignorance to apprehend my meaning that I could get nothing out of him of any moment Asking him what advantage he reapt from the Superiority he had amongst his own People for he was a Captain and our Marriners call'd him King he told me to March in the Head of them to War and demanding of him further how many Men he had to follow him He shew'd me a space of Ground to signifie as many as could March in such a compass which might be Four or Five Thousand Men and putting the question to him whether or no his Authority expir'd with the War He told me this remain'd that when he went to Visit the Village of his dependance they plain'd him Paths through the thick of their Woods through which he might pass at his ease All this does not sound very ill and the last was not much amiss for they wear no Breeches CHAP. XXXI That a Man is soberly to judg of Divine Ordinances THings unknown are the principal and true subject of Imposture forasmuch as in the first place their very Strangeness lends them Credit and moreover by not being subjected to our ordinary Discourse they deprive us of the means to question and dispute them For which reason says Plato it is much more easie to satisfie the hearers when speaking of the Nature of the Gods than of the Nature of Men because the Ignorance of the Auditory affords a fair and large Career and all manner of Liberty in the handling of profane and abstruce things and then it comes to pass that nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know nor any People so confident as those who entertain us with Fabulous Stories such as your Alchymists Judicial Astrologers Fortune-tellers and Physicians Id genus omne to which I could willingly if I durst join a sort of People that take upon them to Interpret and Controul the Designs of God himself making no question of finding out the cause of every Accident and to pry into the secrets of the Divine Will there to discover the Incomprehensible Motives of his Works And although the variety and the continual discordance of Events throw them from Corner to Corner and toss them from East to West yet do they still persist in their vain Inquisition and with the same Pencil to Paint Black and White In a Nation of the Indies there is this commendable Custom that when any thing befalls them amiss in any Rencounter or Battel they Publickly ask Pardon of the Sun who is their God as having committed an unjust Action always imputing their Good or Evil Fortune to the Divine Justice and to that submitting their own Judgment and Reason 'T is enough for a Christian to believe that all things come from God to receive them with acknowledgment of his divine and instructable Wisdom and also thankfully to accept and receive them with what Face soever they may present themselves But I do not approve of what I see in use that is to seek to continue and support our Religion by the Prosperity of our Enterprizes Our Belief has other Foundation enough without going about to Authorize it by Events For the People accustomed to such Arguments as these and so proper to their own Taste it is to be fear'd lest when they fail of Success they should also stagger in their Faith As in the War wherein we are now Engag'd upon the account of Religion those who had the better in the Business of Rochelabeille making great Brags of that success as an infallible approbation of their Cause when they came afterwards to excuse their Misfortunes of Jarnac and Moncontour 't was by saying they were Fatherly Scourges and Corrections if they have not a People wholely at their Mercy they make it manifestly enough to appear what it is to take two sorts of Grist out of the same Sack and with the same Mouth to blow Hot and Cold. It were better to possess the Vulgar with the solid and real Foundations of Truth 'T was a brave Naval-Battel that was gain'd a few Months since against the Turks under the Command of Don John of Austria but it has also pleas'd God at other times to let us see as great Victories at our own Expence In fine 't is a hard matter to reduce Divine things to our Ballance without waste and losing a great deal of the weight And who would take upon him to give a reason that Arius and his Pope Leo the principal Heads of the Arian Heresie should Die at several times of so like and strange Deaths for being withdrawn from the Disputation by the Griping in the Guts they both of them suddenly gave up the Ghost upon the Stool and would aggravate this Divine Vengeance by the Circumstance of the place might as well add the Death of Heliogabalus who was also Slain in a House of Office But what Ireneus was involv'd in the same Fortune God being pleas'd to shew us that the Good have something else to hope for and the Wicked something else to fear than the Fortunes or Misfortunes of this World He manages and applies them according to his own secret Will and Pleasure and deprives us of the means foolishly to make our own profit And those People both abuse themselves and us who will pretend to dive into these Mysteries by the strength of Humane Reason They never give one