zealous Patrons and Defenders of certain Novelties in Divinity which ought to be had in abhorrence For 't is not their Terms and Language we disapprove which as unknown as they were to Antiquity are Authoriz'd by Custom 'T is the Errors they diffuse and support by the help of this Equivocal and confus'd Dialect which we condemn In point of Divinity we ought to be fond of Antiquity because we ought to love the Truth which Truth is found in Antiquity And all Curiosity ought to cease when once we have taken hold of Truth But in point of Philosophy we ought on the contrary to love Novelty for the same Reason that we ought always to love the Truth that we ought to retrieve it and ought to have an Indefatigable Curiosity for it If Plato and Aristotle were believed Infallible a Man should perhaps apply himself to the understanding of them only But Reason opposes the Belief of it Reason on the contrary would have us judge them more ignorant than the New Philosophers since in the Age we live in the World is two thousand Years older and has learned greater Experience than it had in the days of Aristotle and Plato as we have already said And the New Philosophers may know all the Truths the Ancients have left us and find out and add a great many more to them Yet Reason will not have us believe these New Philosophers any more than the Old upon their bare Word It bids us on the contrary examine attentively their Thoughts and withhold our consent till there is no longer room for doubting without being ridiculously prepossess'd with the Opinion of their vast Knowledge or the other specious Qualities of their Mind CHAP. VII Of the Prepossession of Commentators THIS Prepossession is no where apparent in so strange and excessive a degree as in the Commentators on an Author because the Undertakers of this Task which seems too low and servile for a Man of Sense imagine their Authors merit the Praise and Admiration of all the World They look upon them as part of themselves and fancy they are Body and Soul to one another and upon this View Self-love admirably plays its part They artfully accumulate Encomiums on their Authors they shed Light and Radiations round them they load them with Glory as knowing they shall have it themselves by reflection and rebound This great and lofty Idea not only magnifies Aristotle and Plato in the Mind of many of the Readers but imprints a respect in them for all that have Commented upon them and some of of them had never Deified their Authors had they not fancy'd themselves incircl'd as it were in the Rays of the same Glory Yet I will not say that all Commentators are so liberal in their Panegyricks on their Authors out of hopes of a Return some of them would start at such an Apprehension if they would consider a little They are sincere and well-meaning in their Praises without any Politick design and without thinking what they do but Self-love thinks for them and without their being aware of it Men are insensible of the heat that is in their Heart though it gives Life and Motion to all the other parts of their Body They must touch and handle themselves to be convinc'd of it because this Heat is Natural The cause is the same in respect of Vanity which is so congenial to the Mind of Man that he is insensible of it and though 't is this as a Man may say that gives Life and Motion to the greatest part of his Thoughts and Designs yet it often does it in a manner imperceptible by him He must handle and feel and sound himself inwards to know that he is vain 'T is not sufficiently understood that 't is Vanity which is the First mover in the greatest part of Humane Actions and though Self-love knows this well enough it knows it only to disguise it from the rest of Man A Commentator then being some ways related and allied to his Author that he works upon Self-love never fails to discover in him notable Subjects for Praise and Incense with design to make them redound to the advantage of the Offerer And this is perform'd in so Artificial so Subtil and Delicate a manner as to be wholly Imperceptible But this is not the proper place of exposing all the Wiles of Self-love and Interest Nor is the Prejudicate Esteem Commentators have conceiv'd for their Authors and the Honour they do themselves in praising them the only Reason of Sacrificing to them Custom is another Motive and because they think the Practise necessary There are Men who have no great Esteem either for certain Sciences or Authors who notwithstanding fall zealously to writing Comments on them because either their Imployment Chance or perhaps a capricious Humour has engag'd them in the Attempt and these too think they are under an Obligation to be excessive in the Praises of the Sciences and Authors which they work on whe nat the same time the Authors are Silly and Impertinent and the Sciences Ignoble and Useless And indeed what can be more ridiculous than for a Man to undertake to Comment on an Author whom he thought Impertinent and to write Seriously on a Subject he believ'd to be Insignificant and Useless 'T is necessary therefore to the Preserving his Reputation to Praise both the Authors and Sciences though both one and the other are Contemptible and nothing worth and the fault of Undertaking an ill work must be mended with another Which is the Reason that when Learned Men Comment on different Authors they fall into Absurdities and Contradictions Upon this Account it is that almost all prefaces have as little of Truth in them as good Sense If a Man Comments upon Aristotle he is the Genius of Nature If a Man writes upon Plato 't is the Divine Plato They hardly ever Comment upon the works of Plain Men but 't is always of Men wholly Divine of Men who have been the Admiration of their Age and who have been bless'd by Providence with Light and Understanding above the rest of Mankind 'T is the same thing too with the matter they treat on 'T is always the finest the most exalted and most necessary of all other But that I may not be credited upon my bare word I will deliver here the way where in a Famous Commentator among the Learned treats the Author that he Comments on I mean Averroes who speaks of Aristotle He says in his Preface upon the Physicks of that Philosopher that he was the Inventor of Logick Moral Philosophy and Metaphysicks and that he has carried them to the top of their perfection Complevit says he quia nullus eorum qui secuti sunt eum usque ad hoc tempus quod est mille quingentorum annorum quidquam addidit nec invenies in ejus verbis errorem alicujus quantitatis talem esse virtutem in individuo uno miraculosum extraneum existit haec
her Infant the Mother is the cause of the Sin and the Father has no part in it Yet St. Paul teaches us that by Man came sin into the World He does not so much as speak of the Woman Therefore c. ANSWER David assures us that his Mother conceiv'd him in iniquity and the Son of Syrach says Of the Woman came the beginning of Sin and by her we all dy Neither of them speak of Man St. Paul on the contrary says that by Man Sin entred into the World and speaks not of the Woman How will these Testimonies accord and which of the two is to be justify'd if it be necessary to vindicate either In discourse we never attribute to the Woman any thing peculiar to the Man wherein she has no part But that is often ascrib'd to the Man which is proper to the VVoman because her Husband is her Master and Head We see that the Evangelists and also the Holy Virgin call Joseph the Father of Jesus when she says to her Son Behold thy Father and I have sought thee sorrowing Therefore seeing we are assur'd by Holy Writ that Woman has subjected us to Sin and Death it is absolutely necessary to believe it nor can it be thrown upon the Man But though it testifies in several places that 't is by Man that Sin enters into the World yet there is not an equal necessity to believe it since what is of the Woman is commonly attributed to the Man And if we were oblig'd by Faith to excuse either the Man or the Woman it would be more reasonable to excuse the former than the latter However I believe these forecited passages are to be litterally explain'd and that we are to say both the Man and Woman are the true causes of Sin each in their own way The Woman in that by her Sin is communicated it being by her that the Man begets the Children and the Man in that his Sin is the cause of Concupiscence as his action is the cause of the fecundity of the Woman or of the communication that is between her and her Infant It is certain that 't is the Man that impregnates the Woman and consequently is the cause of that communication between her Body and the Child's since that communication is the Principle of its Life Now that Communication not only gives the Child's Body the dispositions of its Mother's but also gives its Mind the dispositions of her Mind Therefore we may say with St. Paul that by one Man sin entred into the world and nevertheless by reason of that communication we may say that Sin came from a Woman and by her we all dye and that our Mother has conceiv'd us in Iniquity as is said in other places of Scripture It may be said perhaps that though Man had not sinn'd yet Woman had produc'd sinful Children for having her self sinn'd she had lost the Power God gave her over her Body and thus though Man had remain'd Innocent she had corrupted the Brain and consequently the Mind of her Child by reason of that communication between them But this surely looks not very probable For Man whilst righteous knowing what he does cannot give the Woman that wretched fecundity of conceiving sinful Children If he remains Righteous he wills not any Children but for God to whom Infant Sinners cannot be well pleasing for I suppose not here a Mediator I grant however that in that case the Marriage had not been dissolv'd and that the Man had known his Wife But it is certain that the Body of the Woman belong'd to her Husband since it was taken out of his and was the same Flesh. Duo in carne una It is moreover certain that Children are as much the Fathers as the Mothers Which being so we can't be persuaded that the Woman would have lost the Power over her Body if her Husband had not sinn'd as well as she For if the Woman had been depriv'd of that Power whilst the Man remain'd Innocent there had been this Disorder in the Universe that an upright Man should have a corrupt Body and sinful Children Whereas it is against Order or rather a contradiction that a just God should punish a perfectly Innocent Man And for this reason Eve feels no involuntary and rebellious Motions immediately after her sin as yet she is not asham'd of her Nakedness nor goes to hide her self On the contrary she comes to her Husband though naked as her self her Eyes are not yet open'd but she is still as before the absolute Comptroller of her own Body Order requir'd that immediately after her Sin her Soul should be disturb'd by the rebellion of her Body and by the shame of her own and her Husband's nakedness for there was no reason that God should any longer suspend on her behalf the Laws of the Communication of Motions as I have said in the seventh Article But because her Body is her Husband 's who is as yet Innocent she is not punish'd in this Body but this punishment is deferr'd till the time that he should eat himself of the Fruit which she presented him Then it was they both began to feel the rebellion of their Body that they saw they were naked and that shame oblig'd them to cover themselves with Fig-leaves Thus we must say that Adam was truly the cause of Original Sin and Concupiscence since it was his Sin that depriv'd both himself and his Wife of their power over their Body by which defectiveness of power the Woman produces in the Brain of her Child such tracks as corrupt its Soul at the very instant of its Creation OBJECTION against the Twelfth Article 'T is but random divining to say the communication between the Mother's and the Infant 's Brain is necessary or useful to the conformation of the foetus For there is no such Communication between the Brain of an Hen and that of her Chickens which notwithstanding are perfectly and compleatly form'd ANSWER I answer that in the seventh Chapter of the Second Book I have sufficiently demonstrated that Communication by the use I make of it in explaining the Generation of Monsters as also certain natural Marks and Fears deriv'd from the Mother For 't is evident that a Man who swoons away at the sight of a Snake because his Mother was frighted with one when she bore him in her Womb could not be subject to that Infirmity but because formerly such Traces had been imprinted on his Brain as these which open upon seeing a Snake and that they were accompany'd with a like Accident And herein I am no Diviner for I do not venture to determine wherein that Communication precisely consists I might say it was perform'd by those Fibres which the Foetus shoots into the Matrix of the Mother and by the Nerves wherewith that part is very probably fill'd and in saying so I should no more divine than would a Man who had never seen the Engines call'd La Samaritaine in affirming
least Motion to Matter This Philosophy I say perfectly Accommodates with Religion whose end is to Unite us to God in the strictest Bonds 'T is Customary with us to Love only those things which are capable of doing us some Good This Philosophy therefore Authorises only the Love of God and Condemns the Love of every thing else We ought to fear nothing but what is able to do us some Evil. Therefore this Philosophy approves the fear of God and absolutely Condemns all other Thus it justifies all the just and Reasonable Motions of our Soul and Condemns all those that are contrary to Reason and Religion For we can never justifie the Love of Riches the desire of Greatness the Extravagance of Debauchery by this Philosophy by the Principles whereof the Love for Bodies is absurd and ridiculous 'T is an indisputable Truth 't is a Natural Opinion 't is even a Common Notion that we ought to Love the cause of our Pleasure and to Love it proportionably to the Felicity it either Actually does or is able to possess us with 'T is not only just but as it were necessary that the cause of our happiness should be the Object of our Love Therefore this Philosophy will teach us to Love God only as being the only Cause of our Felicity That surrounding Bodies cannot Act upon that we Animate and consequently much less upon our Mind That 't is not the Sun which enlightens us and gives us Life and Motion Nor that fills the Earth with Fruits and Beautifies it with Flowers and supplies us with Food and Nourishment This Philosophy seconding the Scripture teaches that 't is God alone who gives us Rain and Regulates the Seasons that fills our Bodies with Food and our hearts with Joy that he alone is able to do us good and thereby has given a perpetual Testimony of what he is though in the ages passed he suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways According to the Language of this Philosophy we must not say that 't is Nature that fills us with good nor that it is God and Nature together But that it is God alone speaking thus without Ambiguity for fear of deceiving the Ignorant For we must distinctly acknowledge one cause of our happiness if we we make it the only Object of our Love 'T is likewise an undeniable Truth That we ought to fear things that are able to harm us and to fear them in Proportion to the Evil they can do us But this Philosophy teaches us that God only can do us evil that 't is he as says Isaiah who forms the Light and creates Darkness who makes Peace and creates Evil and there is no Evil but what he does as says the Prophet Amos. Therefore it is he only that is to be fear'd We must not fear either Plague or War or Famine or our Enemies or even Devils themselves But God alone We ought to shun the Sword when we see a Blow a coming we are to fly the Fire and avoid a ruinous House that 's ready to crush us but we must not fear these things We may fly from those Bodies which are the Occasional or Natural Causes of Evil but we must fear God as the true Cause of all the misfortunes of Sinners and hate only Sin which necessarily provokes the cause of our Happiness to become the Cause of our Misery In a Word all the Motions of our Mind must center upon God since he alone 's above it and the Motions of our Body may relate to the Bodies round it This is what we learn from that Philosophy that admits not the Efficacy of Second Causes But this Efficacy being suppos'd I cannot see but we have reason to fear and Love Bodies and that to regulate our Love by Reason we need but prefer God before all things the First and Vniversal to every Second and Particular Cause We can see no need of Loving him with all our Strength Ex totâ mente ex toto corde ex totâ animâ ex totis viribus as says the Scripture Yet when a Man contents himself in preferring God to all things and adoring him with a Worship and a Love of Preference without making a continual Effort to Love and Honour him in all things It often fortunes that he deceives himself that his Charity vanishes and is lost And that he is more taken up with sensible than the supream Good For should it be demanded of the greatest Sinners and even Idolaters whether they preferr'd the universal to particular Causes they would make no scruple to answer amidst their Debauches Errours and Extravagance that they are not wanting to their essential Duty and that they are very sensible of what they owe to God 'T is acknowledg'd that they are deceiv'd But take away the Efficacy of Second Causes and they have no probable Pretext left to justifie their Conduct and Behaviour whilst if it be granted them they will think and Discourse with themselves in the following manner when blinded by their Passions and attentive to the Testimony of their Senses I am made for Happiness Neitheir can I nor indeed ought I to supersede my Love and Respect for whatever can be the Cause of my Felicity Why then must not I Love and respect sensible Objects if they be the true Causes of the Happiness I find in their Enjoyment I acknowledge the Sovereign Being as only worthy of Sovereign Worship and I prefer Him before all the World But since I see not that He requires any thing from me I enjoy the Goods he affords by Means of Second Causes to which he has subjected me And I pay not my Gratitude to him which perhaps would be to his Dishonour As he gives me no Blessing immediately and by himself or at least without the Assistance of his Creatures 't is a Sign he requires not the immediate Application of my Mind and Heart at least that he desires the Creatures should partake with him in the Acknowledgments and Resentments of my Heart and Mind Seeing he has communicated Part of his Power and Glory to the Sun has environ'd him with Splendour and Majesty and has given him the Supremacy in all his Works and seeing from the Influence of this great Luminary we receive all the necessary Blessings of Life Why should we not employ a part of this indebted Life in rejoicing in his Light and testifying the Sense we have of his Greatness and his Benefits Wou'd it not be the most shameful Ingratitude to receive from that excellent Creature abundance of all things and yet to shew no Sense of Gratitude to him for them And should we not be unspeakably blind and stupid to be unmov'd with Fear and Veneration in Respect of him whose Absence freezes us to Death and whose too near Approach can burn and destroy us I say it again that God is preferable to all things and infinitely more estimable than his Creatures But we are to fear and Love
were true that God acted by particular Wills since Miracles are such only from their not happening by General Laws Therefore Miracles suppose these Laws and prove the Opinion I have establish'd But as to ordinary Effects they clearly and directly demonstrate General Laws or Wills If for Instance a Stone be dropp'd upon the Head of Passengers it will continually fall with equal speed not distinguishing the Piety or Quality or Good or Ill Disposition of those that pass If we examine any other Effect we shall see the same Constancy in the Action of the Cause of it But no Effect proves that God acts by particular Wills though Men commonly fancy God is constantly working Miracles in their Favour That way they would have God to act in being consonant to their own and indulgent to Self-love which centers all things on themselves and very proportionate to their Ignorance of the Complication of Occasional Causes which produce extraordinary Effects naturally falls into Mens Thoughts when but greenly studied in Nature and consult not with sufficient Attention the abstract Idea of an Infinite Wisdom of an Universal Cause of a Being Infinitely Perfect CONCERNING Nature and Grace DISCOURSE II. Of the Laws of GRACE in particular and of the Occasional Causes which regulate and determine their Efficacy PART I. Of the Grace of JESVS CHRIST I. SINCE none but GOD can act immediately and by himself on Minds and produce in them all the various Motions they are capable of 'T is he alone who sheds his Light within us and inspires us with certain Sensations which determine our diverse Volitions And therefore none but he can as a True Cause produce Grace in our Souls For Grace or that which is the Principle or Motive of all the Regular Motions of our Love is necessarily either a Light which instructs us or a confus'd Sensation that convinces us that God is our Good since we never begin to love an Object unless we see clearly by the Light of Reason or feel confusedly by the tast of Pleasure that this Object is good I mean capable of making us happier than we are II. But since all Men are involv'd in Original Sin and even by their Nature infinitely beneath the Majesty of God 'T is Jesus Christ alone that can by the Dignity of his Person and the Holiness of his Sacrifice have access to his Father reconcile him to us and merit his Favours for us and consequently be the meritorious Cause of Grace These Truths are certain But we are not seeking the Cause which produces Grace by its own Efficacy nor that which merits it by its Sacrifice and Good Works We enquire for that which regulates and determines the Efficacy of the General Cause and which we may term the Second Particular and Occasional III. For to the end the General Cause may act by General Laws or Wills and that his Action may be regular constant and uniform 't is absolutely necessary there should be some Occasional Cause to determine the Efficacy of these Laws and to help to fix them If the Collision of Bodies or something of like Nature did not determine the Efficacy of the General Laws of the Communication of Motions it would be necessary for God to move Bodies by particular Wills The Laws of Union of the Soul and Body become efficacious only from the Changes befalling one or other of these two Substances For if God made the Soul feel the Pain of pricking tho' the Body were not prick'd or though the same thing did not happen in the Brain as if it were he would not act by the General Laws of Union of the Soul and Body but by a particular Will If Rain fell on the Earth otherwise than by a necessary Consequence of the General Laws of Communication of Motions the Rain and the Fall of every Drop that composes it would be the Effect of a particular Will So that unless Order requir'd it should rain that Will would be absolutely unworthy of God 'T is necessary therefore that in the Order of Grace there should be some Occasional Cause which serves to fix these Laws and to determine their Efficacy And this is the Cause we must endeavour to discover IV. Provided we consult the Idea of intelligible Order or consider the sensible Order which appears in the Works of God we shall easily discover that Occasional Causes which determine the Efficacy of General Laws and are of use in fixing them must necessarily be related to the Design for which God has establish'd them For Example Experience evidences that God has not made and Reason certifies that he ought not to make the Courses of the Planets the Occasional Causes of the Union of our Soul and Body He ought not to will that our Arm should be mov'd in such or such a manner or that our Soul should feel the Tooth-ake when the Moon shall be in conjunction with the Sun if so be this Conjunction acts not on the Body God's Design being to unite our Soul to our Body he cannot in prosecuting that Design give the Soul Sensations of Pain save when there happen some Changes in the Body repugnant to it Wherefore we are not to seek out of our Soul or Body the Occasional Causes of their Union V. Hence it follows that God designing to form his Church by Jesus Christ could not according to that Design seek the Occasional Causes which serve to settle the General Laws of Grace by which the Spirit of Jesus diffus'd through his Members communicates Life and Holiness to them except in Jesus Christ and in the Creatures united to him by Reason Thus the Rain of Grace is not deriv'd to our Hearts by the diverse situations of the Stars nor by the Collision of certain Bodies nor even according to the different Courses of the animal Spirits which give us Motion and Life All that Bodies can do is to excite in us Motions and Sensations purely Natural For whatever arrives to the Soul through the Body is only for the Body VI. Yet as Grace is not given to all that desire it nor as soon as they desire it and is granted to those who do not ask it it thence follows that even our Desires are not the Occasional Causes of Grace For this sort of Causes have constantly and most readily their Effect and without them the Effect is not produc'd For Instance the Collision of Bodies being the Occasional Cause of the Change which happens in their Motion if two Bodies did not meet their Motions would not alter and if they alter'd we may be assur'd they met The general Laws which shed Grace upon our Hearts find nothing therefore in our Wills to determine their Efficacy as the general Laws which regulate the Rains are not founded on the Dispositions of the Places rain'd upon For it indifferently rains upon all Places on hollow and manur'd Grounds even on the Sands and the Sea it self VII We are therefore reduc'd to confess that
their Effect The Prayers and diverse Desires of Jesus Christ with reference to the Formation of his Body have likewise most constantly and speedily their Accomplishment God denies his Son nothing as we learn from Jesus Christ himself Occasional Causes produce not their Effect by their own Efficacy but by the Efficacy of the General Cause 'T is likewise by the Efficacy of the Power of God that the Soul of Jesus Christ operates in us and not by the Efficacy of Man's Will 'T is for this Reason that St. Paul represents Jesus Christ as praying to his Father without Intermission For he is oblâ—gâ—d to Pray in order to Obtain Occasional Causes have been establish'd by God for the determining the Efficacy of his General Wills and Jesus Christ according to the Scripture has been appointed by God after his Resurrection to govern the Church which he had purchas'd by his Blood For Jesus Christ became the Meritorious Cause of all Graces by his Sacrifice But after his Resurrection he entred 〈◊〉 the Holy of Holies as High Priest of future Goods to appear in the Presence of God and to endue us with the Graces which he has merited for us Therefore he himself applies and distributes his Gifts as Occasional Cause he disposes of all things in the House of God as a well-beloved Son in the House of his Father I think I have demonstrated in the Search after Truth that there is none but God who is the true Cause and who acts by his own Efficacy and that he communicates his Power to Creatures only in establishing them Occasional Causes for the producing some Effects I have proved for Example That Men have no Power to produce any Motion in their Bodies but because God has establish'd their Wills the Occasional Causes of these Motions That Fire has no power to make me feel Pain but because God has establish'd the Collision of Bodies the Occasional Cause of the Communication of Motions and the violent Vibration of the Fibres of my Flesh the Occasional Cause of my Pain I may here suppose a Truth which I have proved at large in the Third Chapter of the Second Part of the Sixth Book and in the Illustration upon the same Chapter and which those for whom it was principally written don't contest Now Faith assures us that all Power is given to Jesus Christ to form his Church All Power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth Which cannot be understood of Jesus Christ as to his Divinity for as God he has never received any thing And therefore it is certain that Jesus Christ as to his Humanity is the Occasional Cause of Grace supposing I have well proved that God only can act on Minds and that Second Causes have no Efficacy of their own Which those ought first to examine who would understand my Sentiments and give a Judgment of them XII I say farther that no one is sanctified but through the Efficacy of the Power which God has communicated to Jesus Christ in constituting him the Occasional Cause of Grace For if any Sinner were converted by a Grace whereof Jesus Christ was not the Occasional but only the Meritorious Cause that Sinner not receiving his New Life through the Efficacy of Jesus Christ would not be a Member of the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head in that manner explain'd by St. Paul by these Words of the Epistle to the Ephesians That we may grow up into him in all things who is the Head even Christ from whom the whole Body fitly join'd together and compacted by that which every Joint supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every Part maketh increase of the Body unto the edifying it self in Love Which Words not only say Jesus Christ is the Meritorious Cause of all Graces but likewise distinctly signifie that Christians are the Members of the Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head that 't is in him we increase and live with an entire new Life that 't is by his inward Operation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that his Church is form'd and that thus he has been constituted by God the sole Occasional Cause who by his several Desires and Applications distributes the Graces which God as the True Cause showers down on Men. 'T is on this Account St. Paul says Christians are united to Jesus Christ as their Root Rooted and built up in him 'T is for the same Reason that Jesus Christ compares himself to a Vine and his Disciples to the Branches that derive their Life from him I am the Vine ye are the Branches On the same Grounds St. Paul affirms that Jesus Christ lives in us and that we live in him that we are rais'd up in our Head that our Life is hidden with Jesus Christ in God in a word that we have already Life Eternal in Jesus Christ. All these and many other Expressions of like nature clearly manifest that Jesus Christ is not only the Meritorious but also the Occasional Physical or Natural Cause of Grace and that as the Soul informs animates and consummates the Body so Jesus Christ diffuses through his Members as Occasional Cause the Graces he has merited to his Church by his Sacrifice For my part I cannot see how these Reasons can be call'd in question or upon what Grounds a most edifying Truth and as ancient as the Religion of Jesus Christ can be treated as a dangerous Novelty I grant my Expressions are novel but that 's because they seem to me the fittest of all others distinctly to explain a Truth which can be but confusedly demonstrated by Terms very loose and general These words Occasional Causes and Natural Laws seem necessary to give the Philosophers for whom I wrote this Treatise of Nature and Grace a distinct Understanding of what most Men are content to know confusedly New Expressions being no farther dangerous than involving Ambiguity or breeding in the Mind some Notion contrary to Religion I do not believe that Equitable Persons and conversant in the Theology of St. Paul will blame me for explaining my self in a particular manner when it only tends to make us Adore the Wisdom of God and strictly to unite us with Jesus Christ. First OBJECTION XIII 'T is Objected against what I have establish'd That neither Angels nor Saints of the Old Testament receiv'd Grace pursuant to the Desires of the Soul of Jesus since that Holy Soul was not then in Being and therefore though Jesus Christ be the meritorious Cause of all Graces he is not the Occasional Cause which distributes them to Men. As to Angels I Answer That 't is very probable Grace was given them but once So that if we consider things on that side I grant there is nothing can oblige the Wisdom of God to constitute an Occasional Cause for the Sanctification of Angels But if we consider these blessed Spirits as Members of the Body whereof Jesus Christ is the Head or suppose them
by any Image it follows the Soul cannot imagine them which is a thing worthy to be remember'd Lastly By Sense the Soul perceives only Sensible gross and ruder Objects when being present they cause an Impression on the external Organs of her Body Thus it is the Soul sees things plain and rugged present to her Eyes thus she knows the Hardness of the Iron the point of a Sword and the like and this kind of Perceptions one may call Sentiments or Sensations The Soul then has no more than these three ways of Perceiving which will easily be granted if we consider that the things we perceive are either Spiritual or Material If they be Spiritual they are perceptable only by the Pure Vnderstanding If they be Material they are either Present or Absent If they be Absent the ordinary way of the Soul 's representing them is by the Imagination But if they be Present the Soul can perceive them by the Impressions they make upon her Senses And thus Our Souls are not capable of more than a three-fold Perception by Pure Intellect by Imagination and by Sense These three Faculties therefore may be lookt upon as so many certain Heads to which we may reduce the Errors of Men and the Causes of their Errors and so avoid the confusion into which the multitude of them would infallibly cast us should we talk of them without Order or Method But moreover our Inclinations and our Passions act very strongly upon us They dazzle our Mind with their false Lights and overcast and fill it with Clouds and Darkness Thus Our Inclinations and our Passions engage us in an infinite number of Errors when we suffer our selves to be guided by that false Light and abusive Glare which they produce within us We must then together with the three Faculties of the Mind consider them as the Sources of our Deviations and Delinquencies and add to the Errors of Sense Imagination and Pure Intellect those which may be charg'd upon the Passions and Natural Inclinations And so all the Errors of Men and the Causes of them may be reduc'd to five Heads and we shall treat of them according to that Order First We shall speak of the Errors of the Senses Secondly Of the Errors of Imagination Thirdly Of the Errors of the Pure Intellect Fourthly Of the Errors of our Inclinations and Fifthly Of the Errors of the Passions And thus having made an Essay to rid the Soul of the Errors which she's subject to we shall Lastly lay down a General Method to Conduct her in the Search of Truth We will begin with an Explication of the Errors of our Senses or rather of the Errors into which we fall for want of making the due use we should do of our Senses And here we shall not so much descend to our Particular Errors which are almost infinite as fix upon the general Causes of these Errors and such things as seem most necessary to inform us of the Nature of the Humane Mind CHAP. V. Of the SENSES I. Two ways of explaining how they were corrupted by Sin II. That 't is our Liberty and not our Senses which is the true Cause of our Errors III. A Rule for avoiding Error in the use of our Senses UPON an attentive Consideration of the Senses and Passions of Man we find them so well proportion'd to the End for which they were given us that we can by no means agree with those who say they are to all intents and purposes debauch'd and spoil'd by Original Sin But that it may appear it is not without Reason we are of a different Opinion it is necessary to Explain in what manner we may conceive the Order and Regularity which was to be seen in the Faculties and Passions of our First Parent in his State of Righteousness and the Changes and Disorders that were consequent to his Fall Now there are Two ways of Conceiving these things of which this is the First That it seems to be a common Notion That it is necessary to the right ordering of Affairs that the Soul should perceive lesser or greater Pleasures according to the proportion of the Littleness or Greatness of the Goods which she enjoys Pleasure is an Instinct of Nature or to speak clearer 't is an Impression of God himself who inclines us towards some Good which Impression should be so much stronger by how much that Good is greater According to which Principle it seems not to be contested that our first Parent before his Sin coming fresh out of the Hands of his Maker found greater Pleasures in the most solid Goods than in those that were not so Wherefore since he was created in order to Love God who created him and that God was his true Good it may be said God gave him a Taste and Relish of himself That he inclin'd him to the Love of the Divine Perfection by a Sense of Pleasure and that he possess'd him with those Internal Satisfactions in his Duty that counter-balanc'd the greatest Pleasures of the Senses whereof since the State of Sin Man is altogether insensible without a Supernatural Assistance and particular gift of Grace Notwithstanding since he had a Body which God design'd he should take care of and look upon as a Part of himself he gave him to Perceive by the Mediation of his Senses Pleasures like those we our selves are sensible of in the use of things which are proper for and adapted to the Preservation of our Life and Being We presume not here to determine whether the First Man before his Fall had a Power to hinder agreeable or disagreeable Sensations in the instant that the principal part of his Brain was agitated by the Actual Impression of Sensible Objects Possibly he had that Soveraignty over himself because of his Subjection to the Will of God though the contrary Opinion seems more probable For though Adam might stop the Commotions of the Blood and Spirits and the Vibrations of the Fibres of his Brain which Objects excited in it because being in a Regular State his Body must needs submit to his Mind yet it is not probable he was able to prevent the Sensations of Objects at the time he had not stopt the Motions they produc'd in that part of his Body to which his Soul was immediately united For the Union of the Soul and Body consisting principally in the mutual Relation there is betwixt Sensations and the Motions of the Organs this Union would rather seem Arbitrary than Natural if Adam had been capable of hindring Sensation when the Principal Part of his Body receiv'd an Impression from those round about it However I declare for neither of the two Opinions The First Man therefore felt Pleasure in that which was Perfective of his Body as he felt it in that which was Perfective of his Soul And because he was constituted in a Perfect State he found that of the Soul far greater than that of the Body Thus it was infinitely
THE Sight is the First the most Noble and Comprehensive of all the Senses insomuch that had it been given us for the Discovery of Truth it alone had had more to do than all the Other wherefore if we can overthrow the Authority the Eyes obtain over our Reason it will be sufficient to undeceive us and to possess us with a general distrust of all the other Senses Our business therefore is to make it appear That we ought in no wise to rely on the Testimony of our Sight in our Judgment of the Truth of things as they are in their own Nature but only in discovering the Relation they have to the welfare and preservation of our Body That our Eyes generally deceive us in all the Representations they make of things in the Magnitude in the Figures and Motions of Bodies in Light and Colours which are the only things we see That none of these things are really what they seem to be that all Mankind is mistaken in them and that hereby we fall into other Errors numberless and infinite We begin with Extension Lo then the Reasons that induce us to believe that our Eyes never represent it to us such as it is in it self With Glasses we discover as often as we please Animals much less than a grain of Sand which is almost invisible Nay there have been seen a thousand times less than they These animated Atoms walk and move no less than other Animals Therefore they must have Legs and Feet Bones in their Legs to support them Muscles to move them Tendons and infinite Fibres in every Muscle lastly Blood or animal Spirits extreamly subtil and refin'd either to fill or make these Muscles move successively Without this it is impossible to conceive they live are nourish'd or translate their little Bodies into different places according to the different Impressions of Objects or rather 't is impossible for those Men themselves have spent all their Life in Anatomy and in disclosing Nature to imagine the number the diversity the delicacy of all the parts these little Bodies are necessarily compounded of whereby they live and perform all those things we see them do The Imagination is lost and confounded at so incredible a littleness it cannot catch the vanishing parts nor take hold of them as being too little to be grasp'd by it And though Reason justifies our Assertion the Senses and Imagination withstand the Conviction and bring us back to Doubt and Uncertainty Our Sight is extreamly short and limited but it ought not to prescribe limits to its Object The Idea it gives us of Extension has very narrow bounds but it does not from thence follow the bounds of Extension are so It is doubtless infinite in a certain Sense and that diminutive part of Matter which is hidden from our Eyes is capable of containing a World in which may be hid as many things though less proportionably as appear in this great World in which we live These little Creatures which we have been speaking of may possibly have other little Animals to prey upon them and which are imperceptible to them by reason of their unspeakable smallness as the others are imperceptible to us What an Hand-worm is in comparison to us That those little Animals are in respect of an Hand-worm and perhaps there may be in Nature less and less still to infinity proceeding in that prodigious proportion of a Man to an Hand-worm We have Evident and Mathematical Demonstrations of the Divisibility of Matter in infinitum and that 's enough to persuade us there may be Animals still less and less than others in infinitum though our Imagination is frighted and starts at such a conception GOD made Matter only to frame his wonderful Works out of it wherefore since we are certain that there are no parts of it the Minuteness whereof is capable of giving Limits to his power in the formation of these little Animals why should we unreasonably confine and lessen the Idea of an Infinite Artist by measuring the Greatness and Depth of his Power and Wisdom by our finite and shallow Imagination We have been in part undeceiv'd by Experiment which hath discover'd to us such Animals as are a thousand times less than an Hand-worm why should we suppose that they are the Last and the Least of all For my part I see no reason to imagine 'T is much more reasonable to be believ'd there are far less than those already discover'd For in fine little Animals are never wanting for the Microscopes but we want Microscopes for them If one examines in the midst of Winter the Cicatricle of a Tulip-roop with a plain Magnifying or a Convex Glass or even with the bare Eye one may easily discover it in the Leaves which are become green Those which are to make the Flower or the Tulip the little triangular part which contains the Seed and the six little Columns that incompass it at the bottom of the Tulip Thus it cannot be doubted but the Cicatricle of a Tulip-root contains in it a Tulip all entire It 's reasonable to believe the same thing of the Cicatricle of a grain of Mustard of that of the kernel of an Apple and generally of all sorts of Trees and Plants though it cannot be discern'd with the Eye nor yet with a Microscope and we may with some sort of certainty affirm That all Trees lye in Miniature in the Cicatricle of their Seed Nor does it appear unreasonable to think that there are infinite Trees conceal'd in a single Cicatricle since it not only contains the future Tree whereof it is the Seed but also abundance of other Seeds which may all include in them new Trees still and new Seeds of Trees Which new Seeds possibly may be big with other Trees and other Seeds of Trees as fruitful as the former in an incomprehensible littleness and thus in Infinitum So that according to this Notion which will not be thought impertinent or whimsical except by those who measure the Wonders of the Infinite Power of GOD by the Idea's of their Senses and Imagination it may be said that in the single kernel of an Apple may be involved Apple-trees Apples and Seeds of Apple-trees for infinite or almost infinite Ages in that proportion of a perfect Apple-tree to an Apple-tree in its Seeds And That Nature does only open and unfold these little Trees by giving a sensible growth to that which is out of its Seed and insensible but most real increases to those which we conceive to be in their Seeds in proportion to their Bigness For it cannot be doubted but there are Bodies little enough to insinuate themselves between the Fibres of those Trees which we conceive in their Seeds and to be serviceable to their Nourishment What has been said of Plants and their Cicatricles we have liberty to conceive of Animals and of the Cicatricles of which they are produc'd We see in the Cicatricle of a Tulip-root an
entire Tulip We see in the Cicatricle of a new-laid Egg and which had never been brooded a Chicken which is possibly compleatly form'd We see Frogs in the Eggs of Frogs and we shall see other Animals still in their Cicatricles when we have Art and Experience enough to discover them But 't is not for the Mind to stand still when the Eyes can go no farther For the view of the Soul is of a greater compass than the sight of the Body Besides this therefore we ought to think That all the Bodies of Men and of Beasts which should be born or produc'd till the End of the World were possibly created from the Beginning of it I would say That the Females of the Original Creatures were for ought we know created together with all those of the same Species which have been or shall be begotten or procreated whilst the World stands We might push this Thought much farther yet and it may be with a great deal of Reason and Truth But we have just cause to fear lest we should be too desirous of penetrating too far into the Works of GOD We see nothing but Infinities round about us And not only our Senses and our Imagination are too limited to comprehend them but the Mind it self however pure and disengag'd from Matter is too gross as well as too feeble to pierce into the least of the Works of the Almighty 'T is lost 't is dissipated 't is dazled and amazed at the view of that which according to the Language of the Senses is call'd an Atom Notwithstanding the Pure Intellect has this advantage above the Imagination of the Senses that it acknowledges its own Weakness and the Almightiness of GOD Whereas our Imagination and our Senses bring down the works of GOD and audaciously set themselves above them and so throw us headlong and blind-fold into Error For our Eyes furnish us not with the Idea's of any of those things we discover by Microscopes and our Reason We perceive not by our Sight any less Body than an Hand-worm or a Mite The half of a Hand-worm is nothing if we rely on the Report of our Eyes A Mite is a Mathematical point in their account which you can't divide but you must annihilate Our Sight then does not represent Extension to us as it is in it self but as it is in Relation to our Body And because the half of a Mite has no considerable relation to our Body and has no influence either towards the Preservation or Destruction of it therefore our Eyes entirely conceal it from Us. But if we had Eyes made after the manner of Microscopes or rather if we were as little as Hand-worms and Mites we should judge of the Magnitude of Bodies in a far different manner For without doubt these little Animals have their Eyes so dispos'd as to see the Bodies that surround them and their own Bodies far greater than we see them for otherwise they could not receive such impressions as were necessary to the Preservation of Life and so the Eyes they have would be altogether useless But that we may throughly explain these things we must consider that our Eyes are in effect only Natural Spectacles that their humours have the same way of Operating as the Glasses in the Spectacles and that according to the figure of the Crystalline and its distance from the Retina we see Objects very differently insomuch that we cannot be assur'd there are two Men in the World that see Bodies of the self-same bigness since we cannot be assur'd there are two Men's Eyes altogether made alike 'T is a Proposition that ought to be imbrac'd by all those who concern themselves with Opticks That Objects which appear equally distant are seen so much bigger as the figure which is delineated in the fund of the Eye is bigger Now it is certain that in the Eyes of those Persons whose Crystalline is more convex the Images are painted lesser in proportion to the convexity Those then who are short-sighted having their Crystalline more convex see the Objects lesser than those whose Crystalline is of the common standard or than old People who want Spectacles to read with but see perfectly well at a distance since those whose Sight is short must necessarily have the Crystalline more convex on supposition their Eyes as to the other parts are equal 'T were the easiest thing in Nature to demonstrate all these things Geometrically and were they not of the number of those which are very well known I would insist longer upon them to make them evident But because several have already handled this Subject I desire such as are willing to be instructed therein to turn to them and consult them Since it is not manifest that there are two Men in the World who see Objects in the same bulk and magnitude and generally the same Man sees them bigger with his left Eye than his right according to the Observations which have been made and are related in the Journal of the Learned from Rome in January 1669 it is plain we ought not to build upon the Testimony of our Eyes so as to pass our judgment from it It is much better to attend to Reason which proves to us That we are unable to determine what is the absolute Magnitude of Bodies which encompass us or what Idea we ought to have of the Extension of a Foot-square or of that of our own Body so as that Idea may represent it to us as it is For we learn from Reason that the least of all Bodies would be no longer little if it were alone since it is compounded of an infinite number of parts out of each of which GOD could frame an Earth which yet would be but a single Point in comparison of the rest in conjunction Thus the Mind of Man is incapable of forming an Idea great enough to comprehend and embrace the least Extension in the World since the Mind has bounds but that Idea should be infinite It is true The Mind may come very near the Knowledge of the Relations these infinites have to one another which constitute the World it may know for instance one of them to be double to another and that a Fathom is the measure of six Foot Yet for all this it cannot form an Idea to it self that can represent these things as they are in their own Nature Well but let it be suppos'd that the Mind is capable of Idea's which equal or which measure the Extension of Bodies which we see for it would be a difficult undertaking to convince Men of the contrary Let us see what may be concluded from the Supposition Doubtless this will be the Conclusion That GOD does not deceive us That he has not given us Eyes like Glasses to magnifie or diminish the Object and therefore we ought to believe that our Eyes represent things as really they are 'T is true GOD never deceives us but we often deceive our selves by
very few in Natural Philosophy to which it has not given some occasion and if a Man should make a considerate Reflexion thereupon he would possibly be astonish'd at it But though I am not willing to dwell too long upon these things yet I cannot so easily pass by the contempt Men generally have for Insects and other little Animals which are produc'd out of a Matter call'd by them Corrupted 'T is a very unjust contempt founded only on the Ignorance of the thing despis'd and the fore-mention'd Prejudice There is nothing despicable in Nature and all the Works of GOD are worthy of our Respect and Admiration especially if we attend to the wonderful ways he takes both in making and perserving them The least of Flies are as compleat as Animals of an excessive bulk or stature The proportions of their Limbs are as just as those of the other And it seems moreover that GOD has design'd them greater Ornaments to recompense them for the Littleness of their Bodies They have Coronets and Plumes and other Attire upon their Heads which out-shine all that the Luxury of Men can invent And I dare venture to say that all those who have never made use of any thing but their Eyes have never seen any thing so splendid so exact or so magnificent in the Palaces of the greatest Princes as may be seen with Glasses on the Head of an ordinary Fly 'T is true these things are exceedingly Little but it is still more surprizing to find such a Collection of Beauties in so little Room and though they are very common yet that is no Diminution to their Value nor are those Animals thereby less perfect in themselves but on the contrary the Power and Wisdom of GOD appear more wonderful who with such Profusion and Magnificence has shewn an almost infinite number of Miracles in their Production And yet our Sight conceals all these Beauties from us It makes us despise all these Works of GOD so worthy of our Admiration And because these Animals are little in Relation to our Body it causes us to consider them as little absolutely and consequently as despicable by reason of their Littleness as if Bodies could be little in themselves Let us strive then to forbear following the Impressions of our Senses in the judgment which we pass on the Magnitude of Bodies And when we say for Instance That a Bird is little let it not be absolutely understood For nothing is Great or Little in it self Even a Bird is great in comparison of a Fly and if it be little in respect of our Body it doth not follow it is absolutely so since our Body is not the most perfect Rule by which we ought to measure others It is it self very little in reference to the Earth as is the Earth it self in respect of the Circumference which the Sun or Earth describe round each other And so is that Circumference in relation to the space contain'd betwixt us and the six'd Stars and so continuing the progression on For we may still imagine spaces greater and greater ad infinitum But it must not be imagin'd that our Senses exactly inform us of the Relation other Bodies have to our own For Exactness and Justness are no ways essential to sensible Notices which should only be Instrumental to the Preservation of Life It is true we know exactly enough the Relation Bodies which are near us have with our own But in proportion to the distance these Bodies are remov'd from us we know less of them because then they have less relation to our Body The Idea or Sensation of Magnitude which we have upon sight of a Body lessens in proportion to the Body's being in a less capacity of hurting us And that Idea or Sensation increases proportionably as the Body approaches nearer or rather as the Relation it has to our Body is augmented Finally If this Relation altogether ceases that is if any Body is so little or so distant from us as to be incapable of hurting us we forthwith lose the Sensation of it So that by our Sight we may sometimes judge pretty nearly of the Relation other Bodies have to ours And of that which they have to one another But we ought never to think they are of the same Magnitude they appear to us Our Eyes for Example represent the Sun and Moon of one or two Feet diameter but we should not imagine with Epicurus and Lucretius that they are really of that dimension This same Moon seems to us upon sight far greater than the greatest Stars yet no Man doubts but it is incomparably less Thus we see daily on the Earth two things or more of whose magnitude we can have no exact assurance because to make a judgment of this Nature 't is necessary to know the precise distance of these Bodies which is very difficult to be known We are even hard put to 't to judge with any kind of certainty of the Relation there is betwixt two Bodies though never so near us We are forc'd to take them in our hands and hold them one against the other to compare them and after all we often hesitate without being able justly to determine any thing This is visibly acknowledg'd as often as a Man would examine which are biggest of some pieces of Coin that are almost equal for he is then oblig'd to put them one upon another to discover by a surer Method than by Sight whether they correspond in bigness Our Eyes therefore not only deceive us in the Magnitude of Bodies absolutely consider'd but even in the Relation those Bodies have betwixt themselves CHAP. VII I. Of the Errors of Sight about Figures II. We have no Knowledge of the least of them III. The Knowledge we have of the greater is not exact IV. An Explication of some Natural Judgments which prevent our Deception V. That these very Judgments deceive us in some particular junctures OUR Sight is less liable to deceive us in the Representation of Figures than in the Representation of any other thing because Figure is not a thing of an absolute kind but its Nature consists in the Relation which is between the parts which terminate some space and a certain point which we conceive in that space and which we may call as in a Circle the Centre of the Figure Notwithstanding we are mistaken a thousand ways in Figures and the Knowledge we receive from our Senses is not exceedingly exact concerning any one of them We have already prov'd that our Sight discovers not to us all sorts of Extension but only that which is in some considerable proportion to our Body and that for this reason we see not all the parts of the minutest Animals nor those that constitute all hard and liquid Bodies Thus not being able to perceive these parts by reason of their Littleness it follows we are as unable to perceive their Figures since the figure of Bodies is nothing but the Term that
Usefulness from those of the foregoing Discourse We instantly suppose a Man to have made some Reflections upon two Idea's which he finds in his Soul one that represents the Body and the other which represents the Mind and that he is able easily to distinguish them by the positive Attributes they contain In a word that he is very well satisfi'd that Extension is a different thing from Thought Or we will suppose he has read and meditated on some places of St. Austin as the 10th Chapter of the 10th Book Concerning the Trinity the 4th and 14th Chapters of his Book concerning The Quantity of the Soul at least Mr. Des-Cartes's Meditations especially that Part which treats of the Distinction of the Soul and Body or lastly Mr. Cordemoy's sixth Dissertation concerning the Difference of the Soul and Body We suppose farther that he is acquainted with the Anatomy of the Organs of the Senses and knows that they consist of little Threads or Fibres which derive their Origine from the middle of the Brain that they are dispers'd through all the Members wherein there is Sensation and being continued without any Interruption are terminated upon the External parts of the Body that whilst a Man is awake and in health one of the Extremities cannot be mov'd but the other will be mov'd in the same time because they are always somewhat Intense and upon the stretch the same thing which happens to a Cord that is intense one part whereof cannot be mov'd but the other must receive some Vibration 'T is farther necessary to know that these little Threads or Fibres may be mov'd by two several ways either by that end that is external to the Brain or by the end which terminates in the Brain If these Fibres are externally agitated by Objects acting on them and this Agitation be not communicated so far as the Brain as it happens in Sleep the Soul receives no fresh Sensation from them at that time But if these Fibres are moved in the Brain by the course of the Animal Spirits or by any other cause the Soul has a Perception of something though the Parts of these Fibres which are without the Brain and are dispers'd throughout all the Parts of the Body are quiet and undisturb'd as it happens when a Man 's asleep It will not be amiss to observe here by the way that Experience certifies us it is not impossible to feel Pain in those parts of our Body which have been intirely cut off Because the Fibres of the Brain which correspond to them being Vibrated in the same manner as if those Parts were actually wounded the Soul feels in those Imaginary Parts a most real Pain For all these things are a palpable Demonstration that the Soul immediately resides in that Part of the Brain in which all the Organs of the Senses terminate and centre I mean that in this Part she receives the Sensation of all the Changes that there occur in reference to the Objects that have caus'd them or have us'd to cause them and she has no Perception of any thing happening in any other Part but by the Intervention of the Fibres which terminate therein This being laid down and well understood it will be no hard thing to discover how Sensation is effected which is necessary to be explain'd by some particular Instance When a Man thrusts the Point of a Needle into his hand this Point moves and separates the Fibres of the Flesh. These Fibres are extended from that Place to the Brain and whilst he is awake they are so Intense that they can receive no Concussion or Vibration but it is Communicated to those in the Brain It follows then that the Extremities of the Fibres in the Brain must be in like manner mov'd If the motion of the Fibres of the Hand is Moderate that of the Fibres of the Brain will be so too and if this Motion is violent enough to break something in the Hand it will be more forcible and violent in the Brain Thus if a Man holds his Hand to the Fire the little parts of the Wood whereof it continually throws out innumerable quantities with great violence as Reason upon the defect of our Sight demonstrates beat against the Fibres and communicate a Part of their Agitation to them If that Agitation be but moderate that of the Extremities of the Fibres in the Brain which answer to the Hand will be moderate also And if this Motion be violent enough in the Hand to separate some Parts of it as it happens when it is Burnt the Motion of the Internal Fibres of the Brain will be proportionably stronger and more violent This then is what occurs in our Body when Objects strike upon us we must now see what happens to our Soul She is principally Resident if we may be permitted so to speak in that Part of the Brain where all the Fibres of our Nerves are centred She is seated there in order to cherish and preserve all the Parts of our Body and consequently it is necessary she should have notice of all the Changes that occur therein and that she be able to distinguish those which are adapted and agreeable to the Constitution of her Body from the contrary since it would be to no use or purpose for her to know them absolutely and without Relation to the Body Thus though all the Changes of our Fibres do in true speaking consist merely in the Motions of them which are generally no farther different than according to the Degrees of more or less yet it is necessary for the Soul to look upon these Changes as Essentially different For though they differ very little in themselves they ought however to be consider'd as Essentially different in reference to the Preservation of the Body The Motion for instance that produces Pain has rarely any considerable difference from that which causes Titillation There is no necessity there should be any Essential Difference betwixt these two Motions but it is necessary there should be an Essential Difference betwixt the Titillation and the Pain which these two Motions cause in the Soul For the Vibration of the Fibres which accompanies Titillation certifies the Soul of the good Constitution of her Body and assures her it has Strength enough to resist the Impression of the Object and that she need not be under any Apprehensions of its being injur'd by it But the Motion which accompanies Pain being somewhat more violent is capable of breaking some Fibre of the Body and the Soul ought to be advis'd of it by some Disagreeable Sensation so as to be aware of it for the future Thus though the Motions which are occasion'd in the Body are no farther different in themselves than according to the Degrees of more or less yet being consider'd with Relation to the Welfare and Preservation of our Life they may be said to differ Essentially 'T is upon this account our Soul has no Perception
are us'd to no other Preception than that of their Senses believe the Sun to abound with Light but those who can be Sensible and Reasonable at the same time are of another opinion provided they have as good a Faculty of Reasoning as they have of Sensation I am very well perswaded that even those who pay the greatest Deference to the testimony of their Senses would close with our Opinion had they well consider'd the things that we have said But they are too much in love with the Delusion of their Senses they have obey'd their Prejudices too long and their Soul is too unthoughtful or forgetful to acknowledge or remember that all the Perfections she imagines she sees in Bodies belong only to her self But it is not to this sort of Men we address our selves we are very little concern'd for their Approbation and Esteem They refuse to hearken to us and consequently are incompetent Judges we are satisfy'd in defending Truth and having the Approbation of those who seriously labour to rid themselves of the Errors of their Senses and to employ the Light of their Understanding We only require of them that they would seriously Meditate on these Thoughts with the greatest Attention they can and then let them judge of them Let them condemn them or acquit them we submit them to their Judgment since by their Meditation they have obtain'd a Supreme Power and Jurisdiction over them which without Injustice cannot be contested with them CHAP. XX. The Conclusion of the First Book I. That our Senses are given us only for the Preservation of our Body II. That we ought to doubt of the Reports they make III. That 't is no little thing to doubt as we ought to do I HAVE if I am not mistaken made a sufficient Discovery of the General Errors into which our Senses lead us whether in regard to their own Objects or in respect of Things which can only be perceiv'd by the Understanding And I am of an Opinion that we fall into no Error by their Conduct the cause whereof may not be discover'd by the things that have been said in case a Man will bestow a little Meditation upon them We have hitherto seen that our Senses are most faithful and exact in instructing us in the Relations which all the Bodies which surround us have with our own but are incapable of teaching us what these Bodies are in their own Nature that to make the best use of them they must only be imploy'd to the Preservation of our Health and Life and that they can't be sufficiently despis'd when they pretend to raise themselves to a Sovereignty above the Understanding This is the Principal Thing I would gladly have well remembred in all this First Book viz. Let a Man throughly consider that our Senses were only given us for the Preservation of our Body let him fortifie himself in this Notion and in order to free himself from the Ignorance he is under let him seek out other Succors and Assistances than those his Senses furnish him withall But supposing there be some such Men to be found as doubtless there be but too many of them who will not be perswaded of these last Propositions by what we have hitherto said we demand of them still much less than this we only desire of them to enter into some Distrust of their Senses and if they cannot entirely reject their Testimonies as false and treacherous let them only seriously doubt lest these Reports should not be absolutely true And certainly in my Opinion enough hath been said to cast at least some Scruple in the Mind of Reasonable Men and consequently to excite them to the Employing their Liberty otherwise than they have hitherto done for if they could once begin to doubt that the Reports of their Senses were not true they might with greater Ease with-hold their Consent and so prevent their falling into those Errors into which they have hitherto fallen especially if they could remember that Rule we have given at the Beginning of this Discourse That we ought not to give an entire Consent except to Things that appear entirely evident and to which we could not forbear consenting without being certainly convinc'd we should make an ill usâ— of our Liberty in not consenting For what remains let not a Man imagine he has made but an inconsiderable Progress if he has only learn'd to Doubt To know how to Doubt with Judgment and Reason is not so small a thing as is suppos'd For we must needs say there is a great deal of difference betwixt Doubting and Doubting Some Doubt out of a Rash Passion and a Brutish Resolution others out of Blindness and Malice out of Humour and Fancy and because they will do so But there are others likewise that Doubt out of Prudence and Caution out of Wisdom and Penetration of Mind The Academicks and Atheists Doubt after the former manner but true Philosophers Doubt in the latter The first Doubt is a Doubt of Darkness which never conducts us towards the Light but sets us at a greater Distance from it The second Doubt proceeds from Light and is assistant in some measure to the production of it in its turn Those who only Doubt in the former manner know not what it is to Doubt with Understanding They Laugh at Monsieur Des Cartes's teaching us to Doubt in the first of his Metaphysical Meditations because it seems to them that it is no other than a Fantastick Doubting That it can only be said in general that our Nature is Infirm that our Mind is full of Blindness that we ought to be very careful to rid our selves of our Prejudices and some such things as these They suppose that this is enough to prevent being seduc'd by their Senses and not to be deceiv'd at all But it is not enough to complain that the Mind is weak we must make her sensible of her Weaknesses It is not enough to say She is subject unto Error we must discover to her wherein her Errors consist to which I think we have given an Introduction in this first Book by accounting for the Nature and Errors of our Senses and we will still pursue the same Design in explaining the Nature and Errors of our Imagination in the Second F. MALEBRANCHE'S TREATISE CONCERNING The Search after TRUTH BOOK the SECOND Concerning The IMAGINATION THE FIRST PART CHAP. I. I. A General Idea of the Imagination II. That it includes two Faculties an Active and a Passive III. A General Cause of the Changes which happen in the Imagination of Men and the Foundation of the Second Book IN the foregoing Book I have treated concerning the Senses I have endeavour'd to Explain their Nature and precisely to determine the Use that ought to be made of them I have discover'd the Principal and most General Errors wherein they ingage us and have attempted such a Limitation of their Power as to put Man in a capacity of Hoping
expected that all the Accidents which befal those that have been sick of the Scurvy must befal him too The same Medicines therefore are prescrib'd him and 't is matter of amazement to find they have not the same Effect as they have been known to have had in others An Author applies himself to one kind of Study The Traces of the Subject he 's imploy'd about are so deeply imprinted and make such lively Radiations through the Brain as to confound and efface sometimes the Traces of things of a quite different kind There has been a Man for instance that has wrote many bulky Volumes on the Cross this made him discover a Cross in every thing he look'd upon and 't is with Reason that Father Morinus handsomly rallies him for thinking a Medal represented a Cross though it represented quite another thing 'T was by such another unlucky turn of Imagination Gilbertus and many others after having studied the Load-stone and admir'd its properties must needs reduce to these Magnetick Qualities abundance of Natural Effects that had no Relation to them in the World The Instances I have here alledg'd suffice to prove that the great facility of the Imagination's representing Objects that are familiar to it and the difficulty it finds in Imagining those that are Novel is the Reason of Mens forming almost ever such Idea's as may be styl'd mix'd and impure and of the Mind 's judging of things only with Relation to it self and its former Thoughts And thus the different Passions of Men their Inclinations Conditions Imployments Qualities Studies finally all their different Ways and Scopes of Life putting very considerable Differences in their Idea's occasion them to fall into innumerable Errors which we shall explain in the following Discourse Which was the reason of My Lord Bacon's speaking this most judicious Sentence Omnes perceptiones tam sensûs quam mentis sunt ex analogiâ hominis non ex analogiâ universi Estque Intellectus humanus instar speculi inaequalis ad radios rerum qui suam Naturam naturae rerum immiscet eamque distorquet inficit CHAP. III. Of the Mutual Connection between the Idea's and the Traces of the Brain and of the Mutual Connection there is between Traces and Traces Idea's and Idea's AMONG the whole Mass of Material Beings there is nothing more worthy of the Contemplation of Men than the Contexture of their own Body and the Correspondence found between the Parts that compose it And among all things Spiritual there is nothing the Knowledge whereof is more necessary than that of their Soul and of all the Relations she is indispensably under to GOD and Naturally to the Body 'T is not enough to have a confus'd Knowledge or Sensation that the Traces of the Brain are mutually connected to each other and that they are pursued by the Motion of the Animal Spirits that the Traces when excited in the Brain excite the Idea's in the Understanding and that the Motions that arise in the Animal Spirits raise the Passions in the Will We ought as far as is possible to have a distinct Knowledge of the Cause of all these different Connections but especially of the Effects they are capable of producing We ought to know the Cause thereof in as much as it is necessary to know our Guide and Conductor who alone is capable of acting in us and of rendring us happy or miserable and we ought to know the Effect of them it being necessary to know our selves as much as possible and other Men with whom we are oblig'd to live So should we know the means both of conducting our selves to and preserving our selves in the most happy and perfect state we are capable of attaining by the order of Nature and the Precepts of the Gospel and so should we be able to frame our Lives sociably with Men by exactly knowing the means of making use of them in our Exigencies and assisting them in their Miseries I pretend not to Explain in this Chapter a Subject so vast and Comprehensive nor have I that Opinion of my self as to think I should throughly do it in this whole Work There are many things I am still ignorant of and despair of ever knowing well and there are others which I presume I know but am unable to explicate For there is no mind so little and so narrow but may by Meditation discover more Truths than can be deduc'd at length by the most Eloquent Man in the World We are not to imagine with a great part of the Philosophers that the Mind becomes Body when united to the Body and that the Body becomes Mind when united to the Mind The Soul is not expanded through all the parts of the Body in order to give Life and Motion to it as the Imagination represents nor does the Body become capable of Sensation by its Union with the Mind as our treacherous and abusive Senses would seem to perswade us Either Substance preserves its own particular Being and as the Soul is incapable of Extension and Motions so the Body is incapable of Thought and Inclinations All the Affinity that we know between the Body and Mind consists in the Natural and Mutual correspondence of the Thoughts of the Soul with the Traces of the Brain and of the Emotions of the Soul with the Motions of the Animal Spirits When the Soul receives some new Idea's some new Traces are imprinted on the Brain and when Objects produce new Traces the Soul receives new Idea's Which is not said as if the Soul consider'd these Traces since she has no knowledge of them or as if these Traces included these Idea's since there is no Analogy betwixt them or lastly as if she receiv'd her Idea's from these Traces for 't is inconceivable as shall be explain'd hereafter how the Mind should receive any thing from the Body and become more enlightned than she is by turning towards it as the Philosophers pretend who would have the Souls Perception of all things to be caus'd Per conversionem ad phantasmata by the Conversion to the Phantasms or Traces of the Brain Thus when the Soul wills the moving of her Arm the Arm is mov'd though she not so much as knows what ought to be done to the moving it and when the Animal Spirits are agitated the Soul finds a Commotion in her self though she is ignorant whether there be any such thing as Animal Spirits in her Body When I come to treat of the Passions I shall speak of the Connection there is between the Traces of the Brain and the Motions of the Spirits and of that which is between the Idea's and the Emotions of the Soul for all the Passions have their Dependance thereon I am to Discourse at present only of the Connection between Traces and Idea's and the Connection Traces have with one another There are three very considerable Causes of the Connection of Idea's with the Traces of the Brain The first and most general
Sensibility of Men the Corruption of the Senses and the Passions dispose them to the desire of being struck with it and provokes them to strike others with it also I am then of Opinion that there is no Author more fit than Seneca to exemplifie that contagious Communication of a great many Men who go by the Name of the Fine and Bold Wits and to shew how these strong and vigorous Imaginations domineer over the Weak and Unenlightened Minds not by the force and evidence of their Reasons which are the Productions of the Mind but by the Turn and lively way of Expression which depend on the Strength of Imagination I know well enough that this Author's Reputation is considerable in the World and ' will be look'd upon as a rash attempt to have treated him as a very Imaginative and Injudicious Author But 't was chiefly upon the Account of his Esteem I have said so much of him here not out of any Envy or ill Humour but because the Estimation he is in will more sensibly touch the Mind of the Reader and more closely apply it to the Consideration of the Errors I have attack'd For we should as far as possible bring the most Eminent Instances when the things we say are important it being sometimes an Honouring a Book to Critizice upon it But yet I am not the only Man that finds fault with the Writings of Seneca for not to mention some Famous Men of our own Age 't is near six hundred Years ago that a most Judicious Author observ'd there was little Exactness in his Philosophy little Judgment and Justice in his Elocution and his Reputation was rather the result of the Heat and indiscreet Inclination of Youth than the Consent of Learned and Judicious Men. Publickly to engage the grossest and most palpable Errors is labour lost there being no contagion in them 'T would be ridiculous to advertise Men that Hypocondriack People are deceiv'd 't is visible to all the World But if those very Men they have the greatest Opinion of should chance to be mistaken 't is a piece of service to admonish them lest they should imitate them in their Errors Now 't is plain that the Spirit of Seneca is a Spirit of Pride and Vanity And whereas Pride according to the Scripture is the Origine of Sin Initium Peccati Superbia The Spirit of Seneca cannot be the Spirit of the Gospel nor his Morals be allied to the Morals of our SAVIOVR the only true and solid Morals True 't is that all the Notions of Seneca are not false nor dangerous And he may be read with profit by such as have an exactness of Thought and are acquainted with the Foundation of Christian Morality Good use has been made of him by Great Men and I have no intent of blaming those who to accommodate themselves to the Weakness of others that had an excessive Esteem for him have drawn Arguments from his Works whereby to defend the Morality of our LORD and oppugn the Enemies of the Gospel with their own Weapons The Alcoran has many good things in it and some true Prophecies are to be found in the Centuries of Nostradamus The Alcoran is made use of to oppose the Religion of Mahomet and Nostradamus's Prophecies may be of use to convince some Fantastick and Visionary People But what is good in the Alcoran can't make it a good Book nor can some true Explications in Nostradamus's Centuries make him ever pass for a Prophet neither can it be said that all who make use of these Authors approve them or have for them any real Esteem A Man ought not to go about to overthrow what I have said about Seneca by alledging abundance of Quotations out of him which contain in them nothing but solid Truths and consonant to the Gospel For I grant many such are met with in that Author and so there are in the Alcoran and other mischievous Books Nor would he be less to blame who should overwhelm me with the Authority of those great Numbers who have made use of Seneca since use may be made of what we think an impertinent Book provided those we speak to judge otherwise of it than our selves But to ruine intirely the Wisdom of the Stoicks we need only know one thing which is sufficiently prov'd by Experience and by what we have already said which is that we are link'd and fasten'd to our Body our Relations our Friends our Prince and our Country by such ties as we neither can break nor could for shame endeavour it Our Soul is united to our Body and by our Body to all things Visible by so potent an Hand that 't is impossible by our own force to loosen the Connection 'T is impossible our Body should be prick'd but we must be prick'd and hurt our selves because the state of Life we are in most necessarily requires this Correspondence between us and the Body which we have In like manner 't is impossible to hear our selves reproach'd and despis'd but we must feel some discontent thereupon because GOD having made us for sociable converse with other Men has given us an Inclination for every thing capable to bind and cement us together which Inclination we have not strength enough of our selves to overcome 'T is Extravagance to say that Pain does not hurt us and that words of Contumely and Contempt are not at all offensive to us as being above such things as these There is no getting above Nature without being assisted by Grace nor was there ever any Stoick who despis'd Glory and the Esteem of Men through the meer Strength of his Mind Men may indeed get the mastery of their Passions by contrary Passions They may vanquish their Fear or their Pain by Vain Glory I mean only that they may abstain from Flying or Complaining when seeing themselves in the midst of a multitude the desire of Glory supports them and stops those motions in their Bodies which put them upon Flight In this manner they may conquer them but this is no Conquest or Deliverance from their slavery 't is possibly to change their Master for some time or rather to put on a longer and an heavier chain 'T is to grow wise happy and free only in appearance but in reality to suffer an hard and cruel bondage The natural union a Man has still with his Body may be resisted by that union he has with Men because Nature may be resisted by the strength of Nature GOD may be resisted by the forces He himself supplies us with but GOD cannot be resisted by the strength of a Man 's own mind Nature can't be perfectly vanquish'd but by Grace because GOD cannot if I may be allow'd so to speak be overcome but by the special auxiliaries of GOD himself And thus that so much celebrated and vaunted Division of all things in such as depend not on us and such as we ought not to depend on is a Division that seems agreeable to Reason
granted they are really what they were executed for and this Belief is strengthened by the Discourses that are made of them Should they cease to punish them and treat them as Mad-folks we should see in a little time no more Witches because those that are only imaginarily so which certainly make the greatest number would return to sober Sense again 'T is certain that True Witches deserve Death and that the Imaginary are not to be reputed altogether innocent For generally they never fancy themselves to be Witches without having their Heart dispos'd to go to the Sabbath and anointing their Bodies with some Drug to bring about their wicked Design But by punishing all these Criminals without distinction the common Perswasion gathers strength the Imaginary Witches daily multiply and a great many People destroy their Lives and Souls together Wherefore 't is not without Reason several of our Courts have left off punishing them since which there are found but few that are within their Jurisdiction and the Envy Hatred and Malice of the Wicked cannot use that pretence to the Destruction of the Innocent The Apprehension of Wolf-men or of Men who imagine themselves transform'd into Wolves is a Fancy no less ridiculous A Man by an extraordinary Sally of Imagination falls into a sort of Madness that makes him fancy he grows a Wolf every Night This Disorder of his Mind disposes him to the doing all the Actions that Wolves either do or he has heard of them He leaps then out of his House at Midnight roams along the Streets falls upon some Child he meets with bites tears and miserably misuses it The Stupid and Superstitious People imagine this Fanatick is really turn'd Wolf because the wretch believes it himself and has whisper'd it to some Persons who cannot conceal the Secret Were it an easie thing to form in the Brain such Impressions as perswade Men they are transform'd into Wolves and could they run along the Streets and make all the havock those wretched Wolf-men do without an entire subversion of their Brain as 't is an easie matter for a Man to go to the Witches-Sabbath in his Bed and without waking these notable Stories of Men Metamorphos'd into Wolves would have no less effect than those that are told of the Rendezvous of Witches and we should have as many Wolf-men as we have Wizards But the perswasion of being chang'd into a Wolf supposes a subversion of Brain much harder to be effected than that Disorder of one who only thought he went to the Midnight-Sabbath that is of one who fancy'd he saw in the Night what was not and who when he waked could not distinguish his Dreams from the Thoughts he had in the Day-time 'T is a very common thing for some Men to have such lively Dreams as to remember every particular of them when they wake though the subject of their Dream has nothing in it very terrible and so 't is no hard matter for Men to perswade themselves they have been at the Witches-Sabbath since to this no more is requir'd than that their Brain preserve the footsteps in it which were made by the Animal Spirits in their Sleep The main Reason way we cannot take our Dreams for Realities is the Incoherence we find in our Dreams with the things we have done when awake For hereby we discover they are only Dreams Now this is no Rule for the Sorcerer to judge by that his Sabbath is a Dream for he never goes to the Sabbath but in the Night-time and the Occurrences therein are incapable of having any Connection with the other Actions of the Day so that 't is Morally impossible he should be made sensible of his Error by this Means Nor is there any necessity that the things fancy'd to be seen by these pretended Witches at the Sabbath should have any Natural Order to one another since they seem so much the more real as they are the more extravagant and confus'd in Coherence Wherefore it makes enough for their Deception that the Idea's of these Sabbatic Ceremonies be lively and frightful as 't is impossible they should be otherwise if it be consider'd that they represent things wholly new and extraordinary But the Imagination must be highly distemper'd before a Man can fancy himself a Cock a Goat a Wolf or an Ox which is the reason the thing is no commoner though these Disorders of Mind sometimes happen either through GOD's punitive Justice as in the case of Nebucâ—odonosor related in Scripture or by a natural overflowing of Melancholy in the Brain whereof many Instances are to be met with in the Books of Physicians Though I am satisfy'd that real Witches are extreamly rare and that their Sabbath is nothing but a Dream and that the Courts which throw out the Indictments of Witchcraft are the most equitable yet I doubt not but there may be Sorcerers Charms and Witchcraft and that GOD sometimes permits the Devil to exercise his Malice upon Men. But we are taught by holy Scripture that The Kingdom of Satan is destroy'd and that an Angel of Heaven has chain'd up the Devil and shut him in the Abyss from whence he shall never escape till the end of the World That this is the Strong Man CHRIST has disarm'd and spoil'd and that the time is come when the Prince of the World is banish'd out of his Kingdom He reign'd till the Coming of our SAVIOVR and he reigns still if any one will have it so in those places where the Knowledge of our SAVIOVR is not come But he has no Right or Power over those who are Regenerated in JESVS CHRIST He cannot so much as tempt them unless by GOD's Permission and if he permits it 't is that they may overcome him 'T is therefore doing the Devil too much honour to make such Histories as illustrate his Power as is done by our new Demonographers since these Histories render him formidable to weaker Minds We ought to despise the Devils as we despise Executioners and tremble before GOD alone 'T is his Power we should only fear his Judgments and his Wrath we should only dread and never provoke him by the contempt of his Laws and his Gospel He deserves to be attended to when he speaks himself and so do Men when they speak of him But 't is ridiculous to be frightned and troubled when they speak of the Power of the Devil our trouble is too great an honour to our Enemy who loves to be respected and fear'd and we sacrifice to his Pride when we prostrate and abase our Mind before him 'T is now time to put an end to this Second Book and to remind you by what has been said in this and the Fore-going Book That all the Thoughts the Soul has through the means of or with dependance on the Body are wholly for the Body and are either all false or obscure That they are only instrumental in uniting us to sensible Goods and to whatever can
to have any other Principal End of his Actions than Himself This is a common Notion with all Men capable of any Reflection and Holy Scripture will not suffer us to doubt that GOD has created all things for Himself It is necessary then not only that our Natural Love I mean the Motion he produces in our Mind should tend towards him but also that the Knowledge and the Light he gives it should discover something to us which is in Him For all that comes from GOD can have no other End but GOD. If GOD has made a Mind and given it the Sun for its Idea or for the immediate Object of its Knowledge GOD we should think had made that Mind and the Idea of that Mind for the Sun and not for Himself GOD cannot therefore make a Mind for the Knowledge of his Works were it not that this Mind should in some sort see GOD in contemplating his Works So that it may be said that unless we saw GOD in some manner we should see nothing at all just as we should love nothing at all except we lov'd GOD that is except GOD continually impress'd on us the love of Good in general For that Love being our Will we are unable to love any thing or will any thing without Him since we cannot love particular Goods but by determining towards these Goods the motion of Love that GOD gives us for Himself Thus as we love not any thing but by means of that necessary Love we have for GOD so we know nothing but through that necessary Knowledge we have of Him all the particular Idea's which we have of the Creatures being only the Restrictions of the Idea of the Creator as all the Motions of the Will towards the Creatures are only Determinations of the Motion towards the Creator I suppose there is no Theologist but will agree with me in this that the Impious love GOD with this Natural Love I speak of And St. Augustin and some other of the Fathers maintain'd it as a thing undoubted that the Wicked see in GOD the Rules of Morals and eternal Truths So that the Opinion I am explaining ought not to trouble any body Ab illa incommutabili luce Veritatis etiam impius dum ab ea avertitur quodammodo tangitur Hinc est quod etiam impii cogitant aeternitatem multa rectè reprehendunt rectéque laudant in hominum moribus Quibus ea tandem regulis judicant nisi in quibus vident quemadmodum quisque vivere debeat etiamsi nec ipsi eodem modo vivant Vbi autem eas vident Neque enim in sua natura Nam cum proculdubio mente ista videantur eorumque mentes constet esse mutabiles has verò regulas immutabiles videat quisquis in eis hoc videre potuerit ..... Vbinam ergo sunt istae regulae scriptae nisi in libro lucis illius quae veritas dicitur unde lex omnis justa describitur ...... in qua videt quid operandum sit etiam qui operatur injustitiam ipse est qui ab ea luce avertitur à qua tamen tangitur There are in St. Augustin infinite passages of the like Nature whereby he proves that we see GOD even in this Life through the Knowledge we have of eternal Truths Truth is uncreated immutable immense eternal and above all things It is true independently and by it self and is beholden to nothing else for its Perfection It renders the Creatures more perfect and all Spirits are naturally solicitous to know it nothing can have all these Perfections except GOD therefore Truth is GOD. We see immutable and eternal Truths therefore we see GOD. These are the Reasons of St. Augustin My own are somewhat different and I would not unjustly usurp the Authority of so Great a Man to countenance my Opinion 'T is my thoughts then that Truths even those which are eternal as That twice two are four are not so much as absolute Beings so far am I from believing them to be GOD. For 't is manifest that this Truth consists only in the Relation of Equality which is between twice two and four We do not say then with St. Augustin That we see GOD in seeing eternal Truths but in seeing the Idea's of these Truths for Idea's are real but the Equality between Idea's which is the Truth has nothing real in it When for instance we say the Cloth we measure is three Ells long The Cloth and the Ells are real but the Equality between the three Ells and the Cloth is no real Being but only a Relation intervening between them In saying Twice two are four the Idea's of the Numbers are real but the Equality between them is only a Relation And thus according to our own Opinion we see GOD in seeing eternal Truths not that these Truths are GOD but because the Idea's on which these Truths depend exist in GOD and perhaps too St. Augustin understood it so We are perswaded also that we know changeable and corruptible Truths in GOD though St. Augustin speaks only of the immutable and incorruptible since there is no need of subjecting GOD to any imperfection on this account nothing being more requir'd than that GOD gives us a Manifestation of what He has in Himself which relates to these things But when I say that we see in GOD material and sensible Things special Notice should be taken that I don't say We have the Sensations of them in GOD but only that they proceed from GOD who acts upon us For GOD perfectly knows sensible things but not by any Sensation In perceiving any thing of a sensible Nature two things occur in our Perception Sensation and Pure Idea The Sensation is a Modification of our Soul and 't is GOD who causes it in us which he is able to cause though He has it not Himself because he sees in the Idea he has of our Soul that it is capable of it As to the Idea which is found joyn'd to the Sensation that is in GOD and we see it because he is pleas'd to discover it to us And GOD joyns the Sensation to the Idea when the Objects are present to the intent we may believe them so and may enter into the Sentiments and Passions that we ought to have with relation to them We believe lastly that all Spirits see the eternal Laws no less than other things in GOD but with some difference They know the Divine Order and the Eternal Truths and even the Beings GOD has made according to this Order and these Truths through the Union they necessarily have with the WORD or the WISDOM of GOD who enlightens them as we have before explain'd But 't is through the impression they without intermission receive from the Will of GOD which carries them towards Him and strives as I may so say to conform their Will entirely like His own that they know this Order to be a Law I mean that they know the Eternal Laws
him also to be an Opiniastre and so conclude all Devoutness Wilfulness and Bigottry Nay they think the Vertuous and Good more Opinionated than the Vicious and Wicked Because these latter urging their Corrupt Opinions as they are buoy'd up by the different commotions of their Blood and Passions stay not long in the same Sentiments but desert them Whereas the Religious remain constant and immovable in theirs as being built upon fixed and unshaken Foundations which depend not on any thing so wavering as the Circulation of the Blood See now the reason why the common sort of People judge the Pious and Vertuous as Opinionated as the Vicious Which is That Good Men are as Passionate for Truth and Vertue as Wicked Men for Vice and Falshood Both one and the other talk much after the same Manner in defending their Opinions In this they are alike though they differ in the Main But this is enough for the World that is unable to distinguish their Reasons and acknowledge the Difference to judge them Alike in every thing because they are Alike in that external way whereof every body is a competent Judge The Godly then are not Obstinate and Opinionated they are only Constant as they ought to be But the Vicious and Licentious are ever Opinionated though they continue but an Hour in their Opinion For those are the Opinionated only who defend a False Opinion though they defend it but a little time The case is much the same with some Philosophers who maintain Chimerical Opinions which they afterwards reject They would have others who defend certain Truths the certainty whereof they plainly see to quit them as Naked Opinions as themselves have done those they were impertinently conceited with And because 't is not easie to pay Deference to them to the prejudice of Truth and the Love a Man naturally has for her makes him heartily espouse her they judge this Man an Opiniastre Those Persons would be to blame obstinately to defend their Chimera's but the others are to be commended for maintaining Truth with Strength and Resolution of Mind The Manner of them both is the same but the Sentiments are different And 't is this Difference of Sentiments which makes the one Constant and the other Obstinate and Opiniated The Conclusion of the Three First Books FROM the Beginning of this Treatise I have distinguish'd as it were two Parts in the Simple and Indivisible Essence of the Soul one whereof was purely Passive the other both Active and Passive together The First is the Mind or Vnderstanding the Second is the Will I have attributed to the Mind three Faculties because it receives its Modifications and its Idea's from the Author of Nature three several ways I have called it Sense when it receives from GOD Idea's confounded with Sensations that is Sensible Idea's upon occasion of some Motions happening in the Organs of the Senses by the Presence of Objects I nam'd it Imagination and Memory when it receiv'd from GOD Idea's confounded with Images which make a sort of languid and feeble Sensaâ—ions which the Mind receives only from some Traces produc'd or excited in the Brain by the Course of the Animal Spirits Lastly I call'd it Pure Mind or Pure Intellect when it receives from GOD the All-pure Idea's of Truth without any mixture of Sensations and Images not by the Union it hath with the Body but with that it has with the WORD or WISDOM of GOD not because it exists in the Material and Sensible World but because it subsists in the Immaterial and Intelligible World not for the knowing Mutable things that are fit for the Preservation of Corporeal Life but for piercing into Immutable Truths which conserve in us the Life of the Spirit I have shewn in the First and Second Book That our Senses and Imagination are very useful to the knowing the Relations External Bodies have to our own that all the Idea's the Mind receives by means of the Body are for the Interest of the Body that 't is impossible to discover any Truth whatever with Evidence by the Idea's of the Senses and Imagination that these confus'd Idea's are of use only in uniting us to our Body and by our Body to all sensible things and that lastly if we desir'd to avoid Error we should not credit their Reports I concluded likewise That it was Morally impossible to know by the pure Idea's of the Mind the Relations which Bodies have with our own that we ought not to reason upon these Idea's to know whether an Apple or a Stone are good to eat but the way to know is to try by Tasting And that though we may employ our Intellect for obtaining a confus'd Knowledge of the Relations foreign Bodies have with ours 't is always the surest way to make use of our Senses I give one Instance more since so necessary and essential things cannot be too deeply imprinted on the Mind I have a Mind to examine for Example Whether 't is more advantagious to be Just or Rich. If I open the Eyes of my Body Justice looks like a Chimaera I see no Allurements that it has The Just I see miserable deserted persecuted naked of Defence and destitute of Comfort For He that is their Comforter and Supporter is not apparent to my Eyes In a word I see not what use Justice and Vertue can be put to But if I contemplate Riches with my Eyes open I presently see the Lustre and Splendor of them and am dazl'd Power Greatness Pleasure and all sensible Goods are the Retinue and Attendants of Wealth and I have no room to doubt but a Man must be Rich if he will be happy Again If I employ my Ears I hear how all Men have Riches in Esteem and that their Talk is only about ways of acquiring them and that they are constantly giving Praises Incense and Honour to those that possess them This Sense then and all the rest inform me that I must be Rich before I can be Happy But let me shut my Eyes and stop my Ears and only interrogate my Imagination and it will constantly represent what my Eyes had seen what they had read and what my Ears had heard to the Advantage and Commendation of Riches but it will represent them in a quite other manner than my Senses For the Imagination always augments the Idea's of those things which are related to the Body and are the Objects of our Love If I resign my self to its Conduct it will presently lead me into an Inchanted Palace much what the same with those celebrated by Poets and Romancers in magnificent Descriptions and here I shall be ravish'd in gazing on those Beauties that need not be describ'd which will convince me that the God of Riches that inhabits it is the only capable of making me Happy Lo here what my Body is able to perswade me for it speaks only on its own behalf and 't is necessary to its welfare that the Imagination bow
being not the Modification of Extension our Soul is not annihilated on supposition that our Body were annihilated by Death But we have no reason to imagine that even the Body is annihilated when it is destroy'd The parts that make it up are dissolv'd into Vapours and reduc'd into Dust we neither see nor know them any more I confess but we cannot hence conclude they exist not For the Mind perceives them still If we separate a Mustard-seed into two or four or twenty parts we annihilate it to our Eyes because we see it no longer But 't is not annihilated in it self or to the Mind for the Mind discerns it though divided into a thousand or an hundred thousand parts 'T is a common Notion and receiv'd by all that use their Reason rather than their Senses That nothing can be annihilated by the ordinary force of Nature For as 't is naturally impossible for something to be produc'd from nothing so 't is impossible for a Substance or Being to be reduc'd to nothing Bodies indeed may corrupt if you call Corruption the Changes that befall them but cannot be annihilated What is round may become square what is Flesh may become Earth Vapour and whatever you please for all Extention is capable of all sorts of Configuration But the Substance of what is round or Flesh can never perish There are certain settled Laws in Nature by which Bodies change successively their Forms because the successive Variety of these Forms makes the Beauty of the Universe and causes us to admire its Author But there is no Law in Nature for the annihilation of any Being because Nothingness wants all Beauty as well as Goodness and the Author of Nature is the Lover of his works Bodies then may change but can never perish But if any one sticking to the Verdict of his Senses shall obstinately maintain that the dissolution of Bodies is a true Annihilation because the parts they resolve into are invisible Let him do so much as remember that Bodies cannot be divided into these invisible parts but by reason of their Extension For if the Mind be not extended it must be indivisible and if indivisible must be acknowledg'd incorruptible in that sense But how can the Mind be imagin'd extended and divisible A right Line will divide a Square into two Triangles Parallelograms or Trapezia But by what Line may a Pleasure a Pain or a Desire be conceiv'd to be divided and what Figure would result from that Division Certainly I cannot believe the Imagination so fruitful in false Ideas as to satisfie it self in this particular The Mind therefore is neither extended nor divisible nor susceptible of the same changes as the Body and yet it must be own'd that it is not immutable by its Nature If the Body is capable of an infinite number of different Figures and different Configurations the Mind is likewise capable of a world of different Ideas and different Modifications And as after our Death the Substance of our Flesh will resolve into Earth Vapours and infinite other Bodies without annihilation so our Soul without falling back into Nothing will have Thoughts and Sensations very different from those she has during this Life At present 't is necessary that we live and that our Body be compos'd of Flesh and Bone and in order to live 't is necessary the Soul should have Ideas and Sensations relating to the Body she is joyn'd to But when she shall be divested of her Body she shall enter upon a perfect Liberty of receiving all sorts of Ideas and Modifications very different from those she has at present as the Body on its part shall be free to receive all sorts of Figures and Canfigurations nothing like those it is oblig'd to make the Body of a living Man It is if I mistake not manifest from what I have said That the Immortality of the Soul is no such hard thing to comprehend Whence comes it then that so many doubt of it but from their Inadvertency and want of Attention to the Reasons that are requisite to convince them or whence proceeds this negligence but from the Unsetledness and Inconstancy of the Will incessantly disturbing the Understanding So as not to give it leasure for a distinct Preception even of Ideas that are the most present to it such as are those of Thought and Extension as a Man in the heat of a Passion casting his Eyes round about him seldom distinguishes the Objects that are nearest and most expos'd to View For indeed the Question of the Immortality of the Soul is one of the easiest to be resolv'd when without listning to the Imagination we bring the Mind attentively to consider the clear and distinct Idea of Extension and the Relation it can have with Thought If the Inconstancy and Levity of the Will hinders the Understanding from piercing to the bottom of things that are most present to it and of mightiest Importance to be known 't is easie to judge what greater Remoras it will afford the Mind to prevent its Meditating on such as are Remote and Unconcerning So that if we are under the Grossest Ignorance and Blindness as to most things of greatest consequence to be known I can't tell how we should be very Intelligent and Enlightened as to those that seem altogether Impertinent and Fruitless This I need not stand to prove by tedious Instances and which contain no considerale Truths for if we must be ignorant of any thing that best can be despens'd with which is of no use and I had rather not be credited than make the Reader lose time by unprofitable things Though there are but very few that are seriously taken up with things altogether Vain and Useless yet those few are too many But the number can't be too great of such as neglect them and despise them provided only they forbear to judge of them A limited Understanding is not blameable for not knowing several things but only for judging of them For Ignorance is an unavoidable Evil But Errour both may and ought to be avoided Ignorance of many things is excusable but headlong inconsiderate Judgments never When things are nearly related to us are Sensible and easily Imaginable we may say that the Mind intends them and that some Knowledge of them is attainable for knowing that they relate to us we think of them with some inclination and feeling them to affect us our Application grows pleasant and delightful So that we should as to many things be wiser than we are but for the Restlesness and Agitation of our Will that perpetually troubles and fatigues our Attention But when things are abstract and insensible 't is difficult to acquire any certain Knowledge of them not that abstract things are in their own Nature intricate and puzling but because the Attention and View of the Mind commonly begins and ends with the Sensible View of Objects for as much as we mostly think of only what we see and feel and
the Will of man as a Will it essentially depends on the Love that God bears to himself on the Eternal Law and in short on the Will of God It is only because God loves himself that we love any thing for if God did not love himself or did not continually influence the Soul of man with a Love like his own that is with the Motion of Love which a Man feels in himself for Good in general we should love nothing we should will nothing and consequently should be destitute of Will since Will is nothing else but that Impression of Nature that carries us towards Good in general as hath been said several times But the Will considered as the Will of Man essentially depends upon the Body since it is by reason of the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits that it feels its self affected with all its sensible Commotions And therefore I have called Natural Inclinations all the Motions which the Soul has common with pure Intelligences together with some in which the Body hath a great Share but of which it is only the indirect Cause and End and I have explained them in the foregoing Book Here I understand by Passions All the Motions which naturally affect the Soul on occasion of the extraordinary Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits And so shall these sensible Commotions be the Subject of this Book Though the Passions be inseparable from the Inclinations and Men be only susceptible of a sensible Love and Hatred because they are capable of a Spiritual Love and Hatred however it was though fit to treat of them separately in order to prevent Confusion For if it be considered That the Passions are far stronger and livelyer than the Natural Inclinations that they have for the most part other Objects and are always produced by different Causes it will be granted That we do not distinguish without Reason things that are inseparable in their own Nature Men are capable of Sensations and Imaginations only because they are capable of pure Intellections the Senses and Imagination being inseparable from the Mind and yet none finds fault with those that distinctly treat of those Faculties of the Soul which are naturally inseparable Last of all the Senses and Imagination differ not more from the pure Understanding than the Passions from the Inclinations And therefore as the three first Faculties use to be distinguished so ought also the two last that we may the better distinguish what the Soul receives from its Author with Relation to its Body from that which it also has from him but without that Relation The only Inconveniency that may grow out of the distinction of two things so naturally united is the necessity of repeating some things that had been said before as is usual in the like occasions Man is one though he be Compounded of several parts and the union of those parts is so intimate that one of them cannot be affected without a Commotion of the whole All his Faculties are linked together and so subordinated that it is impossible to explain some of them without touching upon the others So that when we labour to find out a Method to prevent Confusion we necessarily fall into Repetitions but 't is better to repeat than not to be Methodical because we ought above all to be plain and intelligible and therefore whatever we can doe in this occasion is to repeat if possible without wearying the Reader The Passions of the Soul are Impressions of the Author of Nature which incline us to love our Body and whatever is useful for its preservation As the natural Inclinations are Impressions of the same Author that principally move us to love him as the Sovereign Good The natural or occasional Cause of these Impressions is the Motion of the Animal Spirits which disperse through the Body to produce and maintain in it a disposition suitable to the Object perceiv'd that the Mind and Body may in that conjuncture mutually help each other For 't is the Institution of God that our Willings be attended with such Motions of our Body as are fit to put them in execution and that the Motions of our Body which Machinally rise in us at the perception of some Object be follow'd with a Passion of the Soul that inclines us to will what seems at that time profitable to the Body It is the continual Impression of the Will of God upon us that keeps us so strictly united to a portion of matter for if that Impression of his Will should cease but a moment we should instantly be rid of the Dependency upon our Body and all the Changes it undergoes For I cannot understand what some people imagine that there is a necessary Connection betwixt the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits and the Commotions of the Soul Some small Particles of Choler violently move in the Brain must therefore the Soul be agitated with some Passion and must that Passion be Anger rather than Love What Relation can there be conceived betwixt the Idea of an Enemy's Imperfections the Passion of Contempt or Hatred and the Corporeal Motion of some Particles of the Blood that beat against some parts of the Brain How they can imagine that the one depend upon the other and that the Union or Connection of two things so distant and so incompatible as the Mind and Matter can be caused and preserved any otherwise than by the continual and Almighty Will of the Author of Nature is to me unconceivable Those that suppose that Bodies necessarily and by themselves communicate their Motion to each other in the instant of their concourse make but a probable supposition neither is their prejudice altogether groundless since Bodies seem to have an Essential Relation to Bodies But the Mind and Body are two sorts of Beings so opposite that those who think that the Commotions of the Soul necessarily follow upon the Motion of the Blood and Animal Spirits do it without the least probability For nothing but our own Consciousness of the Union of those two Beings and the Ignorance of the continual Operations of God upon his Creatures can make us imagine another Cause of the Union of our Soul and Body than the Will of God It is hard to determine whether that Union or Connection of the thoughts of the Mind of Man with the Motions of his Body is a punishment of Sin or a Gift of Nature And some persons believe it a rash and imprudent Attempt to chuse one of these Opinions rather than the other It is well known that Man before his Sin was not a Slave but absolute Master of his Passions and that he could merely by his Will stop at his pleasure the Agitation of the Blood that caused them But we can hardly persuade our selves that the Body did not importune the Soul of the first Man to find out such things as were fit for the preservation of his Life We can scarce believe but Adam before his
of our Heart This is the utmost possible Blindness 't is according to St. Paul the temporal Punishment of Impiety and Idolatry that is to say the Desert of the most enormous Crimes And herein indeed the greatness of this terrible Punishment consists that instead of allaying the Anger of God as do all the others in this World it continually exasperates and encreases it till that dreadful Day comes wherein his just Wrath shall break out to the Confusion of Sinners Their Arguings however seem likely enough as being agreeable to common Sense countenanc'd by the Passions and such I am sure as all the Philosophy of Zeno could never overthrow We must love Good say they Pleasure is the Sign which Nature has affix'd to it to make it known and that Sign can never be fallacious since God has instituted it to distinguish Good from Evil. We must avoid Evil say they again Pain is the Character which Nature has annex'd to it and a Token in which we cannot be mistaken since it was instituted by God for the distinguishing it from Good We feel Pleasure in complying with our Passions Trouble and Pain in opposing them and therefore the Author of Nature will have us to give up our selves to our Passions and never to resist them since the Pleasure and Pain wherewith he affects us in those Cases are the infallible Criterion of his Will And consequently it is to follow God to comply with the Desire of our Hearts and 't is to obey his Voice to yield to the Instinct of Nature which moves us to the satisfying our Senses and our Passions This is their way of Reasoning whereby they confirm themselves in their infamous Opinions And thus they think to shun the secret Reproofs of their Reason and in Punishment of their Crime God suffers them to be dazzled by those false Glimpses delusive Glarings which blind them instead of inlightning them and strike them with such an insensible Blindness as they do not so much as wish to be cured of it God delivers them to a reprobate Sense he gives them up to the Desires of their corrupt Heart to shameful Passions to Actions unworthy of Men as the Holy Scripture speaks that having fatned themselves by their Debauches they may to all Eternity be the fit Sacrifice of his Vengeance But let us solve this Difficulty which they offer The Sect of Zeno not knowing how to untie the Knot has cut it by denying that Pleasure is a Good and Pain an Evil But that 's too venturous a Stroke and a Subterfuge unbecoming Philosophers and very unlikely I am sure to convert those who are convinc'd by Experience That a great Pain is a great Evil. Since therefore Zeno and all his Heathen Philosophy cannot solve the Difficulty of the Epicures we must have recourse to a more solid and inlightned Philosophy 'T is true that Pleasure is Good and Pain Evil and that Pleasure and Pain have been join'd by the Author of Nature to the Use of certain Things by which we judge whether they are Good or Evil which make us persue the Good and fly from the Evil and almost ever follow the Motions of the Passions All this is true but relates only to the Body which to preserve and keep long a Life much like to that of Beasts we must suffer our selves to be ruled by our Passions and Desires The Senses and Passions are only given us for the good of the Body sensible Pleasure is the indelible Character which Nature has affix'd to the Use of certain Things that without putting our Reason to the trouble of examining them we might presently imploy them for the preservation of the Body but not with intent that we should love them For we ought only to love those Things which Reason undoubtedly manifests to be our Good We are Reasonable Beings and God who is our Sovereign Good requires not of us a blind an instinctive a compell'd Love as I may say but a Love of Choice an enlightned Love a Love that submits to him our whole Intellectual and Moral Powers He inclines us to the Love of him in shewing us by the Light that attends the Delectation of his Grace that he is our Chief Good but he moves us towards the Good of the Body only by Instinct and a confused Sensation of Pleasure because the Good of the Body is undeserving of either the Attention of our Mind or the Exercise of our Reason Moreover our Body is not our selves 't is something that belongs to us and absolutely speaking we cannot subsist without it The Good of the Body therefore is not properly our Good for Bodies can be but the Good of Bodies We may make use of them for the Body but we must not be taken up with them Our Soul has also her own Good viz. the only Good that is superiour to her the only one that preserves her that alone produces in her Sensations of Pleasure and Pain For indeed none of the Objects of the Senses can of themselves give us any Sensation of them it is only God who assures us of their Presence by the Sensation he gives us of them which is a Truth that was never understood by the Heathen Philosophers We may and must love that which is able to make us sensible of Pleasure I grant it But by that very Reason we ought only to love God because he only can act upon our Soul and the utmost that sensible Objects can do is to move the Organs of our Senses But what matters it you 'll say from whence those grateful Sensations come I will taste ' em O thou ungrateful Wretch know the Hand that showres down Good upon thee You require of a just God unjust Rewards You desire he should recompence you for the Crimes you commit against him and even at the very time of committing them you make use of his immutable Will which is the Order and Law of Nature to wrest from him undeserved Favours for with a guilty Managery you produce in your Body such Motions as oblige him to make you relish all sorts of Pleasures But Death shall dissolve that Body and God whom you have made subservient to your unjust Desires will make you subservient to his just Anger and mock at you in his turn 'T is very hard I confess that the Enjoyment of Corporeal Good should be attended with Pleasure and that the Possession of the Good of the Soul should often be conjoin'd with Pain and Anguish We may indeed believe it to be a great Disorder by this Reason that Pleasure being the Character of Good and Pain of Evil we ought to possess a Satisfaction infinitely greater in loving God than in making use of sensible Things since He is the true or rather the only Good of the Mind So doubtless will it be one Day and so was it most probably before Sin entred into the World At least 't is very certain that before the Fall Man suffered
is not strange that our Sensations should agitate us and quicken our love for sensible things whereas our Light dissipates and vanishes without producing any zeal and ardency for Truth 'T is true that several Men are persuaded that God is their real Good love him as their All and earnestly desire to strengthen and increase their Union with him But few evidently know that by meditating on the Truth we unite our selves to God as far as natural strength can attain that it is a sort of Enjoyment of him to contemplate the true Ideas of things and that that abstracted view of some general and immutable Truths on which all the particulars depend are flights of a Mind that sequesters it self from the Body to unite it self to God Metaphysicks speculative Mathematicks and all those universal Sciences which regulate and contain the particular as the Universal Being comprehends all particular Beings seem to be Chimerical to most Men as well to the pious as to those that do not love God So that I dare hardly make bold to say that the study of those Sciences is the most pure and perfect Application to God that the Mind may be naturally capable of and that it is by the sight of the Intellectual World which is their Object that God has produced and still knows this sensible World from which Bodies receive their Life as Spirits live from the other Those that purely follow the Impressions of their Senses and motions of their Passions are not capable of relishing the Truth because it flatters them not And even the Vertuous who constantly oppose their Passions when they proffer them false Goods do not always resist them when they conceal from them the Truth and make it despicable because one may be pious without being a Man of parts To please God we need not exactly know that our Senses Imagination and Passions always represent things otherwise than they are since it appears not that our Lord and his Apostles ever intended to undeceive us of several Errours upon this matter which Descartes has discover'd to us There is a great difference betwixt Faith and Understanding the Gospel and Philosophy the greatest Clowns are capable of Faith but few can attain to the pure Knowledge of Evident Truth Faith represents to vulgar Men God as the Creator of Heaven and Earth which is a sufficient motive of Love and Duty towards him whereas Reason knowing that God was God before he was Creator not only considers him in his Works but also endeavours to contemplate him in himself or in that immense Idea of the infinitely perfect Being which is included in him The Son of God who is the Wisdom of his Father or the Eternal Truth made himself Man and became sensible that he might be known by Men of Flesh and Blood by gross material Men that he might instruct them by that which was the Cause of their Blindness and draw them to the love of him and disengage them from sensible goods by the same things that had enslav'd them for having to doe with Fools he thought fit to take upon him a sort of Folly whereby to make them wise So that the most pious Men and truest Believers have not always the greatest Understanding They may know God by Faith and love him by the help of his Grace without understanding that he is their All in the sense Philosophers understand him and without thinking that the abstracted Knowledge of Truth is a sort of a Union with him We ought not therefore to be surprized if so few Persons labour to strengthen their natural Union with God by the Knowledge of Truth since to this there is required a continual opposition of the Impressions of the Senses and Passions in a very different way from that which is usual with the Vertuous who are not always persuaded that the Senses and Passions abuse them in the manner that has been explain'd in the foregoing Books The Sensations and Thoughts in which the Body has a share are the sole and immediate Cause of the Passions as proceeding from the Concussion of the Fibres of the Brain raising some particular Commotion in the Animal Spirits And therefore Sensations are the only sensible proofs of our dependence on some things which they excite us to love but we feel not our Natural Union with God when we know the Truth and do not so much as think upon him because he is and operates in us so privately and insensibly as to be imperceptible to our selves And this is the Reason that our natural Union with God raises not our Love for him But it goes quite otherwise with our Union to sensible things All our Sensations prove it and Bodies appear before our Eyes when they act in us Their Action is visible and manifest Our Body is even more present to us than our Mind and we consider the former as the best part of our Selves So that our Union to our Body and by it to sensible Objects excites in us a violent Love which increases that Union and makes us depend on things that are infinitely below us CHAP. VI. Of the more general Errours of the Passions with some particular Instances 'T IS the part of Moral Philosophy to discover the particular Errours concerning Good in which our Passions engage us to oppose irregular affections to restore the Integrity of the Heart and to rule the Course of our Life But here we chiefly aim at giving Rules to the Mind and finding out the Causes of our Errours in reference to Truth so that we shall not proceed farther in those Matters that relate to the Love of true Good We are tending to the Instruction of the Mind and only take the Heart in the way in as much as the Heart is its Master We search into Truth it self without a special Respect to our selves and we consider its Relation with us only because that Relation is the Spring of Self-love's disguising and concealing it from us for we judge of all things by our Passions whence it is that we mistake in all things the Judgments of Passions never agreeing with the Judgments of Truth 'T is what we learn in these excellent Words of St. Bernard Neither Love nor Hatred know how to make a Judgment according to Truth Will you hear a true Judgment As I hear I judge says our Lord he says not as I hate as I love or as I fear Here you have a Judgment of Hatred We have a Law say the Jews and by that Law he ought to die Here a Judgment of Fear If we let him alone say the Pharisees the Romans shall come and take away our Place and Nation Here another of Love as that of David speaking of his Parricide Son Spare the young Man Absalom Our Love Hatred and Fear cause us to make false Judgments only Nothing but the pure Light of Truth can illuminate our Mind nothing but the distinct Voice of our common Master can cause us to make
Lines Geometrical Consequences may be drawn from them and when those Consequences are made sensible by Lines 't is almost impossible to mistake Thus may Sciences be carried very far with great easiness For Instance The Reason why we distinctly know and precisely mark an Octave a Fifth a Fourth in Musick is that the Sounds are expressed by Strings exactly divided and that we know that the String which sounds an Octave is in double proportion with that from whence the Octave rises that a Fifth is with it in a Sesquialter Proportion or as 3 to 2 and so of the rest For the Ear alone cannot judge of Sounds with so much nicety and accuracy as a Science requires The most skilful Practitioners the most delicate and nicest Ears are not sensible enough to observe the difference betwixt certain Sounds and judging of things by the Sensation they have of them fasly imagine that there 's none at all Some cannot distinguish betwixt an Octave and 3 thirds others fancy that the Major Tone differs not from the Minor so that the Comma which is their Difference is insensible to them and much more the Schisma which is but the half of the Comma And therefore 't is Reason alone that manifestly shews us that the space of the String which makes the Difference betwixt certain Sounds being divisible into several parts there may still be a great number of different Sounds very usefull for Musick which the Ear cannot distinguish Whence it plainly appears that without Arithmetick and Geometry we should have no exact and regular Knowledge of Musick neither could we succeed in that Science but by Chance and Imagination and so Musick would cease from being a Science grounded upon undeniable Demonstrations In the mean while it must be granted that the Songs which owe their birth to the strength of Imagination are for the most part finer and more pleasant to the Senses than those that are composed by Rule And likewise in Mechanicks the Heaviness of a Body and the Distance of the Centre of Heaviness from its Prop being capable of more of less both may be figured by Lines So that Geometry is usefull to discover and demonstrate an infinite number of new Inventions very convenient to this Life and pleasing to the Mind because of their Evidence For Instance If a Weight of six pounds is to be put in aequilibrium with one of three let that Weight of six pound hang on the Arm of a Balance at two Foot distance from the Prop then only knowing this general Principle of all Mechanicks That Weights to stand in aequilibrium must be in a reciprocal Proportion with their Distances from the Prop that is That one Weight must be to the other as the Distance betwixt the last Weight and the Prop is to the Distance of the first Weight from the said Prop it will be easie to find out by Geometry what must be the Distance of a Weight of Three pounds that all may remain in aequilibrio if you find by the Twelfth Proposition of the Sixth Book of Euclid a fourth proportional Line which here will be of four Foot So that you may plainly discover all the Truths that depend upon that fundamental Principle of Mechanicks when once known by the use of Geometry that is by representing with Lines whatever can be considered in Mechanicks Geometrical Lines and Figures are therefore most proper to represent to the Imagination the Relations betwixt Magnitudes or betwixt things that differ in degree of more and less as Spaces Times Weights c. as well because they are most simple Objects as that they are imagin'd with great easiness It may even be said to the Honour of Geometry That Lines can represent to the Imagination more things than the Mind can know Since Lines can express the Relations of incommensurable Magnitudes that is such Relations as cannot be known because there is no common Measure to compare them together But that Advantage is not very considerable as to the Search after Truth because those sensible Representations of incommensurable Magnitudes discover nothing to the Mind Geometry is therefore exceedingly useful to make the Mind attentive to those things whose Relations we desire to discover However it must be granted that it is sometimes an Occasion of Errour because the evident and pleasant Demonstrations of that Science takes us up so much that we have not a sufficient Regard for the Consideration of Nature Thence it comes that the new-invented Engines do not all succeed that those Musical Composures in which the Proportions of Consonances are best observed are not always the most grateful and that the most accurate Calculations of Astronomy do not always best foretell the Incidence and Duration of Eclipses Nature is not abstracted Levers and Wheels in Mechanicks are not Mathematical Lines and Circles All Men are not pleased with the same Musical Tunes nor even the same Man at different times for their Satisfaction proceeds from the Commotions of their Spirits than which nothing can be more variable And as to Astronomy the Course of the Planets is not perfectly regular whilst floating in the vast Spaces they are irregularly carried by the fluid Matter that surrounds them So that the Errours of Astronomy Musick Mechanicks and all Sciences in which Geometry is used are not to be ascribed to that undoubted Science but to the false Application that is made of it For Instance we suppose that Planets by their Motion describe Circles and Ellipses perfectly regular And though that be not exactly true yet wâ— doe well to suppose it so that we may draw Inferences from thence and because it wants but little of being true but we must still remember that the Principle from which we argue is a Supposition Likewise in Mechanicks we suppose Wheels and Levers perfectly hard without gravity and rubbing and like to Mathematical Lines and Circles or rather we have not a sufficient consideration for the said Gravity and rubbing for the Nature of the Matter and the Relation those things have betwixt them We mind not that Hardness and Bulk increase Heaviness Heaviness fretting whilst fretting diminishes Force and causes the Engine to break or wears it out very quickly So that what often succeeds upon a small portion of Matter seldom takes effect upon a great Body No wonder therefore if we mistake since we argue from Principles not fully known nor yet because it rids us not of all Errours must we imagine Geometry useless It makes us draw from our Suppositions very true and consequential Inferences and affords us an evident Knowledge of what we consider by making us attentive We can even discover by its means the Falshood of our Suppositions for being certain of the Truth of our Reasonings which however do not agree with Experience we discover that our Principles are false But without Geometry and Arithmetick we can discover nothing that is somewhat difficult in the most accurate Sciences though we argue from
Ideas for we must only reason upon our Ideas and if there be any thing of which we have no clear distinct and particular Idea we shall never know it nor argue from it with any Certainty Whereas perhaps by reasoning upon our Ideas we may follow Nature and perhaps discover that she is not so hidden as is commonly imagin'd As those who have not study'd the Properties of Numbers often imagine that it is not possible to resolve some Problemes which are however simple and easie so those that have not meditated upon the Properties of Extension Figures and Motions are very apt to believe and even to assert that most part of the Physical Questions are inexplicable But we must not be deterr'd by the Opinion of those who have examin'd nothing or nothing at least with due Application For though few Truths concerning Natural Things have been fully demonstrated yet 't is certain that there are some that are general which cannot be doubted of though it be very possible not to think upon them to know nothing of them and to deny them If we meditate orderly and with due Time and all necessary Application we shall discover several of those certain Truths I speak of But for more Conveniency it will be requisite carefully to read des Cartes's Principles of Philosophy without approving of any thing he says till the Strength and Plainness of his Reasons shall suffer us to doubt no longer As Moral Philosophy is the most necessary of all Sciences so it must be study'd with the greatest Application it being very dangerous to follow in this the Opinions of Men. But to the avoiding Errour and keeping to Evidence in our Perceptions we must only meditate upon such Principles as are confess'd by all those whose Hearts are not corrupted by Debauchery and their Minds blinded with Pride For there is no Moral Principle undeniable to Minds of Flesh and Blood who aspire to the Quality of Bold Wits Such People conceive not the most simple Truths or if they do they constantly deny them through a Spirit of Contradiction and to keep up the Reputation of great Wits Some of the most general Principles of Morality are That God having made all things for himself has made our Understanding to know and our Will to love him That being so just and powerful as he is we cannot be happy but by obeying his Commands nor be unhappy in following them That our Nature is corrupted our Mind depending on our Body our Reason on our Senses and our Will on our Passions That we are uncapable of performing what we plainly see to be our Duty and that we have need of a Redeemer There are yet many other Moral Principles as That Retirement and Penitency are necessary to diminish our Union with sensible Objects and to increase that which we have with intelligible Goods true Goods and the Goods of the Mind That we cannot enjoy vehement Pleasures without becoming Slaves to them That nothing must be undertaken by Passion That we must not long for Settlements in this Life c. But because these last Principles depend on the former and on the Knowledge of Man it behoves us not to take them at first for granted If we orderly meditate upon those Principles with as much Care and Application as so great a Subject deserves and admit no Conclusion for true but such as follows from those Principles we shall compose a very certain System of Morals and perfectly agreeable with that of the Gospel though not so large and compleat I grant that in Moral Reasonings it is not so easie to preserve Evidence and Exactness as in some other Sciences and that the Knowledge of Man being absolutely necessary to those that will proceed far many Learners make no considerable Progresses therein They will not consult themselves to be sensible of the Weakness of their Nature They are soon weary of interrogating the Master who inwardly teaches them his Will that is the Immutable and Eternal Laws and the true Principles of Morality They cannot listen with Pleasure to him that speaks not to their Senses who answers not according to their Desires and flatters not their secret Pride They have no Veneration for such Words the Lustre of which dazles not their Imagination which are lowly pronounc'd and never distinctly heard but when the Creatures are silent But they consult with Pleasure and Reverence Aristotle Seneca or some new Philosophers who seduce them by the Obscurity of their Words by the Elegancy of their Expressions or the Probability of their Reasons Since the Fall of our first Parents we esteem nothing but what refers to the Preservation of the Body and the Conveniencies of Life and as we discover that sort of Good by means of the Senses so we endeavour to use them on all Occasions The Eternal Wisdom which is our true Life and the only Light that can illuminate us often shines but upon the Blind and speaks but to the Deaf when it speaks within the Recesses of our Soul because we are for the most part exercis'd abroad And as we are continually putting Questions to the Creatures to learn any News from them of the Good we are in search of it was requisite as I have said elsewhere that this Wisdom should offer it self to our Senses yet without going out of our selves that we might learn by sensible Words and convincing Examples the way to eternal Happiness God perpetually imprints on us a natural Love for him that we may always love him yet by that same Motion of Love we incessantly recede from him running with all the strength he gives us to the sinsible Good which he forbids us to love and therefore as he desires we should love him so he must make himself sensible and offer himself before us to stop by the delectation of his Grace all our restless Agitations and begin our Cure by Sensations or Satisfactions like to the preventing Pleasures that had been the Original of our Disease For these reasons I pretend not that Men may easily discover by the strength of their Mind all the Rules of Morality necessary to Salvation and much less that they should be able to act according to their Light for their Heart is still more corrupted than their Mind I only say that if they admit nothing but evident Principles and argue consequently from them they shall discover the same Truths that are taught us in the Gospel because it is the same Wisdom which speaks immediately and by it self to those that discover the Truth in evident Reasonings and which speaks in the Holy Scriptures to those that understand them in their right sense We must therefore study Morality in the Gospel to spare our selves the trouble of Meditation and to learn with certainty the Laws and Rules of our Life and Manners As to those who are not satisfied with a bare Certainty because it only convinces the Mind without enlightening it they must meditate upon those Laws and
we must put Queries to them in order to illuminate and determine them If by these Queries we discover that their Ideas are not agreeable with ours 't is in vain to answer them for to answer one who imagines that a Desire for instance is nothing but the Motion of some small Particles call'd Spirits that a Thought is but a Trace or an Image which the Objects or those Spirits have left in the Brain and that all the Reasonings of Men consist but in the various Situation of some little Corpuscles which dispose themselves differently in the Head to answer him I say that the Soul taken in his Sense is immortal is to deceive him or to appear ridiculous to him but to tell him that she is mortal is in some Sense to confirm him in a very dangerous Errour we must then reply nothing at all but only endeavour to make him retire into himself that he may receive the same Ideas that we have from him who is only able to enlighten him 'T is likewise a Question which seems pretty difficult To know whether Beasts have a Soul however the Equivocation being taken off it is so far from being hard that those who suppose they have one and those that think they have none are ignorantly at bottom of the same Opinion The Soul may be taken for something Corporeal dispersed through all the Body which gives it Life and Motion or else for something Spiritual Those that pretend Beasts have no Soul understand it in the second Sense for never any Man denied that there is in Animals something Corporeal which is the Principle of their Life or Motion since it cannot be denied even of Watches On the contrary Those who assert that Beasts have Souls understand it in the first Sense for few believe them endued with a Spiritual and Indivisible Soul so that both Peripateticks and Cartesians believe that Beasts have a Soul or a Corporeal Principle of their Motion and both think they have none or that there 's nothing in them Spiritual and Indivisible And therefore the Difference betwixt the Paripateticks and Cartesians consists not in that the former believe Beasts have a Soul and the latter deny it but only in that the Aristotelians think that Beasts are capable of Pain and Pleasure of perceiving Colours hearing Sounds and of all the other Sensations and Passions of Men whereas the Cartesians are of a contrary Opinion The latter distinguish the Word Sensation to take off the Equivocation For instance They say that when one is too near the Fire the Parts of Wood strike against his Hand vibrate the Fibres which Vibration is communicated to the Brain and determines the Animal Spirits contained in it to disperse through the outward Parts of the Body in such a manner as is fit to make them shrink in or withdraw They agree that all those things or the like may possibly be found in Animals and that they actually are as being Properties of Bodies And the Peripateticks dissent not from it The Cartesians add that the Percussion or Vibration of the Fibres of the Brain in Men is attended with a Sensation of Heat and that the course of the Animal Spirits to the Heart and other Viscera is accompanied with a Passion of Hatred or Aversion which Sense and Passion of the Soul they deny to be in Beasts whereas the Peripateticks assert that Brute Animals feel that Heat as well as we do that they have as we an Aversion to what is uneasie to them and generally that they are capable of all our Sensations and Passions The Cartesians do not think that Beasts are sensible of Pleasure or Pain nor that they love or hate any thing because they admit nothing in them but what is material and believe not that Sensations and Passions may be Properties of any Matter whatsoever On the contrary some Peripateticks esteem Matter capable of Sensation and Passion when 't is extremely subtle and refined that Beasts may feel by means of the Animal Spirits that is to say of a very subtle and fine Matter and that our Soul is susceptible of Sensation and Passion only because she is united to such a Matter And therefore to resolve that Question Whether Beasts have a Soul we must retire within our selves and consider with all possible Attention our Idea of Matter if we can conceive that Matter so and so figur'd as square round oval c. is some Pain Pleasure Heat Colour Odour Sound c. then we may assert that the Soul of Beasts though never so material is however capable of Sense but if we cannot conceive it we must not assert it for we must assure no farther than we can conceive And likewise if we conceive that Matter toss'd and extremely agitated upwards downwards in a Circular Spiral Parabolical Elliptick Line c. is any thing of Love Hatred Joy Sorrow c. We may say that Beasts have the same Passions as we but if we apprehend it not we must not say it unless we will speak without understanding our selves But I am sure no Motion of Matter will ever be mistaken for Love or Joy by him that shall earnestly think upon it So that to resolve that Question Whether Beasts have Sense we need only take off Equivocation as those that are called Cartesians use to do for then that Question will be made so simple and easie as to be resolved with a little Attention 'T is true that St. Austin supposing according to the common prejudice of Mankind that Beasts have a Soul which he never doubted of as far as I can perceive because he never seriously examin'd it in his Works this great Man I say perceiving that it is contradictory to say that a Soul or a Substance which thinks feels desires c. is material believed that the Soul of Beasts was really spiritual and indivisible He proves by very evident Reasons that a Soul or whatever has Sense Imagination Fear Desire c. must needs be Spiritual but I never observed that he produc'd any Reason to maintain that Beasts have Souls He even cares not to prove it because 't is likely that scarce any body doubted of it in his time There being now Men who endeavour wholly to free themselves of their Prejudices and call in Question all Opinions that are not grounded upon clear demonstrative Reasonings it has been call'd into doubt whether Animals have a Soul susceptible of the same Sensations and Passions as ours however there are still several Defenders of the ancient Prejudices who pretend to prove that Beasts feel will think and argue even as we do though in a more imperfect manner Dogs say they know their Masters love them and patiently bear the Blows they receive from them as judging it their best interest not to forsake them but as to Strangers they hate them so much as not to away with their Flatterings All Animals love their Young Birds which build their Nests in the
extremities of the Branches sufficiently shew that they are afraid lest some Creature should devour them They judge those Branches too weak to bear their Enemies though strong enough to support both their Young and their Nests Even Spiders and the vilest Insects give some Intimations of an Intelligence that animates them For one cannot but wonder at the conduct of a little Beast which though it be blind yet finds means to trapan in its Nets others that have Eyes and Wings and are so bold as to attack the biggest Animals we see I grant that all the actions that Beasts perform are certain indications of an Intelligence for whatever is regular demonstrates it A Watch shews the same for 't is impossible Chance should have composed its Wheels but an understanding Agent must have ordered its Motions We plant a Seed inverted the Roots that were upward sink down into the Ground of themselves and the Seminal Nib that was turn'd downwards endeavours to alter its Position to break out That intimates an Intelligence That Plant produces Knots at certain Distances to strenghen it self it covers its Seed with a Skin that preserves it and surrounds it with Prickles to defend it This still denotes an Intelligence In short whatever we see done either by Plants or by Animals undoubtedly denotes an understanding Agent All the true Cartesians agree to it but they make Distinctions to take away as much as possible the Equivocation of Words The Motions of Beasts and Plants intimate an Intelligence but that Intelligence is not Matter and is much distinguished from Beasts as that which disposes the Wheels of a Watch is distinguished from the Watch it self For that Intelligent Being seems infinitely Wise Powerful and infinitely the same who has framed us in our Mother's Womb and affords us a growth to which all the attempts of our Mind and Will cannot add so much as a Span. And therefore there is in Beasts neither Understanding nor Soul in the sense those Words are commonly taken They eat without pleasure they cry without Pain they grow without being conscious of it they neither desire nor fear nor know any thing and if they act in such a manner as intimates an Intelligence it is because God having made them for a certain time he has framed their Body in such a manner as that they machinally and without Fear shun whatever is able to destroy them Otherwise it must be said that there is more Understanding in the smallest Insect or even in a little Seed than in the most Ingenious Man it being certain that there are in them more different Parts and regular Motions than we are able to know But as Men are used to confound all things and imagine that their Soul produces in their Bodies most or all the Motions and Changes which befal it they fix to the Word Soul the wrong Idea of Former and Preserver of the Body So that thinking that their Soul produces in them whatever is absolutely requisite to the Preservation of their Life though she knows not so much as the Contexture of the Body which she animates they judge that there must needs be a Soul in Beasts to produce all the Motions and Changes which befall them because they are so like those which occur in us For Beasts are begot fed strengthened as our Body they eat drink sleep as we do because we are altogether like them as to our Body the only Difference betwixt us and them consisting in this that we have a Soul and they have none But our Soul frames not our Body digests not our Aliments and gives no Motion and Heat to our Blood She feels wills argues and animates the Body as to the Sensations and Passions that relate to it but not by dispersing her self through our Members to communicate Sense and Life to them for our Body can receive nothing of what belongs to the Mind Thence 't is plain that the Reason why we cannot resolve several Questions proceeds from our not distinguishing and even from our not thinking to distinguish the different significations of a Word 'T is true that we distinguish sometimes but we do it so ill that instead of taking off the Equivocation of Words by our Distinctions we make them more perplexed and dark For instance when we are asked whether the Body lives how it lives and in what manner the Rational Soul animates it Whether the Animal Spirits the Blood and other Humours live whether the Teeth the Hair and the Nails are animated c. we distinguish the Words live and be animated in living or being animated with a Rational with a Sensitive or with a Vegetative Soul But that Distinction is only fit to perplex the Question for those Words want an Explanation themselves and perhaps the two last Vegetative and Sensitive are inexplicable and inconceivable in the Sense they are commonly understood If we desire to fix a clear and distinct Idea to the Word Life we may say That the Life of the Soul is the Knowledge of Truth and the love of Good or rather that her Thoughts are her Life and that the Life of the Body consists in the Circulation of the Blood and the just Proportion and Mixture of Humours or rather that the Life of the Body is such a Motion of its parts as is fit for its Preservation The Ideas fix'd to the Word Life being thus made plain it will evidently appear First That the Soul cannot communicate her Life to the Body since she cannot make it think Secondly That she cannot give it the Life by which it is fed grows c. since she knows not so much as what is requisite to digest our Aliments Thirdly That she cannot make it feel since Matter is incapable of Sensation c. Thus all other Questions concerning that Subject may be resolved without Trouble provided the Words in which they are express'd excite clear Ideas for if they raise confused and dark it is impossible to solve them In the mean while 't is not always absolutely necessary to have Ideas that perfectly represent those things the Relations of which we desire to examine It is often sufficient to have but an initial or imperfect Knowledge of them because we seek not always exactly to know their Relations I shall explain this more at large There are Truths or Relations of two Sorts some are exactly known and others but imperfectly We exactly know the Relation betwixt such a Square and such a Triangle but have only an imperfect Knowledge of the Relation betwixt London and York We know that such a Square is equal to such a Triangle double or treble of it c. but we only know that London is bigger than York without knowing precisely how much Moreover there are infinite Degrees of Imperfection in Knowledge and no Knowledge is imperfect but in reference to a more perfect For Instance We know that London is bigger than Lincoln's Inn â—ields and that Knowledge is only imperfect in Relation
brought of their Existence MEN are commonly perfectly ignorant of what they presume best to understand and have a good Knowledge of other things whilst they imagine they have not so much as their Ideas When their Senses have to do in their Judgments they submit to what they do not comprehend at least to what they know but imperfectly and confusedly And when their Ideas are purely intellectual give me leave to use such Expressions they will hardly admit undeniable Demonstrations What Notion for Instance have the generality of Men when we prove to them most of Metaphysical Truths when we demonstrate the Existence of a God the Efficacy of his Will the Immutability of his Decrees That there is but one God or true Cause that works all in all things but one Supreme Reason which all Intelligent Beings participate but one necessary Love which is the Principle of all created Wills They think we pronounce Words without Sense that we have no Ideas of the things advanc'd and that we had better say nothing Metaphysical Truths and Arguments are not of a sensible Nature they have nothing moving and affecting and consequently leave not Conviction behind them Nevertheless abstract Ideas are certainly the most distinct and Metaphysical Truths the most clear and evident of all other Men sometimes say they have no Idea of God nor any Knowledge of his Will and commonly believe too what they say but 't is for want of knowing what they know it may be best For where 's the Man that hesitates in answering to the Question Whether God is Wise Just or Powerful Whether he is Divisible Triangular Movable or subject to any kind of Change whatever Whereas we cannot answer without scruple and fear of being mistaken whether certain Qualities do or do not belong to a Subject which we have no Idea of So again Who is it dares say that God acts not by the most simple Means That he is irregular in his Designs That he makes Monsters by a positive direct and particular Will and not by a kind of Necessity In a word That his Will is or may be contrary to ORDER whereof every Man knows something more or less But if a Man had no Idea of the Will of GOD he might at least doubt whether he acted according to certain Laws which he clearly conceives he is obliged to follow on Supposition HE will act Men therefore have the Ideas of things purely Intelligible which Ideas are much clearer than those of sensible Objects They are better assured of the Existence of a God than of that of Bodies and when they retire into themselves they more clearly discover certain Wills of God by which he produces and preserves all Beings than those of their best Friends or whom they have studied all their Lives For the Union of their Mind with God and that of their Will with his that is with the Law Eternal or Immutable Order is immediate direct and necessary whereas their Union with sensible Objects being founded only for the Preservation of their Life and Health gives them no Knowledge of these Objects but as they relate to that Design 'T is this immediate and direct Union which is not known says St. Austin but by those whose Mind is purified that enlightens our most secret Reason and exhorts and moves us in the inmost Recesses of our Heart By this we learn both the Thoughts and the Wills of God that is Eternal Truths and Laws For no one can doubt but we know some of them with Evidence But our Union with our choicest Friends teaches us not evidently either what they think or what they will We think we know right well but we are most commonly mistaken because we receive our Information only from their Lips Nor can our Union which we have through our Senses with circumambient Bodies instruct us For the Testimony of the Senses is never exactly true but commonly every way false as I have made appear in this Treatise and 't is for that Reason I say 't is an harder thing than is believ'd to prove positively the Existence of Bodies though our Senses tell us they exist because Reason does not so readily inform us as we imagine and it must be most attentively consulted to give us a clear Resolve But as Men are more Sensible than Reasonable so they more willingly listen to the Verdict of the Senses than the Testimony of internal Truth and because they have always consulted their Eyes to be assur'd of the Existence of Matter without troubling their Heads to advise with their Reason they are surpriz'd to hear it said it is hard to demonstrate it They think they need but open their Eyes to see that there are Bodies but if this does not take away all suspition of Illusion they believe it abundantly sufficient to come near and handle them after which they can hardly conceive we can have any possible Reasons to make us doubt of their Existence But if we believe our Eyes they 'll tell us that Colours are laid upon the surface of Bodies and Light diffus'd in the Air and Sun our Ears make us hear Sounds as undulated in the Air and ecchoing from the ringing Bodies and if we credit the Report of the other Senses Heat will be in the Fire Sweetness in the Sugar Odour in Musk and all sensible Qualities in the Bodies which seem to exhale or disperse them And yet it is certain from the Reasons I have given in the First Book concerning the Search after Truth that these Qualities are not out of the Soul that feels them at least it is not evident they are in the Bodies that are about us What Reason therefore is there from the Reports of our always-treacherous and delusive Senses to conclude there are actually Bodies without us and that they are like those we see I mean those which are the immediate Object of our Soul when we behold them with bodily Eyes Certainly this does not want Difficulty whatever may be said of it Farther If the Existence of any Body may be certainly prov'd upon the Testimony of our Senses none could have better Pretence than That to which the Soul is immediately united The liveliest Sensation and that which seems to have the most necessary relation to an actually-existing Body is Pain And yet it often happens that those who have lost an Arm feel most violent Pains in it long after it has been cut off They know well enough they want it when they consult their Memory or only look upon their Body but the Sense of Pain deceives them And if as it often happens they be suppos'd to have quite forgotten what formerly they were and to have no other Senses left them than that whereby they feel Pain in their imaginary Arm certainly they could not be convinc'd but that they had an Arm in which they felt so violent torment There have been those who have believ'd they had Horns on their Heads others who have
by these Sensations what he ought to do for the preservation of his Life But he was never willing to be perturbated by them in spight of his VVill. For that 's a Contradiction Moreover when he desir'd to apply himself to the contemplation of Truth without any distraction of Thought his Senses and his Passions kept an intire Silence Order would it should be so for that 's a necessary sequel of that absolute power he had over his Body I answer secondly that it is not true that the Pleasure of the Soul is the same thing with its Motion and its Love Pleasure and Love are modes of the Souls Existence But Pleasure has no necessary relation to the object that seems to cause it and Love is necessarily related unto Good Pleasure is to the Soul what Figure is to Body and Motion is to Body what Love is to the Soul But the Motion of a Body is very different from its Figure I grant that the Soul which has a constant Propeâ—sity to Good advances as I may say more readily towards it when instigated by a sense of Pleasure that when discourag'd by her suffering Pain as a Body when driven runs easier along if it have a Spherical than if it have a Cubical Figure But the figure of a Body differs from its Motion and it may be Spherical and yet remain at rest 'T is true in this case it goes not with Spirits as with Bodies those cannot feel a Pleasure but they must be in motion because God who only makes and preserves them for himself drives them perpetually on towards good But that does not prove that the pleasure of the Soul is the same thing as its Motion For two things though differing from each other may yet be always found inseparably together I answer lastly that although pleasure were not different from the Love or Motion of the Soul yet that which the first Man felt in the use of the goods of the Body did not incline him to the Loving Bodies 'T is true Pleasure carries the Soul towards the object that causes it in her But it is not the Fruit that we eat with Pleasure which causes the Pleasure in us Not Bodies but God only can act upon the Soul and in any manner make it happy And we are in an Error to think that Bodies have in them what we feel occasionally from their presence Adam before his Sin being not so stupid as to imagine that Bodies were the causes of his Pleasures was not carry'd to the love of them by the motions that accompany'd his Pleasures If pleasure contributed to the fall of the first Man it was not by working in him what at present it does in us But only by filling up or dividing his capacity of Thought it effac'd or diminish'd in his Mind the presence of his true good and of his Duty OBJECTION against the sixth Article What likelyhood is there that the immutable Will of God had a dependance on the will of Man and that on Adam's behalf there were exceptions made to the general Law of the Communication of Motions ANSWER At least it is not evident but such exception might be made now it is evident that immutable order requires the subjection of the Body to the Mind and 't is a contradiction for God not to love and will order for God necessarily loves his Son Therefore it was necessary before the Sin of the first Man that exceptions should be made in his favour to the general Law of the Communication of Motions This seems it may be of a too abstracted nature Here then is somewhat of a more sensible kind Man though a Sinner has the power of moving and stopping his Arm when he pleases Therefore according to the different Volitions of Man the Animal Spirits are determin'd to the raising or stopping some Motions in his Body which certainly cannot be perform'd by the general Law of the Communication of Motions If then the will of God be still submitted to our own why might it not be submitted to the will of Adam If for the good of the Body and of civil Society God stops the communication of motions in Sinners why would he not do the like in favour of a Righteous Man for the good of his Soul and for the preservation of the Union and Society with his God for whom only he was made As God will have no Society with Sinners so after the Sin he depriv'd them of the power they had to sequester themselves as it were from the Body to unite themselves with him But he has left them the Power of stopping or changing the communication of Motions with reference to the preservation of Life and of Civil Society Because he was not willing to destroy his Work having before the construction of it decreed according to St. Paul to re-establish and renew it in Jesus Christ. OBJECTION against the Seventh Article Man in his present state conveys his Body all manner of ways he moves at pleasure all the parts of it which are necessary to be mov'd for the prosecution and shunning of sensible good and evil and consequently he stops or changes every moment the natural communication of motions not only for trifles and things of little importance but also for things useless to Life and civil Society and even for Crimes which violate Society shorten Life and dishonour God all manner of ways God wills order it is true But will order have the laws of motions violated for the sake of Evil and kept inviolable on the account of Good Why must Man lose the power of stopping the motions which sensible objects produce in his Body since these Motions keep him from doing good from repairing to God and returning to his duty and yet retain the power of doing so much evil by his Tongue and his Arm and other parts of his Body whose motions depend upon his will ANSWER To the answering this Objection it must be consider'd that Man having sin'd ought to have return'd to his Original nothing For being no longer in Order nor able to retrieve it he ought to cease to Exist God loves only order the Sinner is not in order and therefore not in the Love of God The Sinner therefore cannot subsist since the subsistence of Creatures depends on the will of the Creator but he wills not that they should exist if he does not love them The Sinner cannot by himself regain lost order because he cannot justifie himself and all that he can suffer cannot atone for his offence He must then be reduc'd to nothing But as it is unreasonable to think that God makes a Work to annihilate it or to let it fall into a state worse than annihilation 't is evident that God would not have made Man nor permitted his Sin which he foresaw unless he had had in view the Incarnation of his Son in whom all things subsist and by whom the Universe receives a Beauty a Perfection
and greatness worthy of the Wisdom and the Power of its Author Man then may be consider'd after his Sin without a Restorer but under the Expectation of one In considering him without a Restorer we plainly see he ought to have no Society with God that that he is unable of himself to make the least approaches to him that God must needs repel him and severely use him when he offers to leave the Body to unite himself to him that is to say that Man after the Sin must lose the power of getting clear of sensible impressions and motions of concupiscence He ought likewise to be annihilated for the foremention'd Reasons But he expects a Restorer and if we consider him under that Expectation we see clearly that he must subsist He and his Posterity whence his Restorer is to arise and thus it is necessary that Man after his Sin preserve still the power of diversely moving all those parts of the Body whose motion may be serviceable to his Preservation 'T is true that Men abuse daily the power they have of producing certain motions and that their power of moving their tongue for Example several ways is the cause of innumerable Evils But if it be minded that power will appear absolutely necessary to keep up Society to comfort one another in the Exigences of thiâ— present Life and to instruct them in Religion which affords hope of a Redeemer for whom the World subsists If we carefully examine what are the motions we produce in us and in what parts of our Body we can affect them we shall clearly see that God has left us the power of our Body no farther than is necessary to the preservation of Life and the cherishing and upholding civil Society For example the Beating of the Heart the Dilatation of the Midriff the peristaltick motion of the Guts the Circulation of the Spirits and Blood and the diverse motions of the Nerves in the Passions are produc'd in us without staying for the order of the Soul As they ought to be much what the same on all occasions nothing obliges God to submit them now to the will of Man But the motions of the Muscles imploy'd in stirring the Tongue the Arms and Legs being to change every minute according to the almost infinite diversity of good or evil Objects all about us it was necessary these motions should depend on the will of Men. But we are to remember That God acts always by the simplest ways and that the Laws of Nature ought to be general and that so God having given us the power of moving our Arm and Tongue he ought not to take away that of striking a Man unjustly or of slandering or reproaching him For if our natural Faculties depended on our Designs there would be no Uniformity nor certain Rule in the Laws of Nature which however must be most simple and general to be answerable to the Wisdom of God and suitable to Order So that God in pursuance of his Decrees chuses rather to cause the Materiality of Sin as say the Divines or to make use of the Injustice of Men as says one of the Prophets than by changing his Will to put a stop to the Disorders of Sinners But he defers his revenging the injurious Treatment which they give him till the time when it shall be permitted him to do it without swerving from his immutable Decrees that is to say when Death having corrupted the Body of the voluptuous God shall be freed from the necessity he has impos'd on himself of giving them Sensations and Thoughts relating to it OBJECTION against the Eleventh and Twelfth Articles Original Sin not only enslaves Man to his Body and subjects him to the Motions of Concupiscence but likewise fills him with Vices wholly Spiritual not only the Body of the Infant before Baptism being corrupted but also his Soul and all his Faculties stain'd and infected with Sin Though the Rebellion of the Body be the principle of some grosser Vices such as Intemperance and Vncleanness yet it is not the Cause of Vices purely Spiritual as are Pride and Envy And therefore Original Sin is something very different from Concupiscence which is born with us and is more likely the Privation of Grace or of Original Righteousness ANSWER I acknowledge That Children are void of Original Righteousness and I prove it in shewing That they are not born upright and that God hates them For methinks one cannot give a clearer Idea of Righteousness and Vprightness than to say a Will is upright when it loves God and that it is crooked and perverse when it draws towards Bodies But if by Righteousness or Original Grace we understand some unknown Qualities like those which God is said to have infus'd into the Heart of the first Man to adorn him and render him pleasing in his sight it is still evident that the Privation of this is not Original Sin for to speak properly that Privation is not hereditarily transmitted If Children have not these Qualities 't is because God does not give 'em them and if God does not bestow them 't is because they are unworthy to receive them and 't is that Vworthiness which is transmitted and which is the Cause of the Privation of Original Righteousness And so that Vnworthiness is properly Original Sin Now this Unworthiness which consists as I have shewn in this That the Inclinations of Children are actually corrupt and their Heart bent upon the Love of Bodies this I say is really in them 'T is not the Imputation of the Sin of their Father they are actually themselves in a disorder'd State In like manner as those who are justify'd by JESUS CHRIST of whom Adam was the Type are not justify'd by Imputation But are really restor'd to Order by an inward Righteousness different from that of our LORD though it be he that has merited it for them The Soul has but two natural or essential Relations the one to God and the other to her Body Now 't is evident That the Relation or Union which she has with God cannot vitiate or corrupt her and therefore she is neither vicious nor corrupt at the first instant of her Creation but by the relation she has to her Body Thus one of the two must needs be said either that Pride and other which we call Spiritual Vices can be communicated by the Body or that Children are not subject to them at the moment of their Birth I say at the moment of their Birth for I do not deny but these ill Habits are easily acquir'd Though pure Intelligences had no other relation than to God and at the instant of their Creation were subject to no Vice yet they fell into Disorder But the Cause of it was their making a wrong use of their Liberty whereof Infants have made no use at all For Original Sin is not of a free Nature But to come to the Point I am of Opinion That they err who think that the Rebellion
of the Body is the Cause but of gross Vices such as Intemperance and Vncleanness and not of those which are call'd Spiritual as Pride and Envy and I am persuaded there is that Correspondence between the Disposition of our Brain and those of our Soul as that there is not perhaps any corrupt Habit in the Soul but what has its Principle in the Body St. Paul in several places terms by the Name of the Law the Wisdom the Desires and the Works of the Flesh whatever is contrary to the Law of the Spirit He speaks not of Spiritual Vices He reckons amongst the Works of the Flesh Idolatry Heresies Dissentions and many other Vices which go by the Name of Spiritual To give way to Vain-glory Wrath and Envy is in his Doctrine to follow the Motions of the Flesh. In short It appears from the Expressions of that Apostle That all Sin proceeds from the Flesh not that the Flesh commits it or that the Spirit of Man without the Grace or Spirit of CHRIST can do good but because the Flesh acts upon the Spirit in such a manner that the latter works no evil without being sollicited to it by the former Hear what St. Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans I delight in the law of the Lord after the inward Man But I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members And a little lower So then with my mind I my self serve the law of God but with the flesh the law of sin He speaks after the same manner in several places of his Epistles So that Concupiscence or the Rebellion of the Body not only disposes us to Carnal of shameful Vices but likewise to those which are thought to be Spiritual I here shall endeavour to prove it by a sensible manner When a Man 's in Conversation it is certain as I think that some Tracks are machinally produc'd in his Brain and Motions excited in his Animal Spirits that beget in his Soul corrupt Thoughts and Inclinations Our Thoughts on these Occasions are not naturally conformable to Truth nor our Inclinations to Order They rise in us for the Good of the Body and of the present Life because 't is the Body that exites them So they obliterate the Presence of God and the Thoughts of our Duty out of our Mind and tend only to recommend us to other Men and make them consider us as worth their Affection and Esteem Therefore this secret Pride which kindles in us on such Occasions is a Spiritual Vice whose Principle is the Rebellion of the Body For Example If the Persons in whose Presence we are are rais'd to Honorary Posts and Titles the Lustre of their Grandeur both dazzles and dejects us And as the Traces which their Presence imprints on our Brain are very deep and the Motions of the Spirits rapid they radiate as I may say through all the Body they spread themselves on the Face and give a sensible Testimony of our Reverence and Fear and our most latent Sentiments Next These Traces by the sensible Expressions of our inward Motions work upon the Person that observe us whom they dispose to Sentiments of Candour and Civility by the Traces which our respectful and timorous Deportment machinally produce in his Brain which Traces rallying on his Face and disarm him of that Majesty which appear'd in 't and give the rest of his Body such an Air and Posture as at length rid us of our Concern and re-embolden us Thus by a mutual and frequent Repercussion of these sensible Expressions our Air and Behaviour at last settles in that fashion which the governing Person wishes But as all the Motions of the Animal Spirits are attended with Motions of the Soul and the Traces of the Brain are pursu'd by Thoughts of the Mind 't is plain that since we are depriv'd of the Power of expunging these Traces and stopping these Motions we find our selves sollicited by the over-ruling Presence of the Person to embrace his Opinions and submit to his Desires and to be wholly devoted to his Pleasure as he indeed is dispos'd to study ours but in a very different manner And for this Reason worldly Conversation quickens and invigorates the Concupiscence of Pride as dishonest Commerce feasting and enjoying sensible Pleasures strengthen Carnal Concupiscence which is a Remark very necessary for Morality 'T is of great Use and Advantage that there are Traces in the Brain which incessantly represent Man to himself to make him careful of his Person and that there are others which serve to make and preserve Society since Men are not made to live alone But Man having lost the Power of erasing them when he pleas'd and when convenient they perpetually provoke him to Evil. As he cannot hinder their representing him to himself he is continually sollicited to Motions of Pride and Vanity to despise others and center all things in himself And as he is not Master of those Traces which importune him to keep up Society with others he is agitated by Motions of Complaisance Flattery Jealousie and the like Inclinations as it were in spight of him Thus all those which go by the Name of Spiritual Vices derive from the Flesh as well as Vnchastness and Intemperance There are not only in our Brain Dispositions which excite in us Sensations and Motions with reference to the Propagation of the Species and the Preservation of Life but it may be a greater Number that stir up in us Thoughts and Passions with respect to Society to our own private Advancements and to those of our Friends We are by Nature united to all surrounding Bodies and by them to all the things that any way relate to us But we cannot be united to them save by some Dispositions in our Brain Having not therefore the Power of withstanding the Action of these natural Dispositions our Union turns into Dependence and we grow subject through our Body to all kind of Vices We are not pure Intelligences all the Dispositions of our Soul produce respective Dispositions in our Body and those in our Body mutually excite others like them in our Soul Not that the Soul is absolutely incapable of receiving any thing except by the Body but because as long as She is united to It she cannot admit any Change in her Modifications without making some Alteration in the Body 'T is true she may be enlightned or receive new Ideas and the Body need not have any hand in it but that 's because pure Ideas are not Modifications of the Soul as I have prov'd in another place I speak not here of sensible Ideas because these include a Sensation and every Sensation is a mode of the Souls existing The Second OBJECTION against the Eleventh and Twelfth Articles If Original Sin descends by reason of the Communication which is found between the Brain of the Mother and that of
is included in the Idea of a necessary Being as the Equality of Diameters is included in the Idea of a Circle And I except the Existence of our Soul because we are inwardly conscious that we Think Will and Feel and have no clear Idea of our Soul as I have sufficiently explained in the seventh Chapter of the second Part of the third Book and elsewhere These are some of the Reasons which we have to add to those already given to prove that all our Light is deriv'd to us from God and that the immediate and direct Object of our clear and evident notices is an immutable and necessary Nature Some Objections are usually made against this Opinion which I shall now endeavour to solve Against what has been said that none but God enlightens us and that we see all things in him OBJECTION I. OUR Soul thinks because it is her Nature God in creating her gave her the faculty of thinking and she needs nothing more But if any thing else is wanting let us stick to what Experience teaches us of our senses which is that they are the manifest causes of our Ideas 'T is an ill way of Philosophizing to argue against Experience ANSWER I cannot but admire that the Cartesian Gentlemen who with so much reason reject and scorn the general Terms of Nature and faculty should so willingly employ them on this occasion They cry out against a Man that shall say the Fire burns by its nature and converts certain Bodies into Glass by a natural Faculty And yet some of them fear not to say that the Humane Mind produces the Ideas of all things in it self by its nature and because it has a thinking faculty But be it spoken without offence these words are no more significative in their Mouths than in the Peripateticks I know very well that the Soul is capable of thinking But I know likewise that extension is capable of Figures The Soul is capable of Will as matter is of Motion But as it is false that matter though capable of figure and motion has in it self a force faculty or nature by which it can move it self and give it self now a round figure and anon a square one so though the Soul be naturally and essentially capable of Knowledge and Will it is false that she has Faculties whereby she can produce in her Ideas or motion towards good There is a great difference between being Moveable and self moving Matter is by its nature moveable and capable of Figures nor can it subsist without a figure But it neither moves it self nor shapes it self nor has it any faculty to do it The Mind is of its nature capable of motion and Ideas I acknowledge But it neither moves nor enlightens its self But 't is God that does all in Minds as well as in Bodies Can we say that God effects the changes that happen in matter and that he causes not those which occur in the Mind Is this to give to God the things that are his to leave these latter sort of Beings to their own management Is he not equally Lord of all things Is he not the Creator Preserver and true mover of Minds as well as Bodies Certainly he makes all both Substances Accidents Beings and Modes of Being For in short he knows all But he knows nothing but what he does We therefore streighten him in his Knowledge if we limit him in his Action But if it must be said that Creatures have such faculties as are commonly conceived and that natural Bodies have a Nature which is the Principle of their Motion and Rest as says Aristotle and his Followers This indeed overthrows all my Ideas but yet I will rather agree to it than say the Mind enlightens it self Men may say that the Soul has the force of moving diversly the Limbs of her Body and of communicating to them Sense and Life They may say if they please that it is she that gives heat to the Blood motion to the Spirits and to the rest of her Body its Bulk Situation and Figure Only let them not say that the Mind gives Light and Motion to it self If God works not all let us allow him at least to do what is Noblest and Perfectest in the World And if Creatures do any thing let them move Bodies and range and posture them as they think fit But let them never act upon Minds We will say if that will serve that Bodies move each other after they have been mov'd themselves or rather will sit down ignorant of the different Dispositions of matter as not concerning us But let not our Minds be ignorant whence proceeds the Light that enlightens them Let them know from what hand they receive all that can make them more happy or more perfect let them acknowledge their dependence in its whole extent and know that whatever they actually have God gives them every moment for as says a great Father upon another Subject 'T is a very criminal Pride to use the gifts of God as our own innate Perfections Above all let us take heed of imagining that the Senses instruct Reason that the Body enlightens the Mind that the Soul receive of the Body what it wants it self We had better believe our selves independent than to believe we truly depend on Bodies 'T is much better to be our own Masters than to seek for Masters among inferior Creatures But we had much better submit our selves to Eternal Truth which assures us in the Gospel that none else is our Instructor than to believe the Testimony of our Senses or of some Men who presume to talk to us as our Teachers Experience whatever may be said does not countenance prejudices For our Senses no less than our Teachers after the Flesh are only occasional causes of the Instruction which Eternal Wisdom infuses into our most inward Reason But because this Wisdom enlightens us by an insensible Operation we imagine it is our Eyes or the words of those that verberate the Air against our Ears who produce this Light or pronounce that intelligible Voice which instructs us And for this Reason as I have said in another place our LORD thought it not enough to instruct us in an intellible manner by his Divinity unless he condescended also to inform us in a sensible way by his Humanity thereby teaching us that he is every way our Master And because we cannot easily retire into our selves to consult him in Quality of eternal Truth immutable Order intelligible Light he has rendred Truth sensible by his Words Order Amiable by his Example Light Visible by a Body which breaks the force of its Lustre and after all we are still so ungrateful unjust stupid and insensible as to respect as our Masters and that against his express prohibition not only other Men but it may be the most insensible and vilest Bodies OBJECTION II. Since the Soul is more perfect than Bodies how comes it that she cannot include
Philosophy But to return to the passage of St. John No man has seen God at any time I believe the design of the Evangelist in affirming no Man has seen God is to state the difference between the Old and New Testament Between JESUS CHRIST and the Patriarchs and Prophets of whom it is written that they have seen God For Moses Jacob Isaiah and others saw God only with corporeal Eyes and under an unknown Form They have not seen him in himself Deum nemo vidit unquam But the only Son who is in the Bosom of the Father has instructed us in what He has seen Vnigenitus qui est in sinu Patris Ipse enarravit OBJECTION St. Paul writing to Timothy says that God inhabits inaccessible Light which no man hath seen nor can see if the Light of God cannot be approach'd to we cannot see all things in it ANSWER St. Paul cannot be contrary to St. John who assures us that JESUS CHRIST is the true Light that lightens all Men who come into the World For the mind of Man which many of the Fathers call Illuminated or Enlightned Light Lumen Illuminatum is Enlightned only with the Light of Eternal Wisdom which the Fathers therefore call Illuminating Light Lumen Illuminations David advises to approach to God and to be englightned by him Accedite ad eum illuminamini But how can we be enlightned by it if we cannot see the Light by which we are to be enlightned Therefore when St. Paul says that Light is inaccessible he means to Carnal Man who cannot retire into himself to contemplate it Or if he speaks of all Men 't is because there are none but are disturb'd from the perfect Contemplation of Truth because our Body incessantly troubles the attension of our mind OBJECTION God answering Moses when he desired to see him says Thou canst not see my Face for there shall no man see Me and live ANSWER It is evident that the literal sence of this Passage is not contrary to what I have said hitherto For I do not suppose it possible to see God in this life as Moses desired to see Him However I Answer that we must die to see God For the Soul unites herself to Truth proportionably as she quits her union with the Body Which is a Truth that cannot be sufficiently consider'd Those who follow the Motions of their passions those whose Imagination is defil'd with the enjoyment of Pleasures Those who have strengthned the Union and Correspondence of their Mind with their Body In a word those who live cannot see God For they cannot retire into themselves to consult the Truth Happy therefore are they who have a pure Heart a disengag'd Spirit a clear Imagination who have no dependance on the World and hardly any on the Body In a word happy are the Dead for they shall see God Wisdom has publish'd it openly upon the Mountain and Wisdom whispers it secretly to those who consult Her by retiring into themselves Those who are constantly quickning in them the Concupiscence of Pride who are indefatigably forming a thousand Ambitious designs who unite and even enslave their Soul not only to the Body but all surrounding Objects In a word those who Live not only the Life of the Body but also that of the World cannot see God For WISDOM inhabits the most retired and inward Reason whilst they perpetually expand themselves abroad But such as constantly deaden the Activity of their Senses who faithfully preserve the Purity of their Imagination who couragiously resist the Motions of their Passions In a word that break all those Bonds whereby others continue enchain'd to the Body and sensible grandeur may discover infinite Truths and see that Wisdom which is bid from the Eyes of all Living They after a sort do cease to live when they retire into themselves They relinquish the Body when they draw near to Truth For the mind of Man obtains that Site and Position between God and Bodies that it can never quit the one but it must approach the other It cannot draw towards God but it must remove from Bodies nor pursue Bodies but it must recede from God But because we cannot give an absolute Farewell to the Body till Death makes the separation I confess it impossible till then to be perfectly united to God We may at present as says St. Paul see God confusedly as in a Glass but we cannot see him face to face Non videbit me homo vivet Yet we may see him in part that is imperfectly and confusedly It must not be imagin'd that life is equal in all Men living or that it consists in an indivisible point The Dominion of the Body over the Mind which withstands our uniting our selves with God by the Knowledge of Truth is susceptible of more and less The Soul is not equally in all Men united by Sensations to the Body which she animates nor by Passions to those her Inclinations carry her to And there are some who so mortifie the Concupiscence of Pleasure and of Pride within them that they scarce retain any Commerce with their Body or the World and so are as it were Dead St. Paul is a great instance hereof who chastis'd his Body and brought it to subjection who was so humbled and destroy'd that he thought no longer on the World nor the World on him For the World was dead and crucified to him as he was dead and crucified in the World And on this account it was says St. Gregory that he was so sensible to Truth and so prepar'd to receive those Divine Lights which are included in his Epistles which however all glorious and splendid make no impression save on those who mortifie their Senses and Passions by his Example For as he says himself the carnal and sensible Man cannot comprehend Spiritual things Because Worldly address the tast of the Age to fineness of Wit the Nicety the Liveliness the Beauty of Imagination whereby we live to the World and the World to us infuse into our Mind an incredible stupidity and a sad insensibility to all those Truths which cannot be perfectly conceiv'd unless in the silence and calm of the Senses and Passions We must therefore desire that Death which unites us to God or at least the image of that Death that is the Mysterious Sleep in which all our External Senses being lock'd up we may hear the Voice of internal Truth which is never audible but in the silence of the Night when Darkness involves sensible Objects and when the World is as it were dead to us Thus it is says St. Gregory that the Spouse heard the Voice of her beloved in her sleep when she said I sleep but my heart wakes Outwardly I slumber but my heart watches within For having no life nor sense with reference to External Objects I become extreamly sensible to the Voice of inward Truth which accosts me in my inmost reason Hinc
whatever is intelligible is either a Being or a Mode of Being By Being I mean something of an absolute Nature or that may be conceiv'd alone as unrelated to any other thing By Mode of Being I understand something relative or that cannot be conceiv'd alone Now there are two kinds of Modes of Being The one consists in the Relation of the Parts of any Whole to any Part of the same whole The other in the Relation of one thing to another which makes not any Part of the same whole The Roundness of wax is a Mode of Being of the former sort as consisting in the Equality of Distance which have all the Superficial parts to the central The Motion or situation of the wax is a Mode of Being of the second sort Which consists in the Relation the wax has to circumambient Bodies I speak not of motion taken for the Moving Force for it is plain that that force neither is nor can be a Mode of Bodies existing for conceive them Modified how we will we cannot conceive them as a moving Force It being certain that whatever is intelligible is either a Being or a Mode of Being it is as evident that every Term that signifies not one or other of these signifies nothing and that every Term that signifies not this or that particular Being or Mode of Being is obscure and confus'd and consequently we cannot conceive either what others say to us or we to others if we have no distinct Ideas of Being or of the Mode of Being which respectively answer to the Terms they use or we imploy our selves Nevertheless I grant that we may and even sometimes must imploy those words which do not directly raise distinct Ideas We may because it is not always necessary to put the Dâ—finition instead of the Defin'd and that abridg'd Expressions are to good use imploy'd though confus'd in themselves And We must when we are oblig'd to speak of things whereof we have no clear Idea and which we cannot conceive but by our inward Sensation as when we speak of the Soul and her Modifications Only we must take care not to use obscure and equivocal when we have clear Terms or any which may excite false Ideas in those we speak to This will be better understood by an instance It is more perspicuous to say that God created the World by his Will than to say he created it by his Power This last word is a Logical Term which excites no distinct and particular Idea but affords Liberty to imagine that the Power of God is something distinct from the efficacy of his Will We speak more clearly when we say God pardons Sinners in JESUS CHRIST than in absolutely saying he forgives them by his Clemency and Mercy These Terms are Equivocal and administer occasion to think that the Clemency of God is it may be contrary to his Justice That Sin may be left unpunish'd and that the satisfaction of Our LORD is not necessary and the like These Terms of a Loose and Indefinite sense are often us'd when we speak of the Divine Perfections which is not to be condemn'd since Philosophical accuracy is not at all times necessary But by a culpable dullness and negligence such abuse is made of these general Expressions and so many false consequences are drawn from them that though all Men have the same Idea of God and that they consider him as a Being infinitely Perfect yet there was hardly any Imperfection but was attributed to him in Idolatrous times and Mens discourses of him were commonly unseemly and unworthy And all for want of carefully comparing the things they said of him with the Idea that represents him or rather with Himself But chiefly in matter of natural Philosophy these rambling and general Terms are abus'd which excite no distinct Ideas either of Beings or their Modes For example when we say that Bodies tend to their Center that they fall by their Gravity that they ascend by their Levity that they move by their Nature that they successively change their Forms that they act by their Vertues Qualities Faculties c. we use such Terms as have no signification and all these Propositions are absolutely false in the sense that most Philosophers take them There is no Center in the sense that is commonly understood These Terms Gravity Form Nature and the like excite no Idea either of a Being or a mode of Being They are empty and insignificative Terms which Wise-Men should avoid The Knowledge of the unwise is as talk without sense says the Son of Sirach These Terms are good for nothing but to shelter the Ignorance of Pretenders to Learning and to make the Ignorant and Libertines believe that God is not the True Cause of all things This methinks is certain and easy to be conceiv'd Yet most Men talk freely of all things without caring to examine whether the Terms they employ have any clear and exact signification And many Authors there are of huge and bulky Volumes in which its harder than may be thought to find any passage where they have understood what they have written Therefore those who are great Readers and respectful Hearers of the rambling and general Discourses of the falsly Learn'd are in the darkest Ignorance And I see no way they have to get free of it but by constantly making and renewing their Resolution of believing no Man on his word and before they have annex'd very distinct Ideas to the most common Terms which others use For these Terms are not clear as is commonly imagin'd and they seem so only from the common Use that is made of them Because Men fancy they well understand what they say or hear when they have said or heard the same an hundred times though they have never examin'd it THE ILLUSTRATION UPON THE Conclusion of the Three First BOOKS That Physicians and Casuists are absolutely necessary for us But that it is dangerous to consult and follow them in many occasions CErtainly Man before his Fall was possess'd of all things necessary to preserve his Mind and Body in a perfect State He needed neither Physician nor Casuist He consulted Inward Truth as the Infallible Rule of his Duty and his Senses were so faithful in their Reports that they never deceiv'd him in the use he ought to make of encompassing Bodies for the preservation of his own But since the Transgression things are much chang'd We consult our Passions much more than Law or Truth Eternal and our Senses are so disorder'd that in following them we sometimes destroy our Health and Life The Casuist and Physician are become absolutely necessary And those who pretend to be most dexterous at Self-management upon all occasions fall commonly into the grossest Miscarriages which teach them a little too late that they follow a Master that is not over-wise Nevertheless I think I may say that Sin has not so disorder'd all the faculties of the Soul but that we may consult our selves
we suppose there are some Fruits whose savour is capable of deceiving the most curious senses and which still retain their Natural perfection yet we ought not to believe this proceeded from Sin But only that from the great simplicity of Natural Laws by vertue of which the sense of Tast is form'd and perfected 't was impossible for it to have sufficient Niceness and Sagacity for all sorts of Eatables Besides that defect of sense would not be remediless because when the Mother had an aversion to dangerous Fruits she would communicate it to her Children not only when unborn but also when come into the World For Children only Eat what is given them by their Mothers and they Machinally and by the Air of their Countenance infuse into them an abhorrence for Fruits that are dangerous to be Eaten So that God has made sufficient Provision by our senses for the preservation of our Life and nothing can be better Order'd For as Order requires that the Laws of Union of our Soul and Body should be most Simple they must be of a very General Nature And God ought not to establish particular Laws for such instancess and emergences as most rarely happen Reason on such occasions must Help out the Senses For Reason may be employ'd in all things But the senses are determin'd to some Natural Judgments which are the most advantageous â—maginable as I have prov'd in the first Book Yet even these Judgments are sometimes fallacious because 't is impossible it should be otherwise without multiplying the most simple Laws of Union of the Body with the Soul If we consider Man as now he is under a State of Sickness we must confess his senses often deceive him even in things that relate to the preservation of his Life For the Oeconomy of his Machine being disturb'd in Proportion to it's disturbance irregular motions must unavoidably be excited in his Brain Nevertheless his senses are not so corrupted as is Ordinarily believ'd And God has so wisely provided for the preservation of Life by the Laws of Union of the Soul and Body that though these laws are extreamly simple they often suffice to restore us to our Health and it is much the surer way to follow them than to employ our Reason or certain Physicians that do not carefully study the disposition of their Patients For as a wound closes and heals up of its self when constantly cleans'd and lick'd as is done by Animals when wounded So Ordinary diseases are speedily dispers'd when we let them alone and exactly observe that course of Life which these Diseases as it were by instinct and Sensation put us upon Wine for example seems bitter to a Man in a Feaver and likewise is prejudicial to him in that Condition This same Man finds it agreeable to the Palate when he is in Health and then too it is Wholesome for him It sometimes even happens that Wine is most useful to the Sick that relish it provided their tast be not an effect of the Habit of drinking it and that their desire of it proceed from the present disposition of their Body That it cannot be doubted but that we are to consult our senses in Sickness for the way we are to take to the recovery of our Health Here follows my Opinion about what we ought to do 'T is requisite that the distemper'd Person should be extreamly attentive to those secret desires which sometimes arise in him on occasion of the actual disposition of his Body but above all take heed lest these desires should be the consequence of some preceding Habit. He must to that intent slacken as I may say the bent of Imagination or thinking on nothing that may determine it observe to what he is inclin'd and examine whether his present Inclination proceeds from the actual disposition of his Body Which done he ought to follow it but with much caution and reserve it being extreamly difficult to be assur'd whether these secret Inclinations are owing to the present State of Body and 't is sometimes good to have the advice of some Experienc'd Person upon it But if the Sick Person thus giving a loose to his Imagination as I have been saying finds nothing offer it self to his Mind he must remain quiet and use abstinence for this likely will quicken him to some desire or spend the humours that distemper him But if the disease increase notwithstanding his Abstinence and Rest 't is then necessary to have recourse to experience and the Physician He must give then an exact account of all to a Skillful one that knows if possible the Constitution of his Body He must clearly explain to Him the beginnings and progress of his Disease and the State of Body he was in before he fell into it that He may consult his Experience and Reason with reference to the Person to be cur'd by him And then though the Physician prescribe bitter Medicines and which are really sorts of Poison yet they must be taken because we Experimentally know that these Poisons stay not in the Body but drive out sometimes along with them the corrupt humours which are the cause of the Disease Here it is that Reason or rather Experience must over-rule the Senses provided the abhorrence of the recommended Potion be not of a fresh date For if this Aversion was Cotemporary with the disease it would rather be a Symptom of the Medicine 's being of the same Nature with the ill humours that caus'd the distemper and so perhaps would be augment and strengthen it Nevertheless I think it advisable before we venture upon strong Medicines and which we are much averse to to begin with those that are more gentle and natural As by Drinking a good quantity of Water or taking an easie Emetick if we have lost our Appetite and are not very hard to Vomit Water may attenuate the too condens'd humours and Facilitate the Circulation of the Blood into all the Parts of the Body And Vomitives cleansing the Stomach hinder the Nourishment we take in from corrupting and feeding any longer intermittent Feavers But I ought not to insist upon these things I am therefore of Opinion that we ought to follow the advise of the wise Physicians who are not too hasty and expeditious who are not too presumptuous upon the Recipe's nor too easie to give their Nostrums and Prescriptions For where one remedy does a Sick Man good there are a great many that do him harm As the suffering Persons are impatient and as it makes not for the Honour of the Physicians nor the profit of the Apothecary to visit the sick without prescribing to them so they visit too seldom and prescribe too often When therefore a Man is Sick he ought to request of his Physician that he would â—azard nothing but follow Nature and strengthen it iâ— he can He ought to let him know that he has more Reason and Patience than to take it ill that he visits him often without
and the Accidental Form Accidents Others say that the Forms produce both other Forms and Accidents Others still that bare Accidents are not only capable of producing Accidents but even Forms But it must not be imagin'd that those for instance who say that Accidents can produce Forms by vertue of the Form they are join'd to understand it the same way For one part of them will have Accidents to be the very Force or Virtue of the Substantial Form Another that they imbibe into them the Influence of the Form and only act so by vertue of it A Third lastly will have them to be but Instrumental Causes But neither are these latter sort altogether agreed about what is meant by Instrumental Cause and the vertue they receive from the Principal Nor can the Philosophers compromise about the Action whereby second Causes produce their Effects For some of them pretend that Causality ought not to be produc'd since it is this which produces Others will that they truly act by their own Action But they are involv'd in so many Labyrinths in explaining precisely wherein this Action consists and there are so many different Opinions about it that I cannot find in my Heart to recite them Such is the strange variety of Opinions though I have not produc'd those of the Ancient Philosophers or that were born in very remote Countries But we have sufficient Reason to conclude that they are no more agreed upon the subject of second Causes than those before alledg'd Avicenna for instance is of Opinion that Corporeal Substances cannot produce any thing but Accidents This according to Ruvio is his Hypothesis He supposes that God produces immediately a most perfect Spiritual Substance That this produces another less perfect and this a third and so on to the last which produces all Corporeal Substances and Corporeal Substances Accidents But Avicembrom not able to comprehend how Corporeal Substances which cannot penetrate each other should cause alterations in them supposes that there are Spirits which are capable of acting on Bodies because they alone can penetrate them For these Gentlemen not admitting the Vacuum nor the Atoms of Democritus nor having sufficient knowledge of the subtil matter of M. des Cartes could not with the Gassendists and Cartesians think of Bodies which were little enough to insinuate into the pores of those that are hardest and most solid Methinks this diversity of Opinions justifies this thought of ours that Men often talk of things which they understand not and that the Power of Creatures being a Fiction of Mind of which we have naturally no Idea every Man makes it and imagines it what he pleases 'T is true this Power has been acknowledg'd for a Real and True by most Men in all Ages but it has never yet been prov'd I say not demonstratively but in any wise so as to make an impression upon an Attentive thinking Man For the confus'd Proofs which are built only upon the fallacious Testimony of the Senses and Passions are to be rejected by those who know how to exercise their Reason Aristotle speaking of what they call Nature says it is Ridiculous to go about to prove that Natural Bodies have an inward Principle of Motion and Rest because says he it is a thing that 's Self-Evident He likewise does not doubt but a Bowl which strikes another has the force of putting it in Motion This is witnessed by his Eyes and that 's enough for him who seldom follows any other Testimony than of the Senses very rarely that of his Reason and is very indifferent whether it be intelligible or not Those who impugn the Opinion of some Divines who have written against Second Causes say like Aristotle that the Senses convince us of their Efficacy And this is their first and principal Proof 'T is evident say they that the Fire burns that the Sun shines that Water cools and he must be out of his Senses who can doubt of it The Authors of the other Opinion says the great Averroes are out of their Wits We must say almost all the Peripateticks use sensible Proofs for their Conviction who deny this Efficacy and so oblige them to confess we are capable of acting on them and wounding them 'T is a judgment which Aristotle has already pronounc'd against them and it ought to be put in Execution But this pretended Demonstration cannot but create Pity For it gives us to know the Weakness of an Humane Mind And that the Philosophers themselves are infinitely more sensible than Reasonable It evinces that those who glory in being the Inquirers of Truth know not even whom they are to consult to hear any News of it Whether Soveraign Reason which never deceives but always speaks things as they are in themselves or the Body which speaks only out of Interest and with reference to the preservation and convenience of Life For in fine what prejudices will not be justified if we set up our Senses for Judges to which most of them owe their Birth As I have shown in The Search after Truth When I see a Bowl shock another my Eyes tell me or seem to tell me that it is the True Cause of the motion it impresses for the true cause that moves Bodies is not visible to my Eyes But if I interrogate my Reason I evidently see that Bodies having no Power to move themselves and their moving force being nothing but the Will of God which preserves them successively in different places they cannot communicate a Power which they have not nor could communicate if they had it For 't is plain that there must be Wisdom and that Infinite to regulate the communication of motions with that exactness Proportion and Uniformity which we see A Body cannot know that infinite multitude of impuls'd Bodies round about it and though we should suppose it to have knowledge yet it would not have enough so proportionably to regulate and distribute at the instant of protrusion the moving force it self is carried with When I open my Eyes the Sun appears to me splendidly glorious in Light And it seems not only to be visible it self but to make all the World so too Methinks 't is he that arrays the Earth with flowers and enriches it with Fruits That gives Life to Animals and striking by His Heat into the very Womb of the Earth impregnates Her with Stones Marbles and Metalls But in consulting my Reason I see nothing of all this And if I faithfully consult it I plainly discover the seducement of my Senses and find that God Works all in all For knowing that all the changes which accrue to Bodies have no other principle than the different Communications of Motions which occur in visible and invisible Bodies I see that God does all since 't is his Will that causes and his Wisdom that regulates all these Communications I suppose that Local Motion is the principle of Generations Corruptions Alterations and Universally of all the changes
incident to the Corporeal World which is an Opinion sufficiently now receiv'd among Men of Letters But let their Opinion about it be what it will that matters not much since it seems much easier to conceive that a Body drives another when it strikes it than to comprehend how Fire can produce Heat and Light and educe from the power of matter a substance that was not in it before And if it be necessary to acknowledge that God is the True Cause of the different Communications of Motion by a much stronger reason we should conclude that none but He can Create and Annihilate real Qualities and substantial Forms I say Create and Annihilate For it seems to me at least as difficult to educe from matter a substance that was not in it or to reduce it into it again whilst yet there nothing remains of it as to create it or Annihilate it But I stick not to the Terms And I make use of those because there are no other that I know of which express without Obscurity and Ambiguity the changes suppos'd by the Philosophers to arrive every moment by the force of second Causes I had some scruple to set down here the other Arguments which are commonly urg'd for the Force and Efficacy of natural Causes For they appear so weak and trifling to those who withstand Prejudices and prefer their Reason before their Senses that I can scarce believe methinks that Reasonable Men could be perswaded by them However I produce and answer them since there are many Philosophers who urge them ARGUMENT I. If second Causes did not Operate say Suarez Fonseca and some others Animate things could not be distinguish'd from Inanimate since neither one nor the other would have an inward principle of their Actions ANSWER I answer that Men would have the same sensible proofs that have convinc'd them of the distinction they make between things Animate and Inanimate They would still see Animals do the same Actions as eat grow cry run bound c. and would discern nothing like this in Stones And this one thing makes the vulgar Philosophers believe that Beasts live and that Stones do not For we are not to fancy that they know by a clear and distinct view of Mind what is the Life of a Dog 'T is their Senses which regulate their Decisions upon this Question If it were necessary I could prove here that the principle of the Life of a Dog differs not from the principle of the Motion of a Watch. For the Life of Bodies whatever they be can consist but in the Motion of their Parts And we may easily judge that the same subtil matter which causes the Fermentation of the Blood and Animal Spirits in a Dog and which is the principle of his Life is no perfecter than that which gives Motion to the Spring of a Watch or which causes the Gravitation in the Weights of a Clock which is the principle of their Life or to speak as others do of their Motion It behoves the Peripateticks to give those whom they stile Cartesians a clear Idea of what they call the Life of Beasts Corporeal Soul Body which Perceives and Desires Sees Feels Wills and then we shall clearly resolve their Difficulties if after that they shall persist in raising them ARGUMENT II. It were impossible to discover the Differences or Powers of the Elements So that Fire might refrigerate as Water and nothing would be of a settled and fix'd Nature ANSWER I answer That whilst Nature remains as it is that is to say whilst the Laws of the Communication of Motions remain constantly the same it is a Contradiction that Fire should not burn or separate the Parts of certain Bodies Fire cannot refrigerate like Water unless it becomes Water for Fire being only Fewel whose Parts have been violently agitated by an invisible surrounding Matter as is easie to demonstrate it is impossible its Parts should not Communicate some of their Motion to approaching Bodies Now as these Laws are constant the Nature of Fire its Virtues and Qualities are unchangeable But this Nature and these Vertues are only Consequences of the General and Efficacious Will of GOD who does all in all things Therefore the Study of Nature is in all respects false and vain when we look for other true Causes than the Wills of the ALMIGHTY I confess that we are not to have recourse to God or the Universal Cause when we require the Reason of particular Effects For we should be ridiculous to assert for Instance That GOD dries the Ways or Freezes the Water in the River We must say The Air dries the Earth because it moves and bears off the Water with it that dilutes it Or that the Air or the subtil Matter Freezes the River in Winter because at that time it communicates not sufficient Motion to the Parts that constitute the Water In a Word we must if we can assign the Natural and particular Cause of the Effects propos'd to Examination But because the Action of these Causes consists in the moving Force which actuates them which moving Force is the Will of GOD which create them we ought not to say they have in themselves a Force or Power to produce any Effects And when in Reasoning we are at last arriv'd to a general Effect of which we seek the Cause 't is no good Philosophy to imagine any other than the general And to feign a certain Nature a first Moveable and universal Soul or some such Chimera whereof we have no clear and distinct Idea would be to argue like an Heathen Philosopher For Example when we are ask'd whence it comes that some Bodies are in motion or that the agitated Air communicates its Motion to the Water or rather whence proceeds the mutual Protrusion of Bodies Motion and its Communication being a general Effect on which all others depend we cannot answer I do'nt say like Christians but Philosophers without ascending to God who is the Universal Cause Since 't is His Will that is the moving Force of Bodies and that regulates the Communication of their Motions Had he will'd there should be no new Production in the World he would not have put its Parts in motion And if hereafter He shall will the Incorruptibility of some of the Beings he had made he shall cease to will the Communication of Motions in point of those Beings ARGUMENT III. 'T is needless to Plow to Water and give several preparatory Dispositions to Bodies to fit them for what we desire from them For GOD has no need of preparing the Subjects on which he Works ANSWER I answer That GOD may do absolutely all he pleases without finding any Dispositions in the Subjects he works upon But he cannot do it without a Miracle or by Natural ways that is by the General Laws of the Communication of Motions which he has constituted and which he almost always follows in his Actings GOD never multiplies his Wills without Reason
but acts always by the simplest Ways and for that Reason he makes use of the Collision of Bodies in giving them Motion Not that this Collision is absolutely necessary to it as our Senses tell us but that being the Occasion of the Communication of Motions there need be but very few Natural Laws to produce all the admirable Effects we see For by this means we may reduce all the Laws of the Communication of Motions to one Viz. That percutient Bodies being considered as but one at the Moment of their Contact or Collision the moving Force is divided between them at their Separation according to the Proportion of their Magnitude But whereas concurrent Bodies are surrounded with infinite others which act upon them by Virtue and Efficacy of this Law however constant and uniform this Law be it produces a World of quite different Communications because it acts upon infinite Bodies which are all related to one another It is necessary to Water a Plant to make it grow because by the Laws of the Communication of Motions hardly any other than Watry Particles can by their Motion and by reason of their Figure insinuate and Wind up themselves into the Fibres of Plants and by variously fastning and combining together take the Figure that 's necessary to their Nourishment The subtil Matter which is constantly flowing from the Sun may by its agitating the Water lift it into the Plants but it has not a competent Motion to raise gross Earthy Particles Yet Earth and Air too are necessary to the Growth of Plants Earth to preserve the Water at their Root and Air to give this Water a Moderate Fermentation But the Action of the Sun the Air and Water consisting but in the Motion of their Parts in proper speaking GOD is the only Agent For as I have said there is none but He that can by the efficacy of his Will and by the Infinite Extent of his Knowledge cause and regulate those infinitely infinite Communications of Motions which are made every moment and in a Proportion infinitely exact and regular ARGUMENT IV. Can God resist and Fight against Himself Bodies justle strike and resist one another therefore Gods Acts not in them unless it be by his concourse For if it were he only that produc'd and preserv'd Motion in Bodies he would take care to divert them before the Collision as knowing well that they are impenetrable To what purpose are Bodies driven to be beaten back again why must they proceed to recoil Or what signifies it to produce and Preserve useless Motions Is it not an Absurdity to say that God impugns himself and that He destroys his Works when a Bull fights with a Lyon when a Wolf devours a Sheep and a Sheep eats the Grass which God makes to grow Therefore there are Second Causes ANSWER Therefore Second Causes do all and God does nothing at all For God cannot act against himself but Concourse is Action The concurring to contrary Actions is giving contrary Concourse and consequently doing contrary Actions To concur with the Action of Creatures that resist each other is to Act against himself To concur to useless Motions is to Act in vain But God does nothing needless or in vain he does no contrary Actions and therefore concurs not to the Action of Creatures that often destroy one another and makes useless Actions and Motions See where this proof of Second Causes leads us But let us see what Reason says to it God Works all in every thing and nothing resists him He Works all in all things in as much as his Will both makes and regulates all Motions And nothing resists him because he does what ever he Wills But let us see how this is to be conceiv'd Having resolv'd to produce by the simplest ways as most conformable to Order that infinite Variety of Creatures which we admire he will'd that Bodies should move in a right line because that is the most simple But Bodies being impenetrable and their Motions tending in Lines that oppose or intersect one another they must necessarily fall foul together and consequently cease moving in the same manner God foresaw this yet notwithstanding positively will'd the Collision or shock of Bodies not that he 's delighted in impugning himself but because he design'd to make use of this Collision as an Occasion for his establishing the General Law of the Communication of Motions by which he foresaw he must produce an infinite Variety of admirable Effects For I am perswaded that these two Natural Laws which are the simplest of all others Namely that All Motion tends to make it self in a right line and that in the Collision Motions are Communicated proportionably to the magnitude of the Colliding Bodies are sufficient to produce such a World as we see That is the Heaven and Stars and Planets and Comets Earth Water Air and Fire In a Word the Elements and all Unorganiz'd and inanimate Bodies For Organiz'd Bodies depend on many other Natural Laws which are perfectly unknown It may be living Bodies are not form'd like others by a determinate number of Natural Laws For there is great probability they were all form'd at the Creation of the World and that Time only gives them a necessary Growth to make them Visible to our Eyes Nevertheless it is certain they receive that Growth by the General Laws of Nature whereby all other Bodies are form'd which is the Reason that their Increase is not always Regular I say then that God by the first of Natural Laws positively Wills and consequently Causes the Collision of Bodies and afterwards imploys this Collision as an Occasion of establishing the Second Natural Law which regulates the Communication of Motions and that thus the actual Collision is the Natural or Occasional Cause of the Actual Communication of Motions If this be well consider'd it will be evidently acknowledg'd that nothing can be better Order'd But supposing that God had not so Ordain'd it and that he had diverted Bodies when ready to encounter as if there were a Vacuum to receive them First they would not be subject to that perpetual Vicissitude which makes the Beauty of the Universe For the Generation of some Bodies is perform'd by the Corruption of Others and 't is the contrariety of their Motion which produces their Variety Secondly God would not act in the most simple manner For if Bodies ready to meet should continue on their Motion without touching they must needs describe Lines curv'd in a thousand different Fashions and consequently different Wills must be admitted in God to determine their Motions Lastly if there were no Uniformity in the Action of Natural Bodies and that their Motion were not made in a right Line we should have no certain Principle for our Reasonings in natural Philosophy nor for our conduct in many Actions of our Life 'T is not a disorder that Lyons eat Wolves and that Wolves eat Sheep and Sheep grass of which God has had so
'Mongst all which that which instantly appears Greatest and most Magnificent most Uniform and Comprehensive is that whereof all the Parts have most Symmetry with the Person who constitutes the whole Glory and Sanctity of it And the wisest way of executing that Design is the Establishing certain most simple and fruitful Laws to bring it to its Perfection This is what Reason seems to answer to all those who consult it with Attention when following the Principles which Faith teaches us Let us examine the Circumstances of this Great Design and then endeavour to discover the Ways of executing it XXV The Holy Scripture teaches us That 't is Jesus Christ who ought to make all the Beauty the Sanctity the Grandeur and Magnificence of this Work If Holy Writ compare it to a City 't is Jâ—sus Christ who makes all the Lustre it not being the Sun and the Moon but the Glory of God and the Light of the Lamb that shine upon it When representing it as a Living Body whereof all the Parts have a wonderful Proportion 't is Jesus Christ who is the Head of it 'T is from Him the Spirit and Life are communicated into all the Members that compose it Speaking of it as a Temple Jesus Christ is the Chief Corner-stone which is the Foundation of the Building 'T is He who is the High Priest and Sacrifice of it All the Faithful are Priests but as they participate of his Priesthood they are Victims only as parâ—aking of His Holiness it being in Him and through Him alone they continually offer themselves to the Majesty of God In fine 't is only from the Analogy they bear to Him that they contribute to the Beauty of this August and Venerable Temple which has always been and will eternally continue the Object of the good Pleasure of God XXVI Reason likewise evinces these same Truths For what Proportion is there between Creatures how perfect soever we suppose them and the Action that produces them How can any Creatures which are finite be equivalent to the Action of God of infinite Worth Can God receive any thing from a mere Creature that determines him to act But be it so that God made Man with Hopes of being honour'd by him whence comes it that those who dishonour Him make the greatest Number Is not this a sufficient Indication that God is very negligent of His pretended Glory which He receives from His Work if separated from His Well-beloved Son that it was in Jesus Christ that He resolv'd to produce it and that without Him it would not subsist a moment XXVII A Man resolves upon a Work because he has need of it or has a Mind to see what Effect it will have or lastly because by this Essay of his Strength he learns what he is able to produce But God has no need of his Creatures nor is He like Men who receive new Impressions from the Presence of Objects His Ideas are Eternal and Immutable He saw the World before it was form'd as well as he sees it now Lastly Knowing that His Wills are efficacious he perfectly knows without making trial of his Strength all that He 's capable of producing Thus Scripture and Reason assure us that by Reason of Jesus Christ the World subsists and through the Dignity of his Divine Person receives an additional Beauty which renders it well pleasing in the Sight of God XXVIII From which Principle methinks it follows that Jesus Christ is the Model by which we are made that we were fram'd after His Image and Similitude and have nothing comely in us any farther than we are the Draught and Ectypon of Him that He is the End of the Law and the Archetype of the Ceremonies and Sacrifices of the Jews That to determine that Succession of Generations preceding His Birth they must needs have had some certain Agreements with Him whereby they became more pleasing to God than any other That since Jesus Christ was to be the Head and Husband of the Church 't was requisite he should be typified by the Propagation of Mankind from one Person as related by Moses and explain'd by St. Paul In a word from this Principle it follows that the present World ought to be the Figure of the future and that as far as the Simplicity of General Laws will permit all the Inhabitants of it have been or shall â—e the Figures and Resemblances of the Only Son of God quite from Abel in whom he was sacrificed to the last Member that shall constitute His Church XXIX We judge of the Perfection of a Work by its Conformity with the Idea afforded us by Eternal Wisdom For there is nothing Beautiful or Amiable but as related to Essential Necessary and Independent Beauty Now that Intelligible Beauty being made sensible becomes even in this Capacity the Rule of Beauty and Perfection Therefore all Corporeal Creatures ought to receive from it all their Excellency and Lustre All Minds ought to have the same Thoughts and the same Inclinations as the Soul of Jesus if they would be agreeable to those who see nothing Beautiful nothing Amiable save in what is conformable to Wisdom and Truth Since therefore we are oblig'd to believe the Work of GOD to have an absolute Conformity with Eternal Wisdom we have all Reason to believe that the same Work has infinite Correspondencies with Him who is the Head the Principle the Pattern and the End of it But who can explain all these Agreements XXX That which makes the Beauty of a Temple is the Order and Variety of Ornaments that are found in it Thus to render the Living Temple of the Divine Majesty worthy of its Inhabitant and proportionate to the Wisdom and infinite Love of its Author all possible Beauties are to make it up But it is not so with this Temple rais'd to the Glory of God as with Material ones For that which constitutes the Beauty of the Spiritual Edifice of the Church is the infinite Diversity of Graces communicated from Him who is the Head of it to all the constituent Parts 'T is the Order and admirable Proportions settled among them 't is the various Degrees of Glory shining and reflecting on all sides round about it XXXI It follows from this Principle that to the establishing that Variety of Rewards which make up the Beauty of the Heavenly Jerusalem Men ought to be subject upon Earth not only to Purgative Afflictions but also to the Motions of Concupiscence which make them gain so many Victories by administring such a multitude of various Combats XXXII The Blessed in Heaven no doubt will be endow'd with a Sanctity and Variety of Gifts perfectly corresponding to the Diversity of their Good Works Those continual Sacrifices whereby the Old Man is destroy'd and annihilated will enrich the Spiritual Substance of the New Man with Graces and Beauties And if it were necessary that Jesus Christ should suffer all sorts of Afflictions before He enter'd on the Possession of His
them Amongst which he considers his Church Jesus Christ who is the Head of it and all the Persons which in consequence of some General Laws establish'd ought to compose it In brief upon Consideration of Jesus Christ and all his Members he constitutes Laws for his own Glory Which being so is it not evident that Jesus Christ who is the Principle of all the Glory redounding to God from his Work is the first of the Predestinate and that all the Elect are likewise truly lov'd and predestined gratis in Jesus Christ because they may honour God in his Son That lastly they are all under infinite Obligations to God who without regard to their Merit has settled the General Laws of Grace which ought to sanctifie them and conduct them to the Glory they shall eternally possess LV. You 'll say perhaps that these Laws are so simple and exuberant that God must prefer them to all other and that since he only loves his own Glory his Son ought to become incarnate and so has done nothing purely for his Elect. I confess God has done nothing purely for his Elect For St. Paul teaches us that he has made his Elect for Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ for himself If God cannot be rendred amiable to Men unless we make him act purely for them or not in the wisest manner I had rather be silent Reason teaches me that we render God amiable by shewing him to be infinitely perfect and by representing him so full of Love for his Creatures as not to produce any one with Design of making him miserable For if all are not so happy as to enjoy his Presence 't is because Order requiring that so great a Good should be merited all do not deserve it for the Reasons I have given Surely this is to make God lovely to represent him such as even the Reprobate cannot choose but adore his Conduct and repent them of their Negligence LVI Yet for their Satisfaction who will have God to predestine every of his Elect by a particular Will it may be said with a Salvo to the foregoing Hypothesis That God before he created Souls to unite them to Bodies foresaw all that could befall them by the General Laws of Nature and Grace and all that they should do in all possible Circumstances Therefore being able to create as is suppos'd the Soul of Paul or of Peter and to unite it to a Body which he foresaw should be that of a Predestinate Person he resolved from all Eternity to create the Soul of Paul by a Benevolent Will had for him and to predestine him by this Choice to Life Eternal whereas he creates the Soul of Peter not for any Benevolent Will had to him but by a kind of Necessity by Reason of the Laws of Union which he has most wisely establish'd betwixt Souls and Bodies by which he is oblig'd as soon as Bodies are form'd to unite Souls to them which would have been advantageous to all if Man had not sinned But the Body of Peter being begotten of an Heathen Father or of one that is careless of his Children's Education or Lastly Peter being engag'd by the Fortune of his Birth Places Times Employments which induce him to Evil will infallibly be one of the Reprobate Yet Peter shall be useful to the Designs of God For though he himself shall not enter into the Number of the Predestinate yet he shall by some of his Posterity He shall be subservient to the Beauty and Grandeur of the Church of Jesus Christ by the infinite Relations he shall have to the Elect. Furthermore he shall not be miserable but in proportion to the wrong use he has made of his Liberty since God punishes with Pain only voluntary Disorders This is what may be offer'd for the Satisfaction of some Persons Inclination though I cannot clearly see how it can be altogether rely'd on LVII Such as ascribe to God particular Designs and Wills for all the particular Effects produc'd in Consequence of General Laws commonly employ the Authority of Scripture to justifie their Opinion But being the Scripture is made for all the World for the Simple as well as the Intelligent it abounds with Anthropologies It not only ascribes to God a Body a Throne a Chariot and Equipage Passions of Joy Sorrow Wrath Repentance and other Motions of the Soul but also attributes to him the customary Ways of humane Actings that it may speak to the Simple in a more sensible manner If Jesus Christ became Man 't was in part to satisfie the Inclination of Men who love what is like them and are studious of what affects them 'T was by this real and true kind of Anthropology to persuade Men of those Truths they were incapable to comprehend any other way Thus St. Paul to accommodate himself to the World speaks of the Sanctification and Predestination of the Saints as if God continually work'd in them by particular Wills and even Jesus Christ speaks of his Father as if he took care by such like Wills to adorn the Lilies and to preserve every Hair of the Head of his Disciples Because in truth the Goodness of God to his Creatures being extreme these Expressions afford a great Idea of it and recommend God to the Affections of the grossest Souls and such as are most infected with Self-love Yet as by the Idea we have of God and by the Passages of Scripture conformable to that Idea we correct the Sense of other Texts which attribute to God Members and Passions like ours so when we would speak with Exactness of the manner of God's acting in the Order of Grace or Nature we ought to explain those Passages which make him act as a Man or a particular Cause by the Idea we have of his Wisdom and Goodness and other Scripture Passages comporting with that Idea For in fine if we may say or rather if we are oblig'd to say from the Idea we have of God that he causes not every drop of Rain to fall by particular Wills though the natural Sense of some Scripture Passages authorises that Opinion there is the same Necessity to think notwithstanding some Authorities of the Scripture that God gives not by particular Wills to some Sinners all those good Motions which are useless to them and which would be useful to several others For otherwise I see not how 't is possible to reconcile the Holy Scripture either with Reason or it self as I think I have prov'd If I thought what I have said insufficient to convince attentive Persons that God acts not by particular Wills like particular Causes and finite Understandings I would proceed to shew that there were very few Truths that would admit of greater Probation on Supposition that God governs the World and that the Nature of the Heathen Philosophers is nothing For indeed every thing in Nature proves this Opinion except Miracles which yet would not be Miracles or different from those we call Natural Effects if it
as Jesus Christ alone can merit Grace for us so it is he alone that can administer Occasions to the General Laws by which it is distributed to Men. For the Principle or Foundation of these General Laws or that which determines their Efficacy being necessarily either in us or in Jesus Christ since it is certain that it is not in us it must needs be found in him VIII Besides when Man had sinn'd did it behoove God to have any more regard to his Desires Being we are all in a disorder'd State we can no longer be an Occasion of God's shewing us Favour But a Mediatour was needful not only to give us Access towards God but to be the Occasional Cause of the Favours we hope from him IX Whereas God had a Design of making his Son the Head of his Church it was requisite he should constitute him the Occasional or Natural Cause of the Grace which sanctifies it For 't is the Head which communicates Life and Motion to the Limbs and with that Prospect God permitted Sin For if Man had continued in Innocence as his Will had been meritorious of Grace and even of Glory so the inviolable Laws of Order would have requir'd that God should have appointed in Man the Occasional Cause of his Perfection and his Happiness In so much that Jesus Christ would not have been the Head of the Church or at most had been but the Head of those Influences which all the Members might have easily dispens'd with X. If our Soul were in our Body before it was form'd and if by her diverse Volitions all the Parts which compose it were rang'd and postur'd with how many various Sensations and different Motions would she be touch'd upon consideration of all the Effects which were to follow her Volitions Especially if she were extremely desirous of forming the most vigorous and best made Body pobssile XI Now Holy Scripture does not only say that Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church but also that he begets it and fashions it and gives it increase that he suffers merits acts and influences continually in it The Zeal which Jesus Christ has for his Father's Glory and the Love he bears to his Church constantly suggest to him the Desire of making it the most ample the most magnificent and the perfectest that can be Therefore as the Soul of Jesus has not an infinite Capacity and yet would endow his Church with infinite Beauties and Ornaments we have all reason to believe that there is in his holy Soul a continual Chain of Thoughts and Desires with reference to the mystical Body which he constantly forms XII Now they are these continual Desires of the Soul of Jesus that tend to sanctifie his Church and render it worthy of his Father's Majesty which God has establish'd the Occasional Causes of the Efficacy of the general Laws of Grace For we are taught by Faith that God hath given his Son an absolute Power over Men in constituting him Head of his Church which yet cannot be conceiv'd unless the several Volitions of Jesus Christ are follow'd by their Effects For 't is manifest I should have no Power over my Arm if it mov'd when I would not have it and remain'd dead and motionless when I desir'd to move it XIII This Sovereign Power Jesus Christ has merited over Men as also that Quality of Head of the Church by the Sacrifice he offer'd upon Earth on full Possession of which Right he entred after his Resurrection 'T is now that he is High Priest of future Goods and that He by his diverse Desires prays indefatigably for Men to the Father And since his Desires are Occasional Causes his Prayers are always heard His Father denies him nothing as the Scripture assures us and yet his Prayers and Desires are necessary to obtain Because Occasional Physical Natural Causes for these three Terms have here the same Signification have no Power of themselves and all the Creatures even Jesus Christ consider'd as Man are in themselves but Weakness and Impotence XIV Therefore the Soul of Jesus having a Succession of various Thoughts with reference to the diverse Dispositions whereof Souls in general are capable has these Thoughts attended with certain Desires relating to the Sanctification of these Souls Which Desires being Occasional Causes of Grace ought to shed it on those Persons in particular whose Dispositions resemble that which the Soul of Jesus Christ actually thinks on and this Grace ought to be so much stronger and more abundant as his Desires are more strong and lasting XV. When a Person considers any Part of his Body that is not form'd as it ought to be he naturally has certain Desires relating to it and to the Use he would make of it in a sociable Life which Desires are prosecuted with certain insensible Motions of the Animal Spirits and tend to the posturing or proportioning it in a due manner When the Body is quite form'd and the Flesh is grown solid and consistent these Motions cannot change the Contexture of the Parts but only give them certain Dispositions which we call Corporeal Habits But when the Body is not completely form'd and the Flesh is extremely soft and tender these Motions which accompany the Desires of the Soul not only give the Body particular Dispositions but also change its Construction Which is sufficiently manifest in Children unborn For they are not only mov'd with the same Passions as their Mothers but also receive on their Bodies the Marks of these Passions from which their Mothers are always exempt XVI The Mystical Body of Jesus Christ is not yet grown into a Perfect Man nor will be till the Accomplishment of Ages but he continually is forming it For he is the Head which gives all the Members their increase by the Efficacy of his Influence according to the proportion convenient for each to the end it may be form'd and edified by Charity Which are Truths we are taught by St. Paul Now since Jesus Christ has no other Action than the diverse Motions of his Will 't is necessary that his Desires should be follow'd with the Influence of Grace which only can form him in his Members and give them that Beauty and Proportion which ought to be the Eternal Object of Divine Love XVII The diverse Motions of the Soul of Jesus being the Occasional Causes of Grace we need not wonder if it be sometimes given to the greatest Sinners or to Persons that make no use of it For the Soul of Jesus desiring to raise a Temple of a vast Extent and of infinite Beauty may wish that Grace may be given to the greatest Sinners and if in that Moment Jesus Christ thinks actually on the Covetous for Instance the Covetous shall receive Grace Or Jesus Christ wanting for the Construction of his Church Minds of a certain Character commonly not attainable but by those who suffer certain Persecutions whereof the Passions of Men are the natural