may see that what I say is Truth so that I shall not stand to prove it especially since some Stranger has sufficiently done it to my hand And I could only wish whoever he was that he had alledged the Reasons which I had for saying That an Infant at the time of Baptism was justified by an Actual Love as I have shown in the Explanation upon Original Sin Let any one judge then after having honestly and sincerely examined the Advertisement of Monsieur de la Ville if I had not reason to desire the equitable Readers not to credit him upon his Word for if we believe him he is the most Sincere and Honest Man in the World but if he be carefully examined we find not over many marks of his Sincerity and Honesty At the end of his Advertisement he protests he has endeavoured as much as possible to keep all the Moderation he ought That 't is only his Adversaries Errors he opposes but for their persons he has much esteem and respect whilst yet one can't examine that Advertisement without discovering at least the appearances of a bad Faith and of a Malign Temper which surprizes and provokes the Spirit I pray God to pardon his Heat to regulate his Zeal and inspire him with a Spirit of Mildness Charity and Peace towards his Brethren I know not whether he is pleased in treating me so unhandsomely as he does but I can assure him that I am much troubled that the necessity of defending Truth has obliged me to suspect his Honesty and on the contrary I should be glad is he could know how much I honour respect and love him sincerely in Him in whom we are all Brethren Noverit quam eum non contemnam quantum illam in illo Deo timeam cogitem caput nostrum in cujus corpore fratres sumus Aug. ad Fortunianum Epist 111. 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that are but a little enlightened may sometimes destroy our Soul as unexpert Physicians may our Body As I don 't throughly explain the Rules which might be given in respect of the choice and use that should be made of Guides and Physicians I desire my Sentiments may be equitably interpreted and that it may not be imagined that I would hinder any from seeking necessary assistance from others I know that a particular Blessing attends our submission to the Opinions of the Wise and Understanding and I am willing to believe this General Rule Let us dye according to the received Laws of Phisics to the generality of Men they are safer than any other that I could establish for the Preservation of Life But because it is alwayes profitable to examine our selves and consult the Gospel to hearken to Jesus Christ whether he speaks immediately to our Mind and Heart or by Faith declares himself to our Ears or Eyes I believe I might say what I have said for our Guides themselves deceive us when they speak contrary to what Faith and Reason teach us And as it is to give Honour to God by believing his Works to have that which is necessary for their preservation I thought I should make Men sensible that the Machine of their Body is contrived after so admirable a manner that of it self it discovers more easily what is necessary for its Preservation than by Science or even the Experience of the most able Physicians AN EXPLANATION OF THE Third Chapter of the Fifth Book That Love is different from Peasure and Joy THE Mind commonly confounds things which are very different when they happen at the same time and are not contrary to one another Of which I have given many Instances in this Work because 't is therein that our Errors chiefly consist in respect to what passes in our selves As we have no clear Idea of what constitutes the Nature or Essence of our Mind nor of the Modifications it is capable of it often happens that we confound things absolutely different if they happen within us but at the same time since we easily confound what we do not know by a clear and distinct Idea It is not only impossible clearly to discover wherein the difference of such things consists as pass within us but it is also difficult to discern whether there is any difference between them For to effect this we must look into our selves not to consider what is voluntarily done in reference to Good and Evil but to make an abstracted Reflection upon our selves which cannot be performed without much Distraction and Pains We easily conceive that the Roundness of a Body is different from its Motion And although we know by Experience that a Bowl upon a Plane cannot be pushed without being moved and then Roundness and Motion are found together however we don't confound them one with the other because we know both Motion and Figure by very distinct and clear Ideas But 't is not so with Pleasure and Love for we commonly confound them Our Mind if we may so say becomes movable by Pleasure as a Ball does by its Roundness and because it is never without an impression towards good it is immediately put in motion towards the Object which causes or seems to cause this Pleasure So that this motion of Love happening to the Soul at the same time it feels this Pleasure it is enough to make it confound its Pleasure with its Love because it has not so clear an Idea either of its Pleasure or its Love as it has of Figure and Motion Wherefore some Persons will believe that Pleasure and Love are not different and that I distinguish too many things in each of our Passions But to make it plainly appear that Pleasure and Love are very different I shall distinguish two sorts of Pleasures one of which precedes Reason as agreeable Sensations which we commonly call Pleasures of the Body and the other sort neither precede Reason nor the Senses and are generally called the Pleasures of the Soul Such as Joy which is excited in us in consequence of a clear Knowledge or a confused Sensation which we have that some good is or will happen to us For instance A Man tasting of a Fruit which he knows not finds some Pleasure in eating it if this Fruit be good for his Nourishment This is a preventing Pleasure for since he feels it before he knows whether this Fruit is good or nor it is evident that this Pleasure prevents his Reason An Huntsman when hungry expecting or actually finding something to eat actually feels Joy Now this Joy is a Pleasure which follows the knowledge he has of his present or future good It is perhaps evident by this distinction of Pleasure into that which follows and precedes Reason that there is neither of them but differs from Love For that Pleasure which precedes Reason certainly precedes Love since it precedes all knowledge which in some degree or other is always supposed by Love And on the contrary Joy or Pleasure which supposes Knowledge also supposes Love since Joy supposes the confused Sensation or clear Knowledge that we do or shall possess what we love and if we possessed a thing we had no love for we should receive no Joy by it Thus Pleasure is very different from Love since the Pleasure which precedes Reason precedes and causes Love and the Pleasure which follows Reason necessarily supposes Love as an Effect supposes the Cause Otherwise if Pleasure and Love were the same thing there would never be Pleasure without Love nor Love without Pleasure for a thing cannot be without it self Yet a Christian loves his Enemy and a Child well educated loves his Father how unreasonable and unkind soever he may be The sight of their Duty the fear of God and love of Order and Justice makes them love not only without Pleasure but even with a kind of Horrour such Persons as are not agreeable to them I confess they sometimes feel Pleasure or Joy when they think they do their Duty or when they hope to be recompensed according to their Merit But besides that this Pleasure visibly differs very much from the Love they have to their Father or Enemy although it be perhaps the Motive of it it often happens that 't is not even this Motive which makes them act it is sometimes only an abstracted view of Order or notion of Fear which preserves their Love We may even in one sense say they have a Love for these Persons at the time they think not of them For Love remains in us during the diversions of our thoughts and whilst we sleep but Pleasure seems to me to subsist no longer in the Soul than whilst it is sensible of it Thus Love or Charity remaining in us without Pleasure or Delight it cannot be maintained that Pleasure and Love is the same thing As Pleasure and Pain are two direct contraries If Pleasure were the same thing with Love
necessity of sending Dragoons into the Monasteries and Societies and to an infinite number of honest Men to cause them to abjure the Errours of the Cartesian Philosophy So true is it that Devotees do not always see the fatal Consequences of an Advice which impetuous Zeal dictates to those that are in Authority Monsieur Regis well known by the Philosophy he has Published having undertaken to oppose some Sentiments of F. Malebranch this Father neglected at first to Answer his new Adversary but when Monsieur Regis would have drawn an advantage from the silence of a Man who plainly perceived himself unfairly attack'd Father Malbranche published the last Year a short Answer to Monsieur Regis The name of Monsieur Arnaud was made use of in this Contestation which occasioned him to appear again upon the stage In the Journal des Scavans at Paris he Printed two Letters addrest to F. Malebranch who soon answered him and gave two Letters to the Journalist that were also Printed Monsieur Cousin left off his Correspondence with Monsieur Arnaud and refused to put in his Journal other Letters which M. Arnaud had written a little before his Death we shall doubtless see them in his Posthumous works for it is not probable that they will rob the Publick of the Remains of so great a man We shall be gainers thereby two wayes F. Malbranche will break that silence which he seems to have condemned himself to and we shall have new Explanations upon some important Difficult ties which M. Arnaud may have found in the VVorks of so hard an Adversary I have but one thing more to say of F. Malebranch It is that his Heart agrees perfectly with his Vnderstanding There is as much Vprightness in the one as Justness in the other He is a Christian Philosopher who acts as he thinks Never did any Man more perfectly regulate his Manners and Actions upon the Principles of his Philosophy Being perswaded that God is the only cause which acts truly upon our Body and in our Soul F. Malebranch accustoms himself upon every Sensation upon every Perception to elevate himself always towards the Supreme Being to humble himself in his Presence and to praise him continually VVith what assurance does not he as often as it 's possible approach to the Throne of Grace of the Eternal High Priest who continually intercedes for us VVith what fervour does he not beg to be admitted as a Living Stone in the Structure of the Mysterious Temple which this Divine Architect builds up to the Glory of his Father He is in a continual watchfulness and attention over himself to divert the Impressions which sensible Objects may make upon his Body and to stop whatever is capable of exciting the Passions He is the most sober and temperate Man in the World And if F. Malebranch so exactly observes his Duties towards God and himself he is not less regular in those which respect his Neighbour He is tender and compassionate to the unhappy courteous and affable to all the VVorld preventing and sincere in respect of his Friends good and indulgent to all those who injure him Being perswaded that the Love of his Neighbour ought to have for its principal end that Eternal Society to which we are called by the Gospel He endeavours to inspire all those who come near him with Sentiments of Piety and Religion to procure as much as he can their Eternal Happiness which he earnestly desires day and night In a word F. Malebranch has drawn his own Pourtraiture in his Treatise of Morality To compose the greatest part of which he had no need of long and new Reflexions upon the Duties of Man He hath told us without thinking of it what he exactly practiced after he had applied himself to the regulation of his Manners upon the Truths he had so attentively Meditated and so happily Explained A SEARCH AFTER TRUTH BOOK V. of the Passions CHAP. I. Of the Nature and Original of the Passions in general THE Mind of Man has two essential or necessary relations which are very different the one to God and the other to its Body as it is a pure Spirit it is essentially united to the Word of God to the Eternal Wisdom and Truth for 't is only by this Union that it is capable of thinking as has been shewn in the 3d Book as an humane Spirit it has an essential relation to its Body and because of this union it is sensible and imagines as has been explained in the First and Second Books I call that sense or imagination of the Mind when the Body is the natural or occasional cause of its thoughts and that understanding when it acts of it self or rather when God acts in it or when his light enlightens it after many different manners independantly of any thing whatever that passes in its Body 'T is the same in respect of the humane Will as a Will it essentially depends upon the Love which God bears to himself upon the Eternal Law in a word upon the Will of God 'T is only because God loves himself that we love any thing and if God did not love himself or if he did not continually imprint upon the Soul of Man a Love like to his I mean that motion of Love which we receive for good in general we should love nothing we should will nothing and consequently we should be without any will since the will is nothing else but the impression of Nature which carries towards good in general as we have often said before Book I. Ch. I. and elsewhere But the Will as it is an humane Will essentially depends upon the Body for 't is only from the motions of the Blood and Spirits that it perceives it self agitated with all sensible Emotions I therefore give the name of Natural Inclinations to all the motions of the Soul which are common to us with pure Intelligences and some of those in which the Body has a great share but whereof it is only indirectly the Cause and the End as I have explained in the preceding Book and here I design by the word Passions all the Emotions which the Soul naturally feels by means of the extraordinary Motions of the Animal Spirits and Blood These are the sensible Emotions which shall be the Subject of this Book Although the Passions are inseparable from the Inclinations and Men were no farther capable of sensible love or hatred than as they are capable of the mental yet I thought it would not be amiss to treat distinctly of 'em to avoid confusion Those that consider the Passions are much more strong and lively than the Natural Inclinations for other Objects and which are always produced from other Causes will acknowledge that 't is not without reason that I have separated things that are inseparable in their nature Men are only capable of Sensations and Imaginations as they are capable of pure Intellections the Senses and Imagination being inseparable from the Mind however
air of my Face and firm posture of all the rest of my Body that my Philosophy makes me invulnerable Their Pride maintains their Courage but it does not hinder them from effectively suffering Pain with some inquietude nor prevent them from being Miserable Thus the union they have with their Body is not destroyed nor their pain dissipated but the union they have with other Men fortified by the desire of their esteem in some measure resists this other union they have with their own Bodies The sensible sight of those who look upon them and to whom they are united stays the course of the spirits which accompany pain and effaces the air that would be imprinted on their Countenance for if no body looked upon them this air of Constancy and freedom of Mind would immediately vanish Thus the Stoics only in some measure resist the union that they have with their Bodies by becoming greater Slaves to other Men to whom they are united by the passion of glory 'T is then a certain truth that all Men are united to all sensible things both by Nature and Concupiscence we sufficiently discover it by Experience although Reason seems to oppose it and almost all the actions of Men are sensible and demonstrative proofs of it Though this union is common to all Men yet it is not of an equal extension and power in all for it follows the knowledge of the Mind we may say we are not actually united to unknown Objects a Countryman in his Cottage does not interest himself in the glory of his Prince or Country but only in that of his own or Neighbouring Villages because his knowledge extends no farther The union we have to such sensible Objects as we have seen is stronger than that we have to those we have imagined and which we have only heard of 'T is by Sensation that we unite our selves more strictly to sensible things for Sensation produces much greater Traces in the Brain and excites a much more violent motion in the Spirits than the Imagination only This union is not so strong in those who continually oppose it that they may adhere to the goods of the Mind as in others who follow the motions of their Passions and permit themselves to be subjected to them for desire augments and fortifies this union In fine different Employs different Conditions as well as different Dispositions of Mind make a considerable difference in the sensible Union that Men have with Earthly Goods The great are united to many more things than others their slavery is farther extended A General of an Army is united to all his Soldiers because they all reverence him This slavery often creates valour and the desire of being esteemed of all those who look upon him often obliges him to sacrifice other more sensible and more reasonable desires to it It is the same with those that are in power or that are popular 'T is vanity often which animates their vertue because the love of glory is commonly stronger than the love of truth I speak here of the love of glory not as a simple inclination but as a passion because indeed this love may be sensible and it is often accompanied with very lively and violent emotions of the spirits Different Ages and Sexes are also the chief causes of the Passions of Men. Children do not love the same things as the adult and aged do or at least not with so much force and constancy Women are united only to their Family and Neighbourhood but Men to their whole Country 'T is their part to defend it they choose great Places Honours and Commands There is so great a variety in the Employments and Affairs of Men that it is impossible to express it The disposition of the Mind of a Married Man is not the same with one that is a Batchelor the care of his Family does often wholly take up his thoughts Monks have neither a Mind nor a Heart inclined like other Men nor even like other Ecclesiasticks they are united to fewer things but they are more strongly united to them We may thus speak in general of the different Conditions of Men but we cannot explain the little sensible engagements which are almost all of them different in each particular Person for it often enough happens that Men have particular engagements entirely opposite to those they ought to have in reference to their Condition But although we may in general terms express the different Characters of the Mind the different Inclinations of Men and Women old and young rich and poor learned and ignorant and in short of the different Sexes Ages and Employment Yet these things are too well known to those who live in the World and who reflect upon what they see to swell this Volume with them We need but open our Eyes to be agreeably and solidly instructed in these things For those who choose rather to read them in Greek than to learn them by any reflexion upon what passes before their Eyes I refer them to the Second Book of Aristotles Rhetorick which I believe is the best Piece of that Philosopher's because few things are there said that can deceive us thô he seldom proves what he advances It is then evident that this sensible Union of the Mind of Men with whatever has any relation to the preservation of their lives or the Society whereof they consider themselves as Members is different in different Persons since it is most extensive in those that have most knowledge are most noble have the highest Employments and greatest Imaginations and and that it is more strict and stronger in those who are most Sensible have the most lively Imagination and who most blindly follow the motions of their Passions It is very useful often to reflect upon the almost infinite Manners whereby Men are tied to sensible Objects and one of the best ways to become very knowing in these things is to study and observe our selves 'T is by the experience of what we feel in our selves that we are instructed in the knowledge of all the inclinations of other Men and of the Passions they are subject to But if to these Experiments we add the knowledge of their particular Engagements and that of the Judgments proper to each of the Passions of which we shall afterwards speak it may be we shall not have so much difficulty to guess at the greatest part of their Actions as Astronomers have to predict Eclipses For although Men are free it is very rare that they make a good use of their liberty against their natural inclinations and violent passions Before we end this Chapter we must farther remark that it is one of the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body that all the Inclinations of the Soul even of those it has for the goods that have no relation to the Body are accompanied with the emotions of the Animal Spirits which make these Inclinations sensible because Man not being a pure Spirit it
enlightened Philosophy 'T is true that Pleasure is good and Pain an evil and that Pleasure and Pain by the Author of Nature have been affixed to the use of certain things to make us capable of judging whether they are good or bad That we must choose the good fly the evil and generally follow the motions of our Passions All this is true but it only relates to the Body to preserve which and long to continue a Life like to that of Beasts we must suffer our selves to be governed by our Passions and Desires The Senses and Passions were only given us for the good of the Body sensible Pleasure is the character which Nature has joined to the use of certain things that without taking the pains to examine them by Reason we might employ 'em for the preservation of the Body but not that we should love them for we ought to love nothing but what Reason most certainly discovers to us to be our good We are Rational Beings and God who is our chief Good requires not of us a blind Love a Love of Instinct or one that is forced but a Love of Choice of Knowledge and such a one as subjects our Mind and Hearts to him He induces us to love him by discovering to us by the light that accompanies the delection of his Grace that he is our Soveraign Good but inclines us to the good of the Body only by instinct and a confused sensation of Pleasure because the good of the Body deserves neither the application of the Mind nor exercise of our Reason But farther our Body is not our selves 't is something that belongs to us without which absolutely speaking we may exist The Good of the Body therefore is not properly our good for Bodies can be only the good of Bodies which we may make use of for the good of our Body but we must not unite our selves to them Our Soul has likewise a Good peculiar to her self viz. that good only that is superiour to her who alone preserves and produces in her the sensations of Pain and Pleasure For in fine all the objects of our Senses are of themselves uncapable of making us perceive them and 't is God alone that can teach us they are present by the sensation he gives us of them which is a Truth the Heathen Philosophers could never comprehend We may and I confess ought to love what is capable of making us feel Pleasure And 't is for that reason we must love none but God because 't is only he who can act in our Souls since sensible objects can only move the Organs of our Senses But perhaps it may be answered by some what matters it from whence these agreeable Sensations come we will enjoy them Ingrateful as they are not to acknowledge the hand that so kindly bestows these Goods They would have a just God give unjust Rewards and recompense them for the Crimes they commit against him at the very time they commit them They would make use of his immutable Will which is the Order and Law of Nature to force undeserved favours from him For by a criminal Artifice they produce such motions in their Bodies which obliges him to make them taste all sorts of Pleasures But Death will corrupt this Body and God whom they have made subservient to their unjust Desires will make them submit to his just Anger and will mock them in his turn 'T is true 't is a very hard thing that the possession of the Goods of the Body should be attended with Pleasure and that that of the Goods of the Soul should often be tied to Pain and Sorrow We may look upon it as a great irregularity because Pleasure being the character of Good as Pain is that of Evil we ought infinitely to take more delight in the love of God than in the use of sensible things since God is the true or rather the only Good of the Mind This will certainly happen one day and 't is very probable 't was so before the Fall at least 't is certain before Sin entered into the World we felt no pain in the exercise of our Duty But God has withdrawn himself from us ever since the Fall of Adam he is no longer our Good by Nature but only by Grace for now we naturally find no satisfaction in loving him and he rather diverts us from then enclines us to love him If we follow him he repulses us if we run after him he smites us if we are constant in our persuit he still treats us ill and makes us suffer very lively and sensible Griefs But when being weary with walking in the hard and painful Paths of Virtue without being incouraged by the relish of Good or assisted by any Nourishment we begin to feed upon sensible things to which he unites us by the taste of Pleasure as if he would reward us for turning aside from him to follow those perishing Goods In short since the first Sin it seems as if God were not pleased that we should love or think upon him or that we should look upon him as our only and chief Good It is only through the Grace of JESVS CHRIST that we are now sensible that God is our Good since 't is by his Grace that we take any pleasure and satisfaction in the love of God Thus the Soul neither discovering her own Good by a clear view or by sensation without the Grace of JESVS CHRIST she takes the Good of the Body for her own She loves it and is more strictly united to it by her Will than she was by the first Institution of Nature For the Good of the Body being the only one left that we are now sensible of it necessarily acts the more powerfully upon Man affects his Brain more livelily and consequently the Soul must feel and imagine it after a more sensible manner And the Animal Spirits being more violently agitated the Will must needs love it with more Ardour and Pleasure Before Sin the Soul was able to efface out of the Brain an over lively image of sensible good and cause the pleasure that attended this image to vanish The Body being thus submitted to the Mind the Soul could in an instant put a stop to the shaking of the Fibres of the Brain and emotion of the Spirits only by the consideration of its Duty But now it remains no longer in its power nor do these traces of the Imagination and motions of the Spirits any longer depend upon it and therefore by a necessary consequence Pleasure which by the order of Nature is affixed to these traces and motions is become the only Master of the Heart Man cannot long resist this Pleasure by his own strength 't is Grace only that can entirely overcome it because none but God as the Author of Grace can overcome himself as the Author of Nature or rather can appease himself as the Revenger of Adam's Disobedience See the Fifth Dialogue of the Christian
of the Mind from God and the uniting the Mind to something inferior to it like the Body since only this union can make it imperfect and unhappy Thus to be acquainted with Truth to know things that are the most agreeable or consonant to the Rules of Virtue is to know God himself The Mind is as it were placed between God and the Body Good and Evil between what instructs and blinds it regulates and disorders it what can make it perfect and happy and what can make it imperfect and miserable When it discovers any Truth or sees things as they are in themselves it sees them in the Idea's of God that is by a clear and distinct view of what it is in God that represents them For as I have before intimated the Mind of Man does not in it self include the Perfections or Idea's of all the Beings it is capable of considering 'T is not the Universal Being and therefore does not see in it self such things as are distinct from it by consulting it self it is neither capable of enlightening or instructing it self for 't is neither its own Perfection nor Light it stands in need of the immense Light of Truth by which it is united to and possesses God in some manner But we cannot only say that the Mind which is acquainted with Truth does in some manner know God who includes it but we may likewise add That in part it knows things as God himself knows them for the Mind knows their true Relations and God knows them also the Mind discovers them by viewing the Perfections of God who represents them God sees them likewise by the same means For in short God neither sees nor imagines but perceives in himself as he is the Intellectual World the Material and Sensible one which he has created It is the same with the Mind in its knowledge of Truth it perceives it not by Sensation and Imagination Sensations and Phantoms only represent false Relations to the Mind and whoever discovers the Truth can only see it in the Intellectual World to which 't is united and in which God himself sees it for this Material and Sensible World is not intelligible of it self The Mind then sees in the Light of God what e'er it sees clearly thô it sees them but imperfectly and in that respect very differently from what God sees them So that when the Mind discovers the Truth it is not only united to God but possesses and beholds him and in one sense sees the Truth as God himself does Likewise when our Love is regulated by Virtue we love God for when we love according to these Rules the impression of love that God continually produces in our hearts inclines us towards him and is neither diverted by Free-will nor changed into self-Self-love The Mind then does only with the greatest freedom follow this impression that God gives it and the Almighty never giving it any impression but what tends towards him since he only acts for himself It is evident that when we love according to the Rules of Virtue we love God But 't is not only to love God 't is also to love as God does who only loves himself and his Works because they relate to his Perfections and loves these Works proportionably to the relation they have to these Perfections And indeed 't is the same love whereby God loves himself and whatever he has created To love according to the Rules of Virtue is to love God only and to love God in every thing is to love every thing so far as it partakes of his Goodness and Perfection since that is to love them in proportion to their Amiableness In short 't is to love by the impression of the same love whereby God loves himself for 't is that love by which God loves himself and whatever relates to him which animates us when we love as we ought to do And therefore we then love as God loves It is then evident that the knowledge of Truth and regulated love of Virtue produces all our Perfections since they are commonly the consequences of our Union with God and even lead us to the enjoyment of him as much as we are capable in this life And on the contrary the blindness of our Minds and irregularity of our Inclinations are the cause of all our imperfections being the Natural effects of the union of our Mind with our Body as I have before proved in shewing that we never discover the Truth nor love the true Good when we follow the impressions of our Senses Imaginations and Passions Tho' these things are so evident yet Men who ardently desire to perfect their Being take very little pains to encrease their union with God but continually endeavour to strengthen and enlarge that they have with Sensible things The cause of this strange irregularity cannot be too fully explain'd The possession of Good must naturally produce these two effects in him that enjoys it it makes him more perfect and at the same time more happy Yet it does not always happen so I confess 't is impossible that the Mind shou'd actually possess any good and not be actually more perfect but it may actually enjoy a good without being made more happy by it Those who are best acquainted with the Truth and have the greatest love for the most amiable good are always actually more perfect than those that are still subjected to blindness and disorder yet are they not always actually more happy It is the same thing in respect to Evil it makes men both imperfect and unhappy at the same times yet tho' it always renders them more imperfect it does not always make them more unhappy or at least it does not make them unhappy in proportion to the imperfection it gives them Virtue is often unpleasant and bitter and Vice sweet and agreeable so that 't is chiefly through Faith and Hope that good Men are truly happy whilst the Wicked actually enjoy Pleasure and Delights It ought not to be thus 't is true but so it is Sin having caused this disorder as I have shew'd in the preceding Chapter and 't is this disorder that is the chief cause not only of all the irregularities of our Hearts but also of the blindness and ignorance of our Minds Our Imagination is by this disorder perswaded that the Body may be the good of the Mind for Pleasure as I have many times intimated is the Character or Sensible Mark of Good and the most sensible Earthly enjoyments are those which we imagine we receive from the Body Wherefore without much reflexion we judge that Bodies may be and even truly are our Good And 't is so difficult to oppose the Instinct of Nature and to resist the Proofs of Sensation that we never so much as think of it We reflect not upon the disorders that Sin has produced and consider not that Bodies can only act upon the Mind as occasional Causes That the Mind cannot immediately or of it self
enjoy any corporeal thing and that it can unite it self to no object but by its knowledge and love God only being above us can recompence or punish us with Sensations of Pleasure or Pain which can instruct more and in short act in us These truths altho' very evident to attentive Minds are not so powerful to convince us as the deceitful Experience of a sensible impression When we consider any thing as part of our selves or look upon our selves as part of this thing which we judge is good for us to be united to we have a love for it and this love is so much the greater as the thing which we take to be united to us appears a more considerable part of the whole which we compose with it Now there are two sorts of Proofs which perswade us that a thing is part of our selves the instinct of Sensation and evidence of Reason By the instinct of Sensation I am perswaded that my Soul is united to my Body or that my Body makes up part of my Being yet I have no full evidence of it since 't is not by the light of Reason that I conclude it but by the Pain or Pleasure I feel when Objects strike my Senses If I prick my hand I suffer pain therefore I conclude my hand to be a part of my Self but if my Cloaths are torn I suffer nothing therefore determine they do not belong to my Being My Hair is cut without pain but cannot be pluck'd off without it This perplexes the Philosophers and they know not how to decide it but their indetermination shews the wisest Judge rather by the instinct of Sensation than light of Reason that such things are or are not a part of themselves For if they concluded from Evidence and Reason they wou'd soon discover that the Mind and Body are Beings of different Species and that the Mind cannot be united to the Body of it self that 't is only through the union we have with God that the Soul is wounded when the Body is struck Therefore 't is only by the instinct of Sensation that we look upon our Bodies and all the sensible things we are united to as parts of our selves I mean as part of what thinks and feels within us because what is not cannot be discover'd by the evidence of Reason since evidence discovers nothing but Truth And on the contrary 't is by the light of Reason that we discover the relation we have with intellectual things By a clear view of the Mind we discover that we are united to God after a more strict and essential manner than we are to our Bodies That without him we are nothing can neither do nor know will nor feel any thing That he is our All and if we may so speak that we make but one whole with him whereof we are an infinitely small part The light of Reason discovers a thousand Motives to us that wou'd induce us to love God only and contemn the Body as unworthy of our love but we are hot naturally sensible of our union with God nor by the instinct of Sensation but only through the Grace of our SAVIOVR perswaded that he is our All which Grace causes such a Spiritual Sensation in some Persons as it assists them in conquering that contrary Sensation which unites them to the Body For God as he is the Author of Nature inclines our Minds to love him by an enlightened knowledge and not one of instinct And very probable 't is since the Fall that he as Author of Grace has added Instinct to Illumination because our light is now so much diminished that it is incapable of carrying us to God besides its being continually weakened and made ineffectual by contrary Pleasure and Instinct We by the light of the Mind then discover that we are united both to God and the Intellectual World he includes and by Sensation are convinced that we are united to our Bodies and by them to the Material and Sensible World which God has created But as our Sensations are more lively moving frequent and even more lasting than our Illuminations so we cannot think it strange that our Sensations shou'd agitate us and stir up our love to all Sensible Things and that our light dissipates and vanishes without producing in us any Zeal for the Truth It is true there are many Men who are perswaded that God is their true Good love him as their All and who ardently desire to encrease and strengthen the union they have with him but few evidently perceive that to know and consider the Truth is to unite themselves to God with all their Natural power that 't is a kind of enjoying of him to meditate on the true Idea's of things and that this abstracted view of certain general and immutable Truths which determine all particular ones are the flights of a Mind which quits the Body to be united to God Metaphysics Speculative Mathematics and all Universal Sciences which regulate and include particular ones as the Universal Being comprehends all particular Beings seem Chimerical to most Men even to the Religious as well as to those who do not love God So that I dare hardly say that by enquiring into these Sciences the Mind applies it self to God after the most pure and perfect manner it is naturally capable of and that 't is by a prospect of the Intellectual World which is the Object of these Sciences that God has created and still knows this Sensible World from whence Bodies receive their life as Spirits live from the other Those who only follow the impression of their Senses and Motions of their Passions are incapable of relishing truth because it does not flatter them And good Men who continually oppose their Passions when they present false goods to them do not always resist them when they obscure the truth or make it contemptible to them because Persons may be Pious without extraordinary Judgments To make us acceptable to God 't is not requisite for us exactly to know that our Senses Imaginations and Passions always represent things otherwise to us than they are for indeed it does not appear that JESVS CHRIST or his Apostles designed to undeceive us of several Errors that D'cartes has since discovered to us upon this matter There is a great deal of difference between Faith and Knowledge the Gospel and Philosophy The most ignorant are capable of Faith but few are able to understand Evident Truths Faith represents God as the Creator of Heaven and Earth to the most Simple which is enough to induce them to love and serve him but Reason considers God not only in his Works because she knows he existed before he was a Creator and therefore endeavours to Contemplate him in himself or in the great and vast Idea of an infinitely perfect Being which is included in him The Son of God who is the Wisdom of the Father or the Eternal Truth was made Man and became sensible to discover himself
reason that we believe all Men receive the same Sensations of the same Objects as we do we think that all Men are acted with the same Passions as we are upon the same subjects provided we believe they are capable of being moved by them We imagine they love what we love or desire what we desire from whence proceed Jealousies and secret Aversions if the good we are in pursuit of cannot be wholly possessed by many but if several Persons can possess it without dividing it as they may the soveraign Good Science Vertue c. then 't is quite of another matter We likewise think they hate shun and fear the same things as we do and from thence comes Associations and secret Conspiracies according to the nature of the thing we hate by this means hoping to deliver our selves from our Miseries We attribute therefore the Emotions of our Passions to those Objects that produce them in us and believe that all other Men and even sometimes that Beasts are agitated like us besides we judge yet more rashly that the cause of our Passion which is often only imaginary is really in some Object When we have a Passionate Love for any one we think every thing is amiable in them His Grimaces are Charming his Ugliness is not displeasing his Irregular Motions and Unhandsom Gestures are Just or at least Natural If he never speaks 't is because he is Wise if he talks much he is very Witty if he speaks upon every thing his Knowledge is universal if he continually interrupts others it proceeds from his Quickness Vicacity and Fire In short if he would be chief in all Company 't is because he Merits it Thus our Passion after this manner hides or disguises the Defects of our Friends and on the contrary magnifies the least good Quality in them But if this Love is only founded upon the agitation of the Blood and Animal Spirits like the rest of the Passions in time it cools for want of heat or proper Spirits to maintain it and if interest or any other false relation change the disposition of the Brain hatred will succeed this love and will not fail to make us imagine in the Object of our Passion all the defects that can cause a just Aversion In the same Person we shall see such Qualities as are directly contrary to what we admired before and be ashamed that ever we loved them and the Predominant Passion will be sure to justifie it self and make that it succeeds ridiculous The power and injustice of the Passions are not limited to what we have already said they are infinitely farther extended Our Passions do not only disguise their principal Object but likewise whatever has any relation to it They not only make all the Qualities of our Friends agreeable but also the greatest part of the Qualities of our Friends Friends And even go farther in those that have a great and strong Imagination for their Passions have so vast a dominion and extension that it is impossible to determine their limits What I have already mentioned are such general and pregnant Principles of Errors Prejudices and Injustices that 't is impossible to remark all the Consequences of them Most of the Truths or rather Errors of certain Places Times Commonalties and Families have their rise from them What is approved in Spain is rejected in France what is Orthodox in Paris is condemned at Rome what the Dominicans espouse the Franciscans disapprove and what is undoubted to the one is erroneous to the other The Dominicans think it their Duty to follow Sr. Thomas and why because he was one of their Order and on the contrary the Franciscans embrace the Opinions of Scotus because he belonged to theirs There are also Truths and Errors peculiar to certain times The Earth moved about Two thousand years ago and from thence it has continued fix'd till our days and now begins to turn again Aristotle has been formerly burnt and a Provincial Council approved of by a Pope has wisely forbidden the teaching of his Physics ever since he has been admired and now begins again to be despised There are some Opinions now received in the Schools which have formerly been look'd upon as Heresies and those who maintained them have been Excommunicated as Hereticks by some of the Bishops Because Passions causing Factions these Factions produce such Truths or Errors as are as inconstant as the Cause which produces them For instance Men may be indifferent in respect to the stability of the Earth or the essence of Bodies but continue no longer so Concil Angl. per Spelman An. 1287. when they are maintained by such as they hate Thus Aversion upheld by a confused Sense of Piety produces an indifferent Zeal which kindles by little and little and at last causes such Events as appears so strange to every one a long time after they happen We can scarcely think that the Passions should go so far but 't is because we don't consider they extend to whatever can satisfie them Haman it may be would have done no harm to the Jews if Mordecai had saluted him but he being a Jew and refusing it the whole Nation must perish that his revenge might be the more magnificent When there is a dispute between two Persons who has a right to an Estate they ought only to bring their Titles and speak what relates to their Case or can best set it off yet they fail not to use all manner of reproaches one against another to contradict each other in every thing and to introduce a thousand unnecessary Accusations and perplex their Suit with an infinite number of Accessory Circumstances which confound the Cause And indeed all Passions extend as far as the prospect of their Mind who are moved with them since there is nothing that we take to have any relation with the Object of our Passions to which the motions of these Passions do not extend which is done as follows The Traces of Objects are really so connected one with another in the Brain that 't is impossible the course of the Spirits should violently stir up any of them without affecting the rest at the same time The chief Idea therefore of what we think of is necessarily accompanied with a great number of accessory Idea's which are so much the more increased as the impression of the Animal Spirits are more violent And this impression of the Spirits seldom fails to be violent in the Passions because the Passions continually and powerfully force into the Brain an abundance of these Spirits that are proper to preserve the Traces of the Idea's which represent their Object Thus the motion of Love or Hatred extend not only to the principal Object of the Passion but likewise to whatever we discover to have any relation to this Object because in the Passion the motion of the Soul follows the perception of the Mind even as the motion of the Animal Spirits in the Brain follow the Traces of
into the same Errors because they fill their Minds with a great number of such Truths as have more lustre than power and are fitter to dissipate and divide their Minds than to fortifie it against Temptation whereas unlearned and ignorant Persons are faithful in their Duty because they make some great and serious Truth familiar to them which fortifies and upholds them in all Occurrences CHAP. IX of Love and Aversion and of their principal kinds LOve and Aversion are the first Passions which succeed Admiration We do not long consider an object without discovering the Relations it has to us or to something that we Love The object that we Love and to which consequently we are united by Love being almost always present to us as well as that which we actually admire our Mind without any pain or great reflection makes the necessary Comparisons to discover the Relations they have to each other and to us or else it is naturally advertized of 'em by the preventing Sensations of Pleasure and Complacency And then the motion of Love we have for our selves and the object that we Love extends it self unto that we admire if the relation that it immediately has with us or with any thing we are united to appears advantagious to us either by Knowledge or Sensation Now this new motion of the Soul or rather motion of the Soul newly determined being joined to that of the Animal Spirits and followed with the Sensation which accompanies the new disposition that this new motion of Spirits produces in the Brain is the Passion that we here call Love But if we feel by any Pain or discover by a clear and evident Knowledge that the union or relation of the object we admire is disadvantageous to us or to any thing we are united to Then the motion of Love that we have for our selves and for what is united to us is limited in us or carried towards it and follows not the sight of the Mind nor employs it self on the object of our Admiration But as the motion towards good in general which the Author of Nature continually imprints in the Soul carries us towards what we know and feel to be so because what is intelligible and sensible is good in it self We may say that the resistance which the Soul makes against this natural motion that draws it away is a kind of voluntary motion which terminates in Nothingness Now this voluntary motion of the Soul being joyned to that of the Spirits and Blood That we may not be mistaken in respect to what I here call voluntary Motion it is requisite to read the first explanation upon the first Chapter and followed with the Sensation which accompanies the new disposition that this motion of Spirits produces in the Brain is the Passion that we here call Aversion This Passion is absolutely contrary to Love yet is never without Love It is wholly contrary because this separates I should only perplex the thought if I spoke whatever related to it to satisfie some difficult Persons and that unites The former has Nothingness for its object and the latter always some Being whereby 't is excited Aversion refists natural Motion and makes it of no effect whereas Love yields to it and makes it victorious But it is never separated from Love for if evil which is its object is taken for a privation of good to fly evil is to fly the privation of good that is to incline towards good and so that to hate the privation of good is to love good it self But if evil is taken for Pain and the aversion of Pain is not an aversion of the privation of Pleasure since Pain is as real a Sensation as Pleasure it is not therefore the privation of it but the aversion of Pain being the aversion to some inward Misery we should not have this aversion if we had not love Indeed evil may be taken for whatever causes Pain in us or deprives us of good and then aversion depends upon the love of our selves or of something to which we wish to be united Love and Hatred are then the two Mother Passions and opposite to each other but Love is the first chief and most Universal Being also since the Fall so far removed and separated from good as we are and looking upon our own being as the chief part of every thing we are united to we may in one Sense say that the motion of Love which we have to all things is only a consequence of self-Self-Love We love Honours because they raise us above others Riches because they defend and preserve us Our Relations Prince and Country because we are interested in their preservation The motion of love that we have for our selves extends to every thing that relates to us and to whatever we are united For 't is even this motion which unites and diffuses if I may so say our Being into those which encompass us in proportion as we discover by Reason or discern by Sensation that 't is advantageous to be united to them So that we must not think that since the Fall self-Self-Love is only the cause and rule of all other Loves but that most Loves are only kinds of self-Self-Love For when we say a Man loves a new object we must not think that a new motion of love is produced in this Man But rather that knowing that this object has some relation or union with him he loves himself in that object and by a motion of Love as old as himself For indeed without Grace there is only Self-Love in the Heart of Man For the love of Truth Justice and even of God himself and every other Love that has been in us from the first Inftitution of Nature is ever since the fall the Sacrifice of self-love We doubt not nevertheless but the most wicked and barbarous Men as Idolaters and even Atheists themselves are united to God by a Natural Love and of which consequently Self Love is not the cause By Love they are united to Truth Justice and Virtue They praise and esteem good Men and 't is not because they are Men that they love them but because they see good qualities in them which they cannot avoid loving since they cannot hinder themselves from admiring and judging them aimable Thus we love something else besides our selves but self-Self-Love is always predominant over all other loves Men abandon Truth and Justice for triffling Interests and if by their natural Powers they hazard their Lives and Fortunes to defend oppressed innocency or any other occasion They are induced by little else than Vanity and to make themselves considerable by the apparent possession of some Virtue which all the world reverences They love Virtue and Justice but never when 't is against themselves They may love them when they agree but never when they are opposite to their Interest for they can never without Grace gain the least conquest over self-Self-Love There are also many other natural
loves We Naturally love our Prince our Country our Relations and those that we find conformable to our Humours Designs Employments but all these loves are very weak as well as the love of Truth and Justice and Self-Love being the most violent of all loves it always overcomes them without finding any other resistance than what it makes it self Bodies which strike one another lose their motion in proportion as they communicate it to those they meet and they may at last lose it all if they shock many other Bodies But 't is not so with Self-Love it determines all other loves by the impression it gives them yet its motion diminishes not On the contrary it acquires new Powers by its new Victories and as its motion goes not out of the Heart it is not lost although it is continually communicated Self-Love is then the commanding and universal Love since it is found every where and reigns where-ever it is found So that all the Passions have no other motion than that of Self-Love we may also say that Self-Love is the most extensive and strongest of all Passions or that 't is the commanding and universal Passion For even as all Virtues are only kinds of the first Virtue that we call Charity as St. Augustine has shown so all Vices and even all Passions are likewise only consequences or kinds of Self-Love or proceed from this general Vice we call Concupiscence We often distinguish in Morality the Virtues or Kinds of Charity by the difference of its Objects but that sometimes confounds the true Idea we ought to have of Virtue which rather depends upon its own motive than on any thing else and therefore we shan't follow this method in treating of the Passions We will not here distinguish them by their objects because one object alone may excite them all and yet ten thousand objects must excite but one For altho' objects differ amongst themselves they are not always different in relation to us and they excite not different Passions in us A promised Marshal's Staff differs from a promised Bishop's Crosier yet these two marks of Honour excite very near the same Passion in Ambitious Persons because they stir up a like Idea of Good in the Mind But the same Mareschal's Staff when promised granted enjoyed or taken away excites very different Passions since it raises in the Mind different Ideas of Good We must not therefore multiply the Passions according to the different Objects which cause them but only admit so many of 'em as there are accessary Ideas which attend the principal Idea of Good or Evil and considerably change it in relation to us For the general Idea of Good or the Sensation of Pleasure which is a good to him who tastes it agitating the Soul and Animal Spirits it produces the general Passion of Love And the accessory Ideas of this Good determine the general agitation of the Soul and the course of the Animal Spirits after a particular manner which puts the Mind and Body into the disposition it ought to be in relation to the Good we perceive and thus they produce all particular Passions Thus the general Idea of Good produces an indeterminate Love which is only an extension of Self-Love The Idea of the Good which we possess producs a a love of Joy The Idea of a Good that we do not yet but hope hereafter to possess that is which we judge we may be able to possess produces a love of Desire In fine the Idea of a Good which we possess not nor have any hopes of possessing or which is the same the Idea of a Good that we have no hopes of possessing without the loss of some other or such an one as we cannot preserve when we possess it produces a love of Sorrow These are the three simple or primitive Passions which have Good for their object for the hope which produces Joy is not an emotion of the Soul but a simple Judgment But we must observe that Men limit not their being in themselves but extend it to ail things and Persons to whom it may appear advantagious to be united So that we must conceive that they in some manner possess a good when their Friends enjoy it although they do not immediately possess it themselves Thus when I say that the possession of Good produces Joy I mean not only of the immediate union or possession but of all others for we naturally feel Joy when any good fortune happens to those we love Evil as I have before said may be taken in three different ways either for the privation of Good or for Pain or in fine for the thing which causes the privation of Good or produces Pain In the first Sense the Idea of Evil being the same with the Idea of a Good that we possess not it is plain this Idea produces Sorrow or Desire or even Joy For Joy is always excited when we feel our selves deprived of the privation of Good that is when we possess Good So that the Passions which regard evil taken in this Sense are the same with those which regard Good because in effect they have Good likewise for their object But if by Evil we mean Pain which only is always a real Evil to him who suffers it whilst he suffers it then the sensation of this Evil produces the Passions of Sorrow Desire and Joy which are kinds of Hatred and not Love for their motion is absolutely opposite to that which accompanies the sight of Good this motion being only the opposition of the Soul which resists the natural impression The actual Sensation of Pain produces ah aversion of Sorrow Pain which we do not actually suffer but are afraid of suffering produces an aversion of Desire In fine the Pain that we do not suffer nor are apprehensive of suffering or which is the same the Pain that we do not foresee we shall suffer without some great Recompence or the Pain which we feel our selves delivered from produces an aversion of Joy These are the three primitive or simple Passions which have Evil for their object for fear which produces Sorrow is not an emotion of the Soul but a simple Judgment Lastly if by Evil we mean the Person or thing which deprives us of Good or makes us suffer Pain the Idea of Evil produces a motion of Love and Aversion together or simply a motion of Aversion The Idea of Evil produces a motion of Love and Aversion together when the Evil is what deprives us of a Good For 't is by the same motion that we encline towards Good and remove our selves from what hinders our possession of it But this Idea only produces a motion of Aversion when 't is the Idea of an Evil which makes us suffer Pain for 't is by the same motion of Aversion that we hate Pain and whatever produces it Thus there are three simple or primitive Passions which respect Good and as many others which regard Pain or which causes it
of But that we may the more easily discover them it is requisite to read Descartes's Principles carefully without receiving any thing he says except when the Force and Evidence of his Reasons permit us not to doubt of it As Morality is the most necessary of all Sciences we must also study it very carefully for 't is chiefly in that Science that 't is dangerous to follow the Opinions of Men But that we may not deceive our selves in it but preserve Evidence in our Perceptions we must only meditate upon undoubted Principles such as are confessed by all those whose Minds are not blinded with Pride for there is no undoubted Principle of Morality for Spirits of Flesh and Blood and such as aspire to the Quality of great Wits These sort of Men comprehend not the most simple Truths or if they comprehend them at least they always dispute them through a Spirit of Contradiction and to preserve such a Reputation Some of these most general Principles of Morality are That God having made all things for himself he has created our Minds to know and our Hearts to love him That being also as Just and Powerful as he is we cannot be Happy if we do not follow his Orders nor Unhappy if we do That our Nature is Corrupt that our Minds depend upon our Bodies our Reason upon our Senses and our Wills upon our Passions That we are uncapable to do what we see clearly to be our Duties and that we have need of a Saviour There are also many other Principles of Morality as That a retreat from the eager Pursuit of the World and Repentance are necessary to disunite us from Sensible Objects and to increase that which we have with intelligible and true Goods I mean those of the Mind That we cannot enjoy violent Pleasure without becoming Slaves to it That we must never undertake any thing through the Incitement of Passion Nor seek an Establishment in this Life c. But because these last Principles depend upon the precedent and on the Knowledge of Man they ought not immediately to pass for undoubted If we consider these Principles orderly and with as much Care and Application as the weight of the Subject requires and receive for true only the Conclusions consequently deduced from these Principles we shall have a certain Morality which perfectly agrees with that of the Gospel although it is not compleat and large It is true in Moral Reasonings it is not so easie to preserve Evidence and Exactness as in some other Sciences and the Knowledge of Man is absolutely necessary to those that would make any great Progress And this is the reason that the generality of Men do not succeed in it They will not consult themselves to know the Weakness of their own Nature They omit to enquire of the Master who inwardly teaches them his own Will which is the Immutable and Eternal Law and the true Principles of Morality They do not hear him with Pleasure who speaks not to their Senses who answers not according to their Desires nor Flatters their Secret Pride They have no respect for such words as do not dazle the Imagination which are pronounced without a Noise and are never clearly heard but in the Silence of the Creatures Yet with Pleasure and Deference they consult Aristotle Seneca and some new Philosophers who seduce them either by the Obscurity of their Words the Turn of their Expressions or Probability of their Reasons Since the Sin of Adam we esteem only what relates to the Preservation of the Body and Conveniency of Life And because we discover these sort of Goods only by the Means of our Senses we make use of them in all Occurrences The Eternal Wisdom who is our true Life and the only Light which can illuminate us often shines before the Blind and speaks only to the Deaf when it speaks in the Recesses of the Soul for we are almost always out of our selves As we continually interrogate all Creatures to learn some new Good which we enquire after it is requisite as I have already said that this Wisdom presents it self before us without our going out of our selves to teach us by sensible Words and convincing Examples the way to arrive at true Felicity God continually imprints a Natural Love in us for him that we may always Love him and by this same Motion of Love we continually Estrange our selves from him by running with all the Power he has given us after Sensible Goods which he has forbid us to do So that willing to be loved by us he renders himself Sensible and presents himself before us by the Delights of his Grace to fix all our Vain Agitatitions and to begin our Cure by Sensations or Delectations like to those which had been the Original of our Disease Therefore I do not pretend that Men may by the Power of their Minds so easily discover all the Rules of Morality which are necessary to Salvation and much less that they are able to act according to what they know for their Heart is yet more Corrupted than their Minds I only say that if they admit none but evident Principles and consequently reason upon these Principles they will discover even the very Truths that we learn in the Bible because 't is the same Wisdom which immediately speaks from it self to those who discover Truths from the Evidence of Reasoning and who speaks by the Holy Scriptures to those who learn it from their Senses We must then study Morality in the Gospel to spare our selves the Trouble of Meditation and Certainly to learn those Laws according to which we ought to regulate our Manners For those who are not contented with Certainty because it only convinces the Mind without enlightning it must carefully Meditate upon these Laws and deduce them from their Natural Principles that they may evidently discover by their Reason what they already know by Faith with an entire Certainty This way they will be convinced that the Gospel is the most Solid of all Books That JESVS CHRIST perfectly knew the Disorder and Distemper of Nature That he has procured a Remedy the most Useful for us and the most Worthy of himself But that the Light of Philosophers is only thick Darkness and their brightest Vertues only an insupportable Pride and in a word that Aristotle Seneca c. are only at best but Men to say no worse of them CHAP. VII Of the Vse of the first Rule which respects Particular Questions WE have sufficiently explained the General Rule for Method which chiefly regards the Subject of our Studies and to prove that Descartes has exactly followed it in his System of the World but that Aristotle and his Followers have not observed it It is now proper to descend to particular Rules which are necessary to resolve all sorts of Questions The Questions that may be formed upon all manner of Subjects are of diverse kinds of which it will not be easie to give a
be observed by Learned Persons because I have endeavour'd so to compose these Explanations that they might be read without referring to the Book they were written for Truth I know of all things gives us the least trouble to find it out Men don't use to collect those passages in a Book which have reference to one another but commonly read things as they fall in their way and understand as much of them as they can wherefore to comply with this temper I have essayed to make these Remarks intelligible even to those who have forgotten the places of reference in the foregoing Treatise However I would desire those who don't care to give themselves the trouble of carefully examining these Explanations not to condemn them of false and extravagant inferences which may be made for want of understanding them I have some reason for this Request not only because I have a right to demand of my Readers who are my Judges not to condemn me without understanding me but upon several other accounts which it wou'd be impertinent to particularize in this place SOME EXPLANATIONS OF THE Search after Truth The First Explanation of the First Chapter of the First Book God acts whatever is real in the motions of the Mind and in the determination of these Motions yet he is not the Author of Sin He acts whatever is real in the Sensations of Concupiscence and yet he is not the Author of our Concupiscence SOme think I too soon forsake the comparison betwixt Mind and Matter and believe that the first has no more power than the second to determine the impression that it receives from God they would have me explain if I can what God does in us and what we do our selves when we Sin because as they pretend I shall be forced to grant either that Man can give himself a new Modification or else that God is truly the Author of Sin I answer That Faith Reason and the inward Consciousness I have of my self oblige me to leave my comparison where I do for I am every way convinced that I have in my self a principle of my own determinations and I have some Reasons to believe that Matter has no such principle in it self as will be proved hereafter But this is what God does in us and what we do our selves when we Sin First God impels us continually by an invincible impression towards Good in general Secondly he represents to us the Idea of a particular Good or gives us a Sensation of it In fine he carries us towards this particular Good God impels us continually towards Good in general for he has made us and keeps us for himself he will have us love every thing that is good he is the first or rather the only mover In fine this appears clearly by a great many things that I have said before and those that I have to do withal do grant it God represents to us the Idea of a particular Good or gives us a Sensation of it for it is only he that enlightens us and the bodies that are about us can't act upon our Mind In one word we are not our own light nor make our-own felicity I have proved it at large in the Third Book and elsewhere In fine God carries us towards this particular Good For God carrying us towards what is good 't is a necessary consequence that he should carry us towards particular goods when he produces the Idea or the Sensation of 'em in our Soul This is all what God does in us when we Sin But as one particular good does not include all goods and as the Mind considering it with a clear and distinct view can't imagine that it includes 'em all God does not carry us necessarily or invincibly to the love of this good we are sensible that we are free to stop there that we have motion to go farther in one word that the impression which we have for good in general or to speak as others that our Will is neither constrained nor necessitated to stop at this particular good This is then what the Sinner does he stops he rests he follows not the impression of God he acts not for Sin is nothing He knows that the great Rule he must observe is to make use of his liberty as much as he can and that he must stick at no good if he be not inwardly convinced that it would be against order not to stick at it If he does not discover this Rule by the light of his Reason he learns it at least by the inward reproaches of his Conscience he ought then to follow the impression which he receives towards good in general and think of other goods than that he enjoys which he ought only to make use of for it is by thinking of other goods than those he enjoys that he may produce in himself new determinations of love and make use of his liberty Now I prove that by the impression that God gives him towards good in general he may think of other goods than those he enjoys because 't is precisely in this that the difficulty lies 'T is a Law of Nature that the Ideas of Objects should present themselves to our Mind as soon as we will think of 'em provided the capacity we have of thinking be not fill'd by the quick and confused Sensations we receive from what passes in our Body Now we may be willing to think of all things because the natural impression which impels us towards good does extend to all the things that we may think of and we may at all times think of all things because we are united to him that includes the Ideas of all things as I proved n = * Read the Chapter of the 3d Book whose Title is That we see all things in God and the Explanation of this Chapter elsewhere If it be then true that we may be willing to consider nearly what we already see as afar off since we are united to the Universal Being and if it be certain that by virtue of the Law of Nature Ideas come near us as soon as we desire it it must be concluded First That we have a principle of our determinations for it is the actual presence of particular Ideas which determines positively towards particular goods the motion we have towards good in general and which thus changes our natural love into free love Our assent or acquiescence at the sight of a particular good is nothing real or positive on our part as I shall explain hereafter Secondly That this Principle of our Determinations is always free in respect to particular gooods for we are not invincibly impelled to love 'em since we may examine 'em in themselves and compare them with the Idea we have of the soveraign good or with other particular goods so the principle of our liberty is that being made for God and united to God we may always think of the true good or of some other goods than
those of which we actually think I suppose nevertheless that our Sensations do not fill all the capacity of our Mind for that we may be free with the liberty I speak of it is necessary not only that God should not invincibly impel us towards particular goods but also that we may make use of the impression we have towards good in general to love some other thing than that we actually love Now as we can love no Object but those we may think of nor actually think of any other but those that cause too quick Sensations in us it is evident that the dependance we have upon our Body lessens our liberty nay does on many occasions take away the use of it So our Sensations destroying out Ideas and the union we have with our Body by which we only see or rather feel our selves weakening that which we have with God by which all things are present to us the Mind must not suffer it self to be divided by confused Sensations if it be willing always to have the principle of its determinations to be free It appears from all this that God is not the Author of Sin and that Man does not give himself new Modifications God is not the Author of Sin since he continually imprints a motion to go farther on him who Sins or stops at a particular good and he gives him the power to think of other things and to apply himself to other goods than that which actually is the Object of his thought and of his love that he commands him not to love those things which he can forbear loving without being troubled by any remorses and he continually calls him to himself by the secret reproaches of his Reason Is is true Gob does in one sense impel the Sinner to love the Object of his Sin if this Object appears to be good to the Sinner for as most Divines say all that is positive in Sin or what there is of act or motion proceeds from God But it is only through a false judgment of our Mind that the Creatures appear good to us that is capable of acting in us and making us happy The Sin of a Man lies in this that he does not refer all the particular Goods to the Soveraign Good or rather in that he does not consider nor love the Severaign Good in the particular Goods and so does not regulate his Love according to the Will of God or according to the essential and necessary order of which all Men have a knowledge and which is so much the more perfect as they are more strictly united to God and are less sensible of the impressions of their Senses and Passions See the Explanations upon the Third Chapter of the Second Part of the Sixth Book towards the end where I explain my thoughts more distinctly For our Senses diffuse our Souls through our whole Bodies and our Passions transport them if I may so say into those Objects which are about us they remove us from the light of God which enlightens us Neither does Man give himself new Modifications for the motions of love that God continually imprints upon us increases or diminishes not whether we actually love or not I mean although this natural motion of love be or be not determined by any Idea of our Mind This motion does not cease even by its acquiescence in the possession of Good as the motion of Bodies ceases by their rest 'T is probable that God always impels us with an equal force towards him for he inclines us towards good in general as much as we are capable of and we are at all times equally capable of it because our Will or Natural capacity of Willing is always equal in it self Thus the impression or Natural motion which carries us towards good neither increases or diminishes I confess we have no clear Idea nor even any internal Sensation of this equality of impression or natural motion towards Good But 't is because as I have elsewhere proved that we know not our selves by a clear Idea not are we conscious of our own Faculties whilst they don't actually operate we do not feel in our selves what is natural common and always the same as we are not sensible of the heat and motion of our Hearts We are not likewise sensible of our Habits and whether we are worthy of the Love or Wrath of God There is perhaps in us an infinite number of Faculties which are absolutely unknown to us for we have no internal Sensation of what we are but only of what we feel If we had never felt Pain nor a desire for particular Goods we could not by the internal Sensation we have of our selves discover whether we should be capable of feeling Pain or willing such Goods 'T is our Memory and not our internal Sensation that teaches us we are capable of feeling what we no longer feel or of being agitated by Passions which at present we feel no motions of Thus there is nothing which hinders us from believing that God always inclines us towards him with an equal force although after a very different manner He always preserves in our Souls an equal capacity of willing or one and the same will as in all matter he preserves an equal quantity of motion But although it were not certain I don't see how we can say that the encrease or diminution of the natural motion of our Souls depends upon us since we cannot be the cause of the extension of our own Will It is however certain by what I have said before that God produces and also preserves whatsoever is real and positive in the particular determinations of the motions of our Souls whether Ideas or Sensations For 't is he who determines our motions for a general Good towards particular Goods but not after an invincible manner since we have a tendency to go farther So that all we do when we sin is that we do not all that we are able to do by means of the impression we have towards him who includes all Goods For we can do nothing but by the power that we receive from our Union with him who does all things in us Now what chiefly makes us Sin is because we choose rather to enjoy than to examine because of the Pleasure we feel in enjoying and the Pain we find in examining We cease to make use of the motion that is given us to enquire after Good and examine it and we stop in the enjoyment of such things as we ought only to make use of But if we narrowly observe we shall see there is nothing real on our part but a defect and cessation from enquiry which if we may so say corrupts the action of God in us but which however cannot destroy it Thus What do we when we do not Sin We do then whatever God does in us for we limit not to a particular or rather to a false Good the love that God imprints on us for the true
merited for us and in another place I call it absolutely the Grace of Jesus Christ it is not that there is no other Grace but that or that there is any which Christ has not purchased for us But I call it the Grace of Jesus Christ to distinguish it from the Grace that God gave to the first Man when he Created him which is commonly call'd the Creator's Grace For the Grace by which Adam might have preserved his Innocence was chiefly a Grace of Light as I have explained in the preceding Remark because that Adam having no concupiscence he stood in need of no Pre-ingaging Pleasures to oppose it But the Grace which we now stand in need of to keep us within the bounds of our Duty and to produce and maintain Charity in us is Pre-ingaging Delectation For as Pleasure produces and maintains the Love of those things which occasion it or seem to occasion it the Pre-ingaging Pleasures we receive in relation to our Bodies produce and maintain Cupidity in us So that being directly contrary to Charity unless God were pleased to produce and maintain Charity in us by Pre-ingaging Delectations it is plain that the Pre-ingaging Pleasures of Concupiscence would weaken it proportionably as Cupidity should be strengthned What I say here supposes that God permits our Concupiscence to Act in us and that he does not weaken it by inspiring us with horror against all sensible Objects which as a result of Sin must needs tempt us I speak of things as they commonly happen But supposing that God diminishes Concupiscence instead of increasing the Delectation of Grace that may produce the same Effects We are sensible that there are two ways of putting Scales in Equilibrio when one of them is over-charged not only in adding Weights to the other side to even it but also in removing some of the other weights which bear it down Neither do I pretend that Men can do no good Actions without Pre-ingaging Delectation I have sufficiently explained my self upon that subject in the 4th Chapter of the 3d Book And it appears so evident to me that a Man who has the Love of God in his Heart may by the force of his Love and without Pre-ingaging Delectation give for Example a Penny to the Poor or bear some small injury with patience that I can not apprehend how any body can question it In my opinion Delectation is only necessary when the Temptation is Strong or Love Weak If however it may be said that it is absolutely necessary to a righteous Man whose Faith I think may be firm enough and his Hopes strong enough to overcome great Temptations The joy or fore-tast of Eternal Happiness being capable to resist the sensible Charms of Transitory Pleasures It is true that Delectation or Actual Grace is necessary for all good Actions if by the Word Delectation or Grace is understood Charity as St. Austin commonly takes it for it is evident that what ever is not done for God is no wise good But removing the Equivocation and taking the Word Delectation in my sense I do not think any body can question what I have said But this is the Case It is supposed that Pleasure and Love are one and the same thing because the one seldom goes without the other and St. Augustin does not always distinguish them And this being supposed Men are in the right in saying what they say We may conclude with St. Austin Quod amplius nos delectat secundum id operemur necesse est for Men certainly Will that which they Love and we may also say that we can do nothing good or meritorious without Delectation or without Charity But I hope to shew in an Explanation I shall give upon the Treatise of the Passions that there is as much difference betwixt Pleasure and Deliberate or Indeliberate Love as there is betwixt our Knowledge and our Love or to express that difference sensibly as there is between the Figure of a Body and its Motion AN EXPLANATION OF What I have said at the beginning of the 10th Chapter of the First Book and in the 6th of the Second Book of Method That it is very difficult to prove that there are Bodies Which must be understood of the the Proofs that are alledged of their Existence IT is very usual among Men to be perfectly ignorant of what they think they understand best and to understand certain things pretty well which they fancy they have not so much as Ideas of When their Senses have some share in their Judgments they yield to what they do not apprehend or to things they have but a very imperfect knowledge of and when their Ideas are purely Intellectual I desire the like Expressions may be allowed me they unwilling receive Indisputable Demonstrations For Example What can the generality of Men think when the major part of Metaphysical Truths are proved to them When the Existence of God is demonstrated to them the Power of his Will the Immutability of his Decrees That there is but one God or one real Cause which does all in all things That there is but one soveraign Reason of which all Intelligences participate That there is but one necessary Love which is the Principle of all Created Wills They think Men speak Words absolutely void of Sense that they have no Ideas of the things they advance and that they would do well to hold their Tongues Metaphysical Truths and Proofs having nothing that is sensible in them Men are not moved and consequently not convinced by them Nevertheless it is most certain that abstracted things are the most distinct and Metaphysical Truths are the clearest and the most evident Men say sometimes that they have no Ideas of God and that they have no knowledge of his Will and moreover think often as they say but 't is only because they fancy they do not know that which perhaps they know best For where is the Man who hesitates to answer when he is ask'd Whether God is Wise Just Powerful whether he is or is not Triangular Divisible Moveable Lyable to any Alteration Nevertheless it is impossible to answer without fear of being deceived whether certain qualifications agree not to a subject if one has no Ideas of that subject So likewise Where is the Man who dares say that God does not Act by the Plainest 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 the Order of which there is no Man but has some knowledge But if we had no Idea of the Will of God we might at least question whether he acts according to certain Laws which we clearly conceive he must follow supposing he will Act. Therefore Men have Ideas of things that are purely Intelligible and these Ideas are much clearer than those of sensible Objects Men are more certain of the Existence of
not consist in that the Animal Spirits which are necessary for the Motion of the Fingers have more action or force in them than in other Men but that the ways through which the Spirits slide are more slippery and smoother through the habit of Exercise as I have explain'd in this Chapter Nevertheless I grant that all the Uses of Memory and of the other Habits are not necessary to those who being perfectly united to God find in his Light all sorts of Idea's and in his Will all the facility to act that they can desire AN EXPLANATION OF THE Seventh Chapter of the Second Book The Summary of the Proofs and Explanations I have given about Original Sin with Answers to the Objections that seem'd most weighty to me TO answer those difficulties regularly which may arise in the Mind about Original Sin and the manner how it is transmitted from Father to Son I think it will be necessary to give in few words what I have said upon that Subject in several parts of the Search after Truth These then are my principal Proofs I have dispos'd them in a peculiar manner to make them the more sensible to those who will consider them I. God Wills Order in his Works he Wills what we conceive clearly to be consonant to Order And that which we conceive to be clearly contrary to Order God Wills it not This Truth is evident to all those who can consider with a fix'd and pure Sight the infinitely perfect Being Nothing can trouble or shake them in that and they clearly see that all the difficulties which can be form'd against this Principle only proceeds from the ignorance we have of those things which it would be necessary to know in order to resolve them II. God has no other end but himself in his Operations Order requires it III. God makes and preserves the Mind of Man that it might be imploy'd about him that it should know and love him for God is the end of his own Works Order requires it so God cannot Will that we should love that which is not lovely or rather God cannot Will that what is least lovely should be most belov'd Therefore it is evident that Nature is corrupted and in disorder since the Mind loves Bodies which are not lovely and often loves them more than God Original Sin or the depravation of Nature therefore requires no proof for every one sufficiently finds within himself a Law which captivates and disorders him and a Law which is not establish'd by God since it is contrary to the Order which regulates his Will IV. Nevertheless Man was admonish'd before his Fall by preingaging Sensations and not by a clear knowledge whether he was to unite himself to external Bodies or to separate from them Order requires it It is a disorder for the Mind to be oblig'd to apply it self to Bodies it may be united to them but it is not made for them Therefore it ought to know God and be sensible of Bodies Moreover as Bodies are incapable of being its good the Mind could not easily unite it self to them if it only knew them as they are without finding that in them which is not there Therefore false Good must be discern'd by a preingaging Sensation to be belov'd by a love of Instinct and the real good must be known by a clear knowledge to be belov'd by a free and reasonable love In fine God makes and preserves Man that he may know and love him therefore the capacity of his Mind must not be fill'd nor even divided against his Will by the knowledge of the Infinite Figures and Configurations of Bodies which surround him nor of that which he animates However in order to know by a clear knowledge whether such a Fruit at such a time is fit for the nourishment of the Body we must apparently know so many Things and form so many Ratiocinations that the most extended Mind would be wholly taken up by it V. But tho' the first Man had notice by preingaging Sensations whether he was or was not to make use of external Bodies yet he was not agitated by Involuntary or Rebel Motions yea he blotted out of his Mind the Idea's of sensible Objects when he pleas'd whether he us'd or us'd them not for so Order requires The Mind may be united to the Body but it must have no dependance on it it must command it Moreover all the love God puts in us must centre in him for God produces nothing in us but for himself Finally Bodies are not lovely they are below that which is in us capable of loving Therefore in the first Institution of Nature Bodies could not turn our Mind towards them or incline it to consider or love them as its Goods VI. External Bodies never act in our Soul but when they produce some Motions in our Body and when those Motions communicate themselves to the principal part of the Brain for it is according to the alterations which happen in that part of the Brain that the Soul changes it self and finds it self agitated by sensible Objects I have sufficiently prov'd it and Experience demonstrates it This being granted it is clear by the precedent Article that the first Man when he pleas'd stopp'd the motions communicated to his Body or at least those which were communicated to the principal part of his Brain Order would have it so and consequently he whose Will is always consonant to Order and can do nothing against Order altho ' it be Almighty Thus Man had the power on some occasions to suspend the Natural Law of the Communication of Motions since he had no Concupiscence and felt no involuntary and rebellious Motions in himself VII But the first Man by Sin has lost that power Order Wills it so for it were not reasonable that in favour of a Sinner and a Rebel there should be any exceptions in the General Law of the Communication of Motions besides those which are absolutely necessary for the preservation of our Life and Civil Society Therefore the Body of Man being continually shaken by the Action of sensible Objects and his Soul being agitated by all the Motions of the principal part of the Brain it is a dependant upon the Body to which it had only been united and which it did command before the Fall VIII Let us now see how Adam was capable of Sinning It is natural to love Pleasure and to relish it and that was not forbidden to Adam It is the same of Joy we may lawfully rejoyce at the sight of our natural Perfections that is not ill in it self Man was made to be happy and Pleasure and Joy actually makes us Happy and Contented The first Man then enjoy'd Pleasure in the use of sensible Goods he also rejoyc'd at the sight of his Perfections for we cannot consider our selves as being happy or perfect without rejoycing thereat For tho' he knew that God was his Good he did nor feel it as I have prov'd in
Man might Glory in himself and that he leaves even Concupiscence in the most holy and most perfect that they may have no vain Satisfaction in themselves For when we consider the Perfection of our Being Aug. in Tul. lib. 6. c. 9. it is difficult to despise our selves unless at the same time we see and love Soveraign Good in the presence of which all our Perfection and Grandeur vanishes in a moment I own that Concupiscence may prove the Subject of our Merit and that it is reasonable the Mind should for a time follow Order difficultly to deserve to be Eternally submitted to it with pleasure I grant that it may be upon this account that God has permitted Concupiscence after having foreseen Sin But Concupiscence not being absolutely necessary to our Meriting if God permitted it it was because Man might be able to do no good without the assistance which Jesus Christ has merited for us and that he might have no reason to Glory in his own power for it is plain that Man cannot sight against and overcome himself unless he be animated by Jesus Christ who as the Head of the Faithful inspires them with such Sensations as are directly opposite to the Concupiscence they derive from the first Man XVI Supposing then that Children are Born with Concupiscence it is evident that they are really Sinners since their heart is set upon Bodies as much as it is capable There is as yet but one love in their Will and that love is irregular So there is nothing in them that God can love since God cannot love disorder XVII But when they have been Regenerated in Jesus Christ that is when their Heart has been turn'd towards God either by an actual motion of love or by an inward disposition like unto that which remains after an Act of Loving God then Concupiscence is no longer a Sin in them for it inhabits no longer alone in the Heart it has no longer any dominion there The habitual Love which remains in them by the Grace of Baptism in Jesus Christ is freeer or stronger than that which is in them by the Concupiscence they have in Adam They are like the Just who in their Sleep follow the Motions of Lust yet lose not the Grace of Baptism for they do not freely consent to these Motions XVIII And it should not be thought strange if I believe it possible for Children while they are Baptizing to love God with a free Love For since the second Adam is contrary to the first why should he not at the time of Regeneration deliver Children out of the servitude of their Bodies to which they are only subjected by the first Adam so that being enlightned and excited by a lively and effectual Grace to love God they may love him with a free and reasonable love without being hindered by the first Adam It is not observable some may urge that their Bodies ceases one moment from acting over their Mind But should Men wonder at their not seeing that which is not visible That Act of Love may be produced in one Instant And whereas that Act may be formed in the Soul without making any Traces in the Brain we need not wonder if even those who are come to Men's estate when they are Baptiz'd do not always remember it for we have no remembrance of those things of which the Brain keeps no traces XIX St. Paul teaches us that the Old Man or Concupiscence is Crucified with Jesus Christ and that we are dead and buried with him by Baptism It is not that we are then delivered from the warring of the Body against the Mind and that Concupiscence is as it were dead that moment It is true it revives but having been destroy'd and thereby left the Children in a state of loving God it can no longer harm them though it revives in them For when there are two Loves in the Heart the one Natural and the other Free Order wills that only that should be regarded which is free And if Children loved God in Baptism by an Act no wise free loving Bodies afterwards by several Acts of the same kind God perhaps could not according to Order have more regard to one only Act than to many which are all natural and constrained Or rather if those contrary Loves were equal in force he must have regard to the last by the same reason that when there have been successively in a Heart two free Loves contrary to one another God ever has regard to the last since Grace is lost by one Mortal Sin XX. However it cannot be denied that God may without suspending the Dominion of the Body over the Childs Mind make it Just or turn its Will towards him by infusing into its Soul a disposition like unto that which remains after an Actual motion of Love towards God But that way of proceeding does not perhaps appear so natural as the other for we do not conceive clearly what those dispositions may be which would remain Indeed we need not wonder at it for having no clear Idea of the Soul as I have proved elsewhere * See the 7th Chapter of the 2d Part of the said Book with its Explanation we must not wonder if we do not know all the Modifications it is capable of But the Mind cannot be fully satisfied with things it does not conceive clearly In my Opinion it requires an extraordinary Miracle to give those dispositions to the Soul without a preceding Act. Surely it cannot be done by the most simple means Whereas the second Adam producing for a moment in the Mind of the Child which is Baptis'd the contrary of what the first did produce there before it is sufficient to regenerate it that God should act in it by the usual means according to which he sanctifies the Adult for the Child not having at that moment any sensations or motions to divide its capacity of thinking and willing nothing hinders it from knowing and loving its real Good I say no more because it is not necessary to know precisely how the regeneration of Children is perform'd provided we admit a real regeneration in them or an inward and real Justification caused by the Acts or at least by the habits of Faith Hope and Charity If I propose an Explanation so contrary to received Prejudices it is to satisfie even those who will not admit spiritual habits and to prove to them the possibility of Children's Regeneration for Imputation seems to me to include a down right contradiction since God cannot repute as just and actually love Creatures who are actually in disorder the he may for the love of his Son design to restore them to order and love them when they are restor'd OBJECTIONS Against the Proofs and Explanations of Original Sin Objection against the First Article GOD Wills Order it is True but it is his Will which makes it It does not suppose it Whatever God Wills is in Order from this only reason that
easily when it has a Spherical Figure than when it has a Cubical one But the Figure of a Body is different from its Motion and it may be Spherical and stand still It is true Spirits are not like Bodies they can feel no Pleasure without being in Motion because God who only makes and preserves them for himself moves them continually towards Good But this does not prove that the Pleasure of the Soul is the same thing with its Motion for two things though different may always meet together Finally I answer That though Pleasure were not different from the Love or Motion of the Soul that which the first Man felt in the use of the Goods of the Body did not incline him to love those Bodies Pleasure inclines the Soul towards the Object which occasions it I grant it But it is not the Fruit which we eat with Pleasure which occasions that Pleasure in us Bodies cannot act in the Soul and make it in any measure happy God only can do that 'T is through Error we fancy that Bodies have that in them which we feel by their means Adam was not so stupid before his Fall as to imagine that Bodies occasion'd his Pleasure Therefore the Motion which accompanied his Pleasures did not move him towards Bodies If Pleasure contributed towards the Fall of the first Man it was not by causing that in him which it now causes in us It is only the taking up or dividing the Capacity he had to think it blotted or diminished in his Mind the Presence of his real Good or of his Duty Objection against the Sixth Article WHat likelihood is there that the immutable Will of God should have depended on the Will of Man and that in favour of Adam Exceptions should have been made in the general Law of the Communication of Motions Answer At least it is not evident that there can be no such Exceptions But it is plain that immutable Order requires that the Body should be subject to the Mind and it were contradictory to believe that God neither loves nor wills Order In the Explanation which relates to the Nature of Ideas I shall explain more particularly what Order is and why God loves it necessarily For God necessarily loves his Son Therefore it was was necessary before the fall of the first Man that Exceptions should be made in his Favour in the general Law of the Communication of Motions This perhaps may seem abstruse but here is something that is more sensible Man though a Sinner has the Power to move and stop his Arm whenever he pleases Therefore according to the different Volitions of Man the Animal Spirits are determin'd to produce or stop some Motions in his Body which certainly cannot be done by the general Law of the Communication of Motions Thus the Will of God being still at this very time subject to ours why might it not have been subject to Adam's If for the advantage of the Body and for the sake of Civil Society God stops the Communication of Motions in Sinners why should he not have stopt it in favour of a Just Man for the Good of his Soul and for the Preservation of the Union and Society he had with him for God had only made Man for himself As God will have no Society with Sinners he has taken from them after the Fall the power they had to leave as it were the Body to unite themselves to him But he has left them the Power to stop or change the Communication of Motions in reference to the preservation of Life and Civil Society because he was unwilling to destroy his own Work having even before he had form'd it designed according to St. Paul to restore it and reform it in Jesus Christ Objection against the Seventh Article MAN still conveys his Body at this time where he will he moves as he pleases all the parts of it the motion of which is necessary for the prosecution and avoiding of sensible Good and Evils And consequently he stops or changes every moment the Natural Communication of Motions not only in things of small Consequence but also in things which are of no use for Life or Civil Society and even in Crimes which ruine Society shorten Life and dishonour God in all respects God Wills Order I grant it But does Order require that the Laws of Motion should be violated for Evil and remain inviolable on the account of Good Why should not Man have the Power to stop the Motions which sensible Objects produce in his Body since those Motions hinder him from doing good from drawing near to God again and from returning to his Duty and still have the Power to do so much evil with his Tongue his Arm and with the other parts of the Body the Motions of which depend upon his Will Answer To answer this Objection we must consider that Man having sinn'd was to return to his Original Nothingness For being no longer in order nor in a possibility to return to it he ought to cease to exist God loves nothing but Order See the 5th Dialogue of the Christian Conversation a Sinner is not in Order Therefore God does not love him Sinners then cannot subsist since Creatures only subsist because God will have them to be and God will not have them to be unless he loves them Neither can a Sinner restore himself to Order because he cannot justifie himself and whatever he can suffer cannot attone for his Offence Therefore he ought to be reduced to nothing again But whereas it is unreasonable to think that God should make a Work to annihilate it or to put it yet into a worse condition it is evident that God would not have made Man nor permitted his fall which he had foreseen had he not had in view his Sons Incarnation in whom all things subsist and by whom the Universe receives a Beauty Perfection and Greatness worthy the Wisdom and Power of its Author We may then consider that Man after his Sin is without a Restorer but under expectation of one If we consider him without a Restorer we see clearly that he can have no Society with God that he cannot have the least power in himself to draw near unto God again that God must needs repulse and use him ill when he pretends to leave the Body to unite himself to him That is to say that Man after Sin must lose the power of freeing himself from sensible Impressions and Motions of Concupiscence Moreover he ought to be annihilated for the reasons abovesaid But he expects a Restorer and if we consider him under that expectation it is plain he must subsist together with his Posterity out of which the said Restorer is to come and therefore it is necessary that Man after his fall should still retain the power of moving diversly all those parts of his Body whose motions may be useful towards his preservation It is true Men continually abuse that Power they have
that are so opposite Nevertheless I am willing to suppose that Men see clearly that God by an absolutely indifferent Will has established Eternal Truths and Laws for all times and places and that they are now immutable by his Decree But where do they see this Decree Has God Created any representative Being of that Decree Will they say that this Decree is a Modification of their Souls They see this Decree clearly for they have learnt by it that immutability is annexed to Eternal Truth and Laws But where do they see it Certainly unless they see it in God they see it not at all For that Decree can only be in God and it is only to be seen where it is Therefore Philosophers can be certain of nothing unless they consult God and unless God answers them Let them exclaim never so much at this they must submit to it or be silent But after all this Decree is an imagination without any foundation When we think on Order on Eternal Truths and Laws we inquire not Naturally into their Cause for indeed they have none We see not the necessity of that Decree clearly we never think immediately on it On the contrary we perceive at first sight and that with evidence that the Nature of Numbers and of intelligible Ideas is immutable necessary and independent We see clearly that it is absolutely necessary that 2 times 4 should be 8 and that the Square of the Diagonal of a Square should be the double to that Square If any question the absolute necessity of these Truths it is because they turn their eyes from them because they reason upon a false Principle and look elsewhere and not into these Truths to find their Nature their Immutability and Independence Therefore the Decree of the Immutability of those Truths is a Fiction of the Mind which supposing it sees not what it really perceives in the Wisdom of God yet knowing that God is the cause of all things thinks it self obliged to fancy a Decree to assert an immutability to Truths which it cannot forbear to acknowledge immutable But 't is a false supposition which we ought to beware of Eternal immutable and necessary Truths are only seen in the Wisdom of God We can see no where but in that Wisdom the Order which God himself is obliged to follow as aforesaid The Mind is only made for that Wisdom and in one sense it can see nothing else For if it can see Creatures it is because he whom it sees though after a very imperfect manner in this Life comprehends them all in the Immensity of his Being after an intelligible manner proportionate as I have said elsewhere Had we not the Idea of Infinity in our selves and did not wee see all things by the Natural Union of our Mind with the Universal and Infinite Reason it seems evident to me that we should not have the Liberty to think on all things For the Mind can never have any desire to apply it self to any thing but such as it has some Idea of and it can never think actually on any thing but such to which it can have a desire to apply it self Thus we deprive Man of the Liberty of thinking on all things in separating his Mind from him who includes all things Moreover as we can Love only what we see if God gave us only particular Ideas it is evident he should determine all the Motions of our Will after such a manner as that we would be necessitated only to Love particular Beings For if we had no Notion of Infinity we could not Love it and if those who affirm positively that they have no Idea of God spoke as they thought I should not scruple to say they have never Loved God for it appears very certain to me that we cannot Love what we do not See In fine if Order and the Eternal Laws were not immutable by the necessity of their Nature the clearest and strongest proofs of Religion in my opinion would be destroyed in their Principle as well as Liberty and the most certain Sciences For it is most evident that the Christian Religion which proposes Jesus Christ to us as a Mediator and Redeemer supposes the Corruption of Nature by Original Sin Now what proof can we have of that Corruption The Flesh wars against the Mind some may say It subdues and enslaves it I grant it But a Libertine will say this is no Disorder It is God's pleasure he has ordained it so he is Master of his Decrees he puts what Order he pleases among his Creatures How shall we prove to him that the Mind 's being subjected to the Body is a Disorder unless we have a clear Idea of Order and Necessity And unless we know that God himself is obliged to follow it by the necessary Love he has for himself Besides if the said Order depends on a free Decree of God we shall still be obliged to have recourse to God to be informed of it We shall be obliged to consult God notwithstanding the aversion which some of the Learned have to have recourse to him We shall be obliged to submit to this Truth That we stand in need of God's Assistance to be instructed But this free Decree which has caused Order is a Fiction of the Mind for the Reasons I have already alledged If it were nor a necessary Order that Man should be made for his Author and that our Will should be subject to the Order which is the Essential and necessary Rule of the Will of God If it be not true that Actions are good or ill according as they are consonant or contrary to an immutable and necessary Order and that this Order requires that the first should be rewarded and the other punisht In fine unless Men have naturally a clear Idea of Order nay of such an Order as God himself cannot will the contrary of that which this Order prescribes certainly I see no longer any thing but Confusion among us For what fault can be found with the most infamous and unjust Actions of the Heathens to whom God hath given no Laws What Reason will dare to Judge them if there is no Supream Reason to Condemn them Nec natura potest justo secernere iniquam Lucre. Diog. A Poet hath said It is impossible to discern what is just from what is unjust A Philosopher has said that it is a Weakness to be concern'd at or ashamed of infamous Actions Men often speak those kind of Paradoxes out of a fury of Imagination and in the heat of their Passions But why should those Sentiments be condemned unless there be an Order a Rule a General Reason which always presents it self to those who know how to look within themselves We freely Judge our selves and others on many Occasions But by what Authority do we do it if the Reason which Judges within us when we think we pronounce Judgments against our selves and against others be not Supream and common to all
Men But was not that Reason present to those who look within themselves and had not the very Heathens naturally had some union with the Order we are speaking of What Sin or what Disobedience could they have been guilty of and according to what Justice could God punish them I say this the rather because a Prophet tells me That God himself is willing to make Men Judges of the Difference he has with his People provided they pass their Judgment according to the immutable and necessary Order of Justice Nunc ergo habit atores Jerusalem viri Juda Judicate inter me vidram meam Esa. 5.3 Nero kill'd his Mother 't is true But wherein has he done ill He followed the Natural motion of his Hatred God gave him no Precept to the contrary The Jewish Law was not made for him Perhaps it may be urged that the Law of Nature forbids the like Action and that the said Law was known to him But what proof have we of it For my part I grant it because that really and invincibly proves there is an immutable and necessary Order and that every Mind or Spirit has a knowledge of this Order which is the more clear in that it is more united to the universal Reason and because it is less sensible of the Impressions of Sense and of the Passions in a word because it is more reasonable But I must endeavour to explain my Sentiment concerning Order and the Divine or Natural Law as clearly as possible I can For the Reason why Men are so backward to subscribe to what I say is perhaps because they do not distinctly perceive what I think It is certain that God contains within himself after an intelligible manner the perfections of all Beings he has created or can create and that it is by these intelligible perfections he knows the Essence of all things as by his own Will he knows their Existence Those perfections are likewise the immediate Object of the Mind of Man for the Reasons above-said Therefore the intelligible Ideas or the perfections Which are in God and which represent unto us that which is out of God are absolutely necessary and immutable Now those Truths are only the relations of equality or inequality which are among those intelligible Beings since it is only true that 2 times 2 make 4 or that 2 times 2 are not 5 because there is a relation of equality between 2 times 2 and 4 and one of inequality between 2 times 2 and 5. Therefore Truths are immutable and necessary as well as their Ideas It has always been true that 2 and 2 make 4 and it is impossible it should become false This is evident without the least necessity of God's having Established those Truths as Supream Law-giver as Monsieur Des Cartes says in his Answer to the Sixth Objection It is easie enough to apprehend what Truth is but Men have much ado to conceive what the immutable and necessary Order is what Natural and Divine Law is what God necessarily Wills as also what the Righteous Will For that which makes a Man Just is that he loves Order and conforms his Will to it in all things As the Sinner is only so because he does not approve of Order in all things and that he would fain have it to be conformable to what he wishes Nevertheless there is not so great a Mystery in those things in my opinion as Men imagine And I fancy that the reason why they find so many difficulties in it proceeds from the difficulty the Mind finds to raise it self to Abstracted and Metaphisical Thoughts This is partly what I think of Order It is evident that the Perfections that are in God which represent created or possible Beings are not all alike That those for Instance which represent Bodies are not so Noble as those which represent Spirits And that even among those which only represent Bodies or Spirits some are more perfect than others ad Infinitum This is clearly and without difficulty conceived though it is not easie to reconcile the simplicity of the Divine Being with that variety of intelligible Ideas which it includes in its Wisdom For it is evident that if all the Ideas of God were alike he could see no difference among his Works since he can only see his Creatures by that which is in him which represents them and if the Idea of a Watch which besides the Hours shows all the different Motions of the Planets were not more perfect than that of a Watch which only points out the Hours or than that of a Circle or a Square a Watch would not be more perfect than a Circle For we can only judge of the perfection of Works by the perfection of the Ideas we have of them And if there were no more wisdom or sign of understanding in a Watch than in a Circle it would not be more difficult to conceive the most compounded Machines than to conceive a Square or a Circle If it be true then that God who is the Universal Being includes within himself all Beings after an intelligible manner and that all these intelligible Beings which have a necessary Existence in God are not equally perfect it is evident that there must be an immutable and necessary Order among them And that in the same manner as there are Eternal and necessary Truths because there are relations of Magnitude amongst intelligible Beings there must also be an immutable and necessary Order by reason of the relations of Perfection which are among the same Beings 'T is then an immutable Order that Spirits should be Nobler than Bodies as it is a necessary Truth that 2 times 2 are 4 or that 2 times 2 are not 5. Hitherto the immutable Order seems rather to be a speculative Truth than a necessary Law For if Order be only considered as we have now done it it is plain for Instance that 't is a Truth that Spirits are Nobler than Bodies But we do not see that this Truth is at the same time an Order bearing the force of a Law and that we are obliged to prefer Spirits before Bodies Therefore we must consider that God loves himself by a necessary Love and for that Reason loves that better in himself that includes and represents more Perfection than that which includes less So that if we would suppose that an intelligible Spirit was a thousand times more perfect than an intelligible Body the Love by Which God loves himself would of necessity be a thousand times greater for that Spirit than for this intelligible Body For the Love of God is necessarily proportioned to the Order which is between the intelligible Being he includes So that Order which is purely speculative has the force of a Law in relation to God himself supposing as it is certain that God necessarily loves himself and cannot love intelligible Bodies more than intelligible Spirits though he may love created Bodies more than created Spirits as I shall
show hereafter Now this immutable Order which has the force of a Law in respect to God himself has visibly the force of a Law in relation to us For this Order is known to us and our natural Love suits it self to it when we look into our selves and when our Senses and Passions leave us free In a word when our self-Self-love does not corrupt our natural Love Being made for God from whom we can never be absolutely separated we see this Order in him and are naturally inclined to love him For it is his Light which lightens us and his Love which animates us though our Senses and Passions obscure that Light and determine against Order the impression which we receive to love according to Order But though Concupiscence conceals Order from us and hinders us from following it yet it is still an Essential and Indispensible Law in respect to us And not only in respect of us but to all created Intelligences and even in respect of the Damned For I do not think they are so far remov'd from God but that they still preserve some small Idea of Order still find some Beauty in it nay more are still ready to conform to it in some particular occasions which do not oppose their Self-love The Corruption of the Heart consists in an opposition to Order Therefor the Malice or Corruption of the Will not being equal even among the Damned it is evident that they are not equally opposed to Order nor hate it in all things unless in Consequence of the hatred they bear to God For as no Man can hate Good considered barely as such so none can hate Order unless it proves contrary to their Inclinations But though it seems contrary to their Inclinations nevertheless it is a Law which condemns them and which even punishes them everlastingly We now see what Order is and how it has the force of a Law by the necessary Love God has for himself We conceive how this Law is General for all Spirits and even for God himself How it is necessary and absolutely indispensible In fine We either do or may easily conceive in general how it is the principle of all Divine and Humane Laws and that it is according to this Law all Intelligences are Judged and all Creatures disposed in their respective Classes that are proper for them I own it is no easie Task to explain all this in particular neither will I venture to undertake it For should I attempt to show the relation particular Laws have to the General Law and the Connection between certain Proceedings and Order I should be obliged to enter into such difficulties as perhaps I should not be able to solve and which would also lead me far from my Subject Nevertheless if we consider that God neither has nor can have any Law but his Wisdom and the necessary Love he has for it we shall easily conclude that all Divine Laws must be grounded on it And if we observe that he has only made the World in relation to that Wisdom and Love since he only Acts for himself we shall no longer doubt but that all Natural Laws must tend to the preservation and perfection of this World according to indispensable Order and by their dependance on necessary Love For all things are governed by the Wisdom and Will of God There is no necessity for me to inlarge any further on this Principle at this time What I have said is sufficient to draw this Consequence That in the first Institution of Nature it was impossible that Spirits should have been subjected to Bodies For as God can never Act without Knowledge and involuntarily so he has made the World according to his Wisdom and by the Morion of his Love He has made all things by his Son and in the Holy Ghost as the Scripture teaches us Now in the Wisdom of God Spirits are more perfect than Bodies and by the necessary Love which God has for himself he prefers the most perfect to the least perfect Therefore it is impossible that Spirits should have been subjected to Bodies in the first Institution of Nature Otherwise we should be obliged to say That when God made the World he followed not the Rules of his Eternal Wisdom nor the Motions of his natural and necessary Love Which is not to be conceived but rather implies a direct Contradiction It is true at present a created Mind is subject to a material and sensible Body but it is because Order considered as a necessary Law requires it It is because God loving himself by a necessary Love which is alwayes his inviolable Law cannot love Spirits which are contrary to him nor consequently prefer them to Bodies in which there is no ill nor any thing that God hates See the fifth Dialogue of The Christian Conversations For God loves not Sinners in themselves they only subsist in the Universe by Jesus Christ God only preserves and loves them that they may cease to be Sinners by Grace in Jesus Christ Or that if they remain Sinners eternally they may eternally be condemned by the immutable and necessary Order and by the Judgment of Jesus Christ through whose Power they subsist for the Glory of Divine Justice for were it not for Jesus Christ they would be annihilated I say this by the by to remove some difficulties which may remain about what I have said elsewhere concerning Original Sin or the general Corruption of Nature It is in my Opinion very useful to consider that the Mind only knows External Objects after two manners By Knowledge and by Sensations It sees things by Knowledge when it has a clear Idea of them and consulting this Idea can discover all the properties they are capable of It sees things by Sensation when it cannot thus discover the properties of them clearly When it only knows them by a confused Sensation without Light and Evidence It is by Knowledge and ' a clear Idea the Mind sees the Essences of Things Numbers and Extension It is by a confuted Idea or by Sensation it judges of the existence of Creatures and that it knows its own The Mind perceives those things perfectly which it perceives by Knowledge and a clear Idea and moreover it sees clearly that if there be any obscurity or imperfection in its Knowledge it proceeds from its weakness and limitation or from want of application on its part and not for want of perfection in the Idea which it perceives But what the Mind perceives by Sensation is never clearly known to it Not for want of application on its part for we alwayes apply our selves carefully to what we feel but by the defect of the Idea which is very obscure and confused From hence we may judge that it is in God or in an immutable Nature that we see whatever we know by Light and a clear Idea not only because by Knowledge we see Number Extension and the Essence of Beings which depend not on a first
his Physician and though the Physician should prescribe bitter Medicines and which indeed are kinds of Poyson yet they must be taken for 't is experienced that these Poysons stay not in the Body but drive out with them those ill Humours that are the Cause of the Distemper Here it is that Reason or rather Experience must command the Senses provided the horrour of the presented Medicine is not new for if this horrour was as old as the Disease 't is a sign the Medicine is of the same Nature as the ill Humours that caused the Distemper and then perhaps it would only exasperate it However I believe that before we take strong Medicines to which we are averse we ought to begin with such as are more gentle and natural as by drinking much Water or taking an easie Vomit if the Appetite is lost and if we have much difficulty to vomit Water may attenuate the over-thick Humours and facilitate the Circulation of the Blood in all the parts of the Body Vomits cleanse the Blood and hinder the received Nourishment from any longer corrupting and feeding the intermitting Feavers But I must no further insist upon these things I believe that we ought to follow the Counsel of Wise Physicians who are not over-hasty nor rely too much upon their Medicines nor too quick in prescribing Remedies for when one is sick for one Medicine that does good there are always many that do hurt The Sick are impatient and as 't is not for the Honour of Physicians or the Profit of Apothecaries to visit the Sick without prescribing to them so also Physicians visit too seldom and prescribe too often therefore when one is sick he should pray his Phisician to hazard nothing but to follow Nature and fortifie it as much as he can he should acquaint him that he has more Reason and Patience than to take it ill that he is often visited without Relief for on these Occasions he sometimes does a great deal who does no hurt I believe then we should consult Physicians and not refuse to obey them if we would be well for though they cannot assure us a Recovery yet they may sometimes contribute much to it by reason of the repeated Experiments they make upon different Distempers They know little of any thing certainly yet they know more than we and if they take the pains to know our Constitutions carefully observe all the Accidents of the Distemper and have much regard to our own Sensations we may expect from them all the Assistance that we can reasonably hope from Men. What we have said of Phisicians may be also said of Divines it is absolutely necessary to consult them on some occasions and it is commonly profitable But it often happens that it is very unprofitable and sometimes very dangerous to consult them For Instance 'T is commonly said That Humane Reason is subject to Errour but there is something equivocal in this which we are not sufficiently aware of for we must not imagine that the Reason which Man consults is depraved or that it ever deceives when faithfully consulted I have said and still repeat it That it is sovereign Reason alone which makes us reasonable it is sovereign Truth which enlightens us and it is God only who speaks clearly to us and knows how to instruct us We have only one True Master Jesus Christ our Lord the Eternal Wisdom and the Word of the Father in whom are all the Treasures of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God and it is Impiety to say that this Eternal Reason of which all Men participate and through which they are only reasonable should be subject to Errour and capable of deceiving us For it is not the Reason of Man but his Heart that deceives him it is not his Light which hinders him from seeing his Darkness it is not the Union he has with God that deceives him it is not even in one Sense that he has with his Body It is his dependance upon his Body or rather it is because he will deceive himself because he will injoy the Pleasure of Judging before he has been at the Trouble of Examining because he will rest before he is come to the Place of Truth I have more exactly explained the Cause of our Errour in many places of the Search after Truth and here I suppose what I have there said And now I affirm it needless to consult Divines when we are assured that Truth speaks to us and it is certain that Truth speaks to us when we meet with Evidence in the Answers that are made to our Demands or the Attention of our Mind Therefore when we return into our selves and in the silence of our Senses and Passions hear a Voice so clear and intelligible that it is impossible to doubt of it let Men think what they please we must not consider Custom and secret Inclinations or have too great a respect for their Answers who are called Learned We must not suffer our selves to be seduced with an appearance of false Piety nor be dejected through their Oppositions who know not the Spirit that animates them but we must patiently suffer their Insults without condemning their Intentions or despising their Persons We must with simplicity of Heart rejoice at the Light of Truth which enlightens us and although its Answers condemn us we must prefer them before all the Subtle Distinctions which the Imagination invents for the Justification of the Passions Every Man for Instance who knows how to examine himself and to still the Noise of his Senses and Passions clearly discovers that all the Motion which God puts into us should be terminated upon himself and that even God cannot dispense with the Obligation we have of loving him in all things It is evident that God cannot but act for himself that he cannot create or preserve our Will to will any thing but him or to will any thing besides what he himself wills for I cannot see how it 's conceivable that God should will a Creature to have more love for what is less lovely or love chiefly or as its end what is not most lovely I know well that Men who consult their Passions instead of Order can easily imagine that God has no other Rule of his Wills than the same Wills and that if God follows Order 't is surely from this that he has willed it by a Will that is absolutely free and indifferent There are some who think there is no Order that is immutable and necessary by its nature and that the Order or Wisdom of God according to which he made all Things although the first of Creatures is it self a Creature made by a Free-will of God and not begotten of his Substance by the necessity of his Being But this Opinion which shakes all the Foundations of Morality by taking away from Order and the Eternal Laws which depend upon it their Immutability and which overturns all the Superstructure of the Christian Religion by despoyling
Pain would not differ from Hatred Now it is evident that Pain is different from Hatred since Pain often subsists without Hatred A Man for instance who is hurt without observing it suffers a real and cutting Pain but is free from Hatred for he does not so much as know the Cause of his Pain or Object of his Hatred or rather the Cause of his Pain not being worthy of Hatred it cannot excite it in him Thus he hates not this Cause of his Pain although his Pain inclines him to or disposes him to hate it It is true this Man hates his Pain for Pain deserves Hatred but the hatred of Pain is not Pain but only supposes it The hatred of Pain is not worthy of Hatred as Pain On the contrary 't is very agreeable for we please our selves in hating Pain as we are displeased in suffering it Pain therefore is not Hatred nor is Pleasure which is opposite to Pain Love which is opposite to Hatred Consequently the Pleasure which precedes Reason is not the same thing as Love And I likewise prove that the Joy or Pleasure which follows Reason is also distinct from Love As Joy and Sorrow are directly opposite If Joy was the same thing as Love Sorrow would not differ from Hatred But it is plain that Sorrow is different from Hatred for Sorrow sometimes subsists without Hatred For instance A Man finds himself by chance deprived of such things as he has need of This is enough to cause Sorrow but it cannot excite Hatred in him either because he knows not the Cause which deprived him of these necessaries or else that this Cause not being worthy of his Hatred it could not stir it up in him It is true this Man hates the privation or the good that he loves but it is plain that this kind of Hatred is properly Love For he hates the privation of good only because he loves the good And since to fly the privation of good is to incline towards good it is evident that the motion of this Mans Hatred differs not from that of his Love Thus his Hatred if he 's possest of any not being contrary to his Love and Sorrow being always opposite to Joy it is plain that his Sorrow is not his Hatred consequently Joy differs from Love In fine it is manifest when we are sorrowful 't is because of the presence of something we hate or rather the absence of something we love Thus Sorrow supposes Hatred or rather Love but is very different from both these things I very well know St. Austin affirms that Pain is an a version which the Soul conceives because the Body is not disposed after such a manner as it wishes and that he often confounds Delectation with Charity Pleasure with Joy Pain with Sorrow Pleasure and Joy with Love Pain and Sorrow with Aversion or Hatred But 't is very probable that this Holy Doctor spoke all this according to the general Language amongst the common sort of Men who confound the greatest part of those things which pass within them at the same time Or it may be he had not examined these things after a very exact and Philosophical manner However I believe I may and ought to say that it appear'd requisite to me exactly to distinguish these things if we would clearly and without equivocation explain many Questions which St. Austin has treated on For even those who have contrary Opinions amongst themselves have been accustomed to maintain them from the Authority of this great Man because of the different Sense his Expressions may be taken in which is not alwayes exact enough to reconcile such Persons who perhaps have more mind to dispute than agree A N EXPLANATION OF THE Third Chapter of the Second Part of the Sixth Book Concerning the Efficacy attributed to Second Causes EVer since the Fall the Mind of Man is continually imployed upon External Objects he even forgets himself and him who penetrates and inlightens him and suffers himself after such a manner to be seduced by his own and the Bodies about him that he expects in them to find his Perfection and Happiness He who alone is capable of acting in it now hides himself from our Eyes nor are his Operations performed after a sensible manner and although he produces and preserves all Beings the Mind which eagerly seeks the Cause of all things finds much difficulty to discover him although it meets with him every moment Some Philosophers have chose rather to imagine a Nature and certain Faculties as the Causes of those Effects we call Natural than to give God all the Honour which is due to his Power And although they have no Proof nor so much as a clear Idea of this Nature and these Faculties as I hope I have shown they choose rather to speak without knowing what they say and to respect a Power purely imaginary than to make any endeavour to discover the hand of him who performs whatever is done in all things I cannot forbear believing that one of the most deplorable consequences of Original Sin is our having no more gust nor sensation for God or that we perceive him not or meet him but with a kind of horrour and fright We ought to acknowledge God in all things be sensible of his Strength and Power in all Natural Effects admire his Wisdom in the marvellous Order of the Creatures and in a word adore fear and love only him in all his Works But there is now a secret opposition between Man and God Man finding himself a Sinner hides himself flyes the Light is apprehensive of meeting God and chooses rather to imagine in the Bodies which are about him a Power or blind Nature which he can make familiar to himself than to meet there the terrible Power of a Holy and Just God who knows and performs all things I confess there are many persons who by a different Principle than that of the Heathen Philosophers pursue their Opinion about Nature and Second Causes But I hope we shall discover by the consequence of this Discourse that they are of this Opinion only through a received prejudice which it is almost impossible to deliver themselves from without the assistance that may be drawn from the Principles of a Philosophy which has not alwayes been sufficiently known For it is probably this which has hindered them from declaring in favour of an Opinion which I have thought my Duty to maintain There are many Reasons which keep me from ascribing to Second or Natural Causes a strength power or efficacy to produce any thing whatever but the chief is because I cannot even conceive this Opinion What endeavours soever I make to comprehend it I cannot find in my self an Idea which represents to me what this Strength or Power can be which they attribute to Creatures And I believe that I should not make a rash Judgment if I affirm that those who maintain that Creatures have in themselves this Strength and Power
Wills of Spirits For First According to the General Laws of the Communication of Motions the invisible Bodies which surround the visible ones by their divers Motions produce all these various Effects the Cause of which does not appear to us Secondly According to the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body when Bodies which are about us Act upon ours they produce in our Souls an infinite variety of Sensations Ideas and Passions Thirdly Our Mind produces by its Wills a great many different Ideas in it self For it is our Wills which apply and modifie our Minds as Natural Causes whose Efficacy nevertheless proceeds from the Laws which God has Established Lastly When our Mind Acts upon our Body many Changes are therein produced by vertue of the Laws of its Union with it And by the means of our Body it also produces in those about it a great Number of Changes by vertue of the Laws of the Communication of Motions Thus all Natural Effects have no other Natural or Occasional Cause than the Motions of Bodies and Wills of Spirits which will easily be granted by any who will use but a little application supposing he is not already prepossessed by such as know not what they say who instantly imagine Beings which they have no clear Idea of and pretend to explain Things they understand not by what is absolutely incomprehensible So that God executing by his Concourse or rather by his Efficacious Will whatever the Motions of Bodies or Determinations of Spirits perform as Natural or Occasional Causes it 's plain God does every Thing by the same Action of the Creature Not that Creatures of themselves have any Efficacious Action but because the Power of God is in some sort communicated to them by the Natural Laws which God has Established in their favour This is all that I can say to reconcile my Thoughts with the Opinion of those Divines who maintain the necessity of immediate Concourse and that God does All in all Things by the same Action as that of the Creatures For as to the rest of the Divines I believe their Opinions are indesensible every way and chiefly that of Durandus See Durand in 2. Dist 1. Qu. 5. Dist 37. de Genesi ad Litteram l. 5. c. 20. and some Ancients whom St. Austin refutes who absolutely denyed the necessity of Concourse and would have Second Causes do every Thing by a Power which God had given them at the Creation For although this Opinion be less perplexed than that of the other Divines yet it appears to me so opposite to Scripture and conformable to Prejudices to say no more that I believe it cannot be maintained I confess that the Schoolmen In 4. Sent. Dist 1. q. De aliaco ibid. who say the immediate Concourse of God is the same Action as that of the Creatures do not absolutely understand it according to my Explanation And except Biel and Cardinal D' Ailly all those I have read think that the Efficacy which produces Effects proceeds from the Second Cause as well as the First But as I determined with my self not to say any thing but what I conceive clearly and always take that Side which best agrees with Religion I believe it will not be taken amiss if I forsake an Opinion which to many persons appears so much the more intricate as they endeavour more assiduously to apprehend it And since I have established another which agrees perfectly not only with Reason but also with the Holiness of Religion and Christian Morality 'T is a Truth I have already proved in the Chapter upon which I make these Reflection but it will be very proper for me to offer yet something more fully to Justifie what I have already said upon the present Question Reason and Religion convinces us than God would be loved and rever'd by his Creatures Loved as good and Rever'd as powerful Which is a Truth we cannot doubt of without impiety and folly To love God as he requires and deserves to be loved we must according to the First Command both of the Law and Gospel and even of Reason as I have elsewhere shown do it with all our strength or according to the utmost Capacity we have of Loving It is not enough to prefer him to all Things but we must also love him in all Things Else is not our Love so perfect as it ought to be l. 4. ch 1. nor do we give to God all the Love he has impressed upon us and that only for himself since all his Actions center in himself Likewise to render to God all the Reverence due to him it is not enough to adore him as the Soveraign Power and fear him more than any of his Creatures We must also fear and adore him in all his Creatures and all our Actions must tend towards him for Honour and Glory are due only to him Which is what God has commanded us in these Words Diliges Dominum Deum tuum ex toto corde tuo ex tota anima tua Deut. 6. ex tota fortitudine tua And in these Dominum Deum tuum timebis illi soli servies Thus the Philosophy which teaches us That the Efficacy of Second Causes is a Fiction of the Mind that the Nature of Aristotle and some other Philosophers is a Chimera that God only is strong and powerful enough not only to Act in our Souls but also to give the least Motion to Matter This Philosophy I say agrees perfectly with Religion the design of which is to unite us to God after the strictest manner We commonly love such Things only as are capable of doing us some good This Philosophy therefore only Authorises the Love of God and absolutely condemns the Love of every Thing else We ought to fear Nothing but what is able to do us some Evil This Philosophy therefore only permits us to fear God and positively forbids our fearing any Thing else So that it Justifies all the Motions of the Soul which are Just and Reasonable and condemns all those that are contrary to Reason and Religion For this Philosophy will never Justifie the Love of Riches the Desire of Greatness nor the Extravagance of Debauchery since the Love of the Body appears mad and ridiculous to the Principles established by this Philosophy 'T is an Undoubted Truth a Natural Opinion and even a common Notion that we ought to love the Cause of our Pleasure and love it in proportion to the Felicity it does or can make us enjoy It is not only Just but it is also very Necessary that the Cause of our Happiness should be the Object of our Love Thus following the Principles of this Philosophy we ought only to love God for it tells us that He alone is the True Cause of our Happiness that the Bodies which are about us cannot Act upon that which we Animate consequently much less upon our Minds 'T is not the Sun which enlightens us
and gives us Motion and Life nor is it that which covers the Earth with Fruits and Flowers and which supplies us with Food and Nourishment This Philosophy teaches us with the Scripture that it is God only who gives Rain and regulates the Seasons who gives Nourishment to the Body and fills the Heart with Joy Acts 14.15 16. Ergo nihil agis ingratissimè Mortalium qui te negas Deo debere sed naturae quia nec natura sine Deo est nec Deus sine natura sed idem est utrumque nec distat Officium si quod à Seneca accipisses Annoeo te diceres debere vel Lucio Non creditorem mutares sed nomen Seneca l. 4. Of Benefits c. 8. Ego Dominus non est alter formans lucem creans tenebras faciens pacem creans malum Ego Dominus ficiens omnia haec Isa 45.7 Amos 3.6 That he only is capable of doing us good and thereby has given us a perpetual Testimony of what he is although in Ages passed he has permitted all Nations to walk in their own ways According to the Language of this Philosophy we must not say That it is Nature that fills us with Good nor that it is God and Nature together But that it is God alone speaking thus without Equivocation that we may not deceive the Simple For we must distinctly acknowledge him the onely Cause of our Happiness if we would make him the onely Object of our Love 'T is likewise an undoubted Truth That we ought to fear such Things as are able to hurt us and fear them in proportion to the Evil they can do us But this Philosophy tells us That it is God alone that can do us Evil that it is he as Isaiah says who creates Darkness as well as Light who makes peace and creates Evil and even that no Evil happens but from him according to the Prophet So that it is him alone we ought to fear We must not fear either Plague or War Famine our Enemies nor even Devils themselves but God alone We ought to fly a Sword when ready to wound us shun Fire and avoid a House that is likely to fall upon us yet must not fear these Things We may fly such Bodies as are Occasional or Natural Causes of Evil but we must fear only God as the True Cause of all Evils and Misfortunes and only hate Sin which necessarily provokes the Cause of all our Happiness to become the Cause of all our Evils And in short all the Motions of our Minds ought to tend only to God since He alone is Superiour to tend only to God since He alone is Superiour to it and the Motions of our Body may relate to those about it This is what we learn from that Philosophy which admits not the Efficacy of Second Causes But this Efficacy being supposed I cannot see but we have some reason to fear and love Bodies And that to regulate our Love according to Reason it is enough to prefer God above every Thing else the First and Universal to Second and Particular Causes Then it is not necessary to love God with all our strength Ex totâ mente ex toto corde ex tota anima ex totis viribus at the Scripture says Yet when we content our selves with preferring God to all other Beings and adore him with a Love of Esteem and Preference without continually endeavouring to honour and love him in all Things it often happens that we deceive our selves that our Charity is dissipated and lost and that we are more taken up with Sensible than the Soveraign Good For if the greatest Sinners and it may be even Idolaters were asked If they preferred not the universal to particular Causes They would not perhaps be afraid in the midst of their Debauches and Extravagancies to Answer That they failed not in so Essential a Duty and knew very well what they owed to God I confess they would deceive themselves but take away the Efficacy of Second Causes and they will have no probable pretext to Justifie their Conduct And if it be supposed they may say this for themselves when their passions blind them and they listen to the Testimony of their Senses Since I am made to be happy I neither can nor ought to forbear loving and respecting whaterver may be the Cause of my Happiness Why therefore should I not love and respect Sensible Objects since they are the True Causes of the Happiness I receive in their Enjoyment I acknowledge the Supream Being is alone worthy of our highest Adoration and I prefer him to every Thing but not seeing that he requires any Thing of me I enjoy the Goods he has given me by the means of Second Causes to which he has subjected me and I pay no Acknowledgments to him which perhaps would dishonour him As he does me no good immediately and by himself or at least without the Assistance of the Creatures it is a sign he does not require my Mind and Heart should be immediately applied to himself or at least he is willing that the Creatures should divide with him the Acknowledgments of my Heart and Mind Since he has communicated a part of his Power and Glory to the Sun has surrounded him with Brightness and Majesty Established him Supream over all his Works and 't is by the Influence of this Great Luminary that we receive all the Necessary Goods of Life Why should we not then employ a part of this Life in enjoying his Light and testifying the sense we have of his Greatness and Benefits Would it not be the utmost Ingratitude to receive the Abundance of all Things from this Excellent Creature and have no Sentiment of Gratitude for it And would it not likewise be an unaccountable blindness and stupidity to have no Motion of respect and fear for him whose absence freezes us to death and who by approaching too near us may burn up and destroy us I say it again that God is preferable to all Things that we must esteem and love him infinitely more than the Creatures but that we must also love and fear them For thereby we honour Him who made them merit his Favours and oblige him to bestow New Benefits upon us It is plain he approves of the Honour we pay his Creatures since he has communicated his Power to them and all Power merits Honour But as Honour ought to be proportioned to Power and that the Power of the Sun and all Sensible Objects is such that from them we receive all sorts of Goods it is just we should honour them with all our strength and next to God consecrate our whole Being to them Thus we naturally reason when we follow the Prejudice we have received from the Efficacy of Second Causes 't is probably after this manner that the first Authors of Idolatry reasoned Here is what he thought of it who is esteemed the most Learned of the Jews He thus begins a Treatise he
wrote about Idolatry In the Days of Enos Men fell into strange Delusions R. Moses Maimonides and the Wise Men of that Time perfectly lost their Sense and Reason Enos himself was in the Number of those deceived Persons These were their Errours Since God said they has created the Stars and the Heavens to govern the World has placed them on high surrounded them with brightness and glory and employes them to exexecute his Orders it is just that we should honour them and pay reverence and homage to them 'T is the Will of our God that we should honour those whom he has raised and exalted in Glory even as a Prince requires we should honour his Ministers in his presence because the Honour we give to them redounds to himself After they had once received this Notion they began to build Temples in honour of the Stars to offer Sacrifices and Praises to them and even prostrate themselves before them thinking thereby to gain the favour of him who created them And this was the original of Idolatry It is so Natural and Just to have Sentiments of Acknowledgment in proportion to the Benefits we receive See Vossius l. 2. de Idolatria that almost all the World have adored the Sun Ipsi qui irridentur Aegyptii nullam belluam nisi ob aliquam utilitatem quam ex ea caperent consecraverant Cic. l. 1. de Natura Deorum because they all thought he was the cause of the Happiness they injoyed And if the Egyptians have adored not only the Sun the Moon and the River Nilus because its overflowings caused the fruitfulness of their Country but also the vilest Animals 't was as Cicero relates because of some benefit they received from them So that as we cannot and indeed ought not to banish out of Mens Minds the inclination they Naturally have for the true Causes of their Happiness it is evident that there is at least some danger in maintaining the Efficacy of Second Causes although we joyn thereto the necessity of an immediate concourse which has I know not what of incomprehensible in it and which comes in as an after-game to justifie our Prejudices and Aristotles Philosophy But there is no danger in speaking only what we know and atributing Power and Efficacy to God alone since we see nothing but his Wills which have an absolute necessary and indispensable connection with Natural Effects I confess that Men are now knowing enough to avoid the gross Errors of the Heathens and Idolaters But I am not afraid to say that our Mind is disposed or rather that our Heart is often inclined like that of the Heathens and that there will alwayes be some kind of Idolatry in the World until the day that Jesus Christ shall again deliver up his Kingdom to God his Father having first destroyed all Empire Power and Dominion that God may be all in all Quorum Deus venter est Phil. 13.9 Omnis fornicator aut immundus aut avarus quod est idolorum servitus Eph. 5.5 In spiritu veritate oportet adorare John 4.24 For is it not a kind of Idolatry to make a God of our Belly as St. Paul speaks Is it not to idolize the God of Riches continually to labour after Worldly Possessions Is this to render to God the Worship due to him to adore him in Spirit and Truth to have our Hearts filled with some sensible Beauty and our Minds dazled with the brightness of some imaginary Grandeur Men believing they receive from the Bodies which are about them the Pleasures they injoy by their use they unite themselves to them with all the Powers of their Soul And thus the principal of their disorder proceeds from the sensible conviction they have of the Efficacy of Second Causes 'T is Reason only that tells them there is none but God acts in them But besides that Reason speaks so low that they can scarcely hear it and the Senses which oppose it cry so loud that it stupifies them they are still confirmed in their Prejudices by Arguments which are so much the more dangerous as they bear external Characters and sensible Marks of Truth The Philosophers and chiefly the Christian Philophers ought continually to oppose Prejudices or the Judgments of the Senses and especially such dangerous ones as that of the Efficacy of Second Causes And yet I know not from what Principle there are some Persons whom I extreamly honour and that with reason who endeavour to confirm this Prejudice and even to make this Doctrine pass for superstitious and extravagant which is so holy pure and solid and maintains that God alone is the true cause of every thing They will not have us love and fear God in all things but love and fear all things in relation to God We ought say they to love the Creatures because they are good to love and respect our Father render honour to our Prince and Superiour since God commands it I don't deny it but I deny that we must love the Creatures as our goods although they be good or perfect in themselves I deny that we are to pay service and respect to Men as to our Masters For we must neither serve our Master obey our Father or Prince with any other design but to serve God and obey him This is what St. Paul sayes who became all things to all Men and complyed in all things for the Salvation of those to whom he Preached Servi obedite Dominis carnalibus cum timore tremore in simplicitate cordis vestri SICVT CHRISTO Non ad oculum servientes quasi omnibus placentes sed ut servi Christi facientes voluntatem Dei ex animo cum bona voluntate servientes SICVT DOMINI ET NON HOMINIBVS And in another Epistle Non ad oculum servientes quasi hominibus placentes sed in simplicitate cordis DEVM TIMENTES Quodcumque facitis ex animo operamini SICVT DOMINO ET NON HOMINIBVS We must therefore obey our Father serve our Prince and render honour to our Superiours AS VNTO GOD AND NOT VNTO MAN Sicut Domini non Hominibus This is clear and can never have any bad consequences Superiours would alwayes be more honoured and better served But I believe I may say that a Master who would be honoured and served as having in himself another Power than that of God must be a Devil and that those who served him under that Notion would be Idolaters for I can't but believe that all Honour and Love that tend not towards God are kinds of Idolatry SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA AN EXPLANATION Of what I have said in the Fourth Chapter of the Second Part Of Method and elsewhere That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most Simple Wayes IT seems to some Persons to be too rash a Conjecture or an abusing of indeterminate and general Terms to say That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most simple wayes in
the Resolution I have made and which I have declared at the End of the Preface of the Second Volume of the Search after Truth viz. That I would not Answer all those who should Attacque me without understanding me or whose Discourse gave me any reason to believe that something else besides the Love of Truth was the Motive of their Writing as for others I shall endeavour to satisfie them I am unwilling to disturb others or break my own Repose by contentious Books and Treatises that are wholly useless to a Search after Truth and which serve only to violate Charity and scandalize ones Neighbour and if I now write it is because I ought not to suffer my Faith to be made suspected and because I would be clearly understood that no one ought to treat me as an Heretic upon Consequences which he can draw from the Principles I have Established It is not that I think any Heresie nor even any Error may be drawn from the Book of a Search after Truth I am ready to Answer with Charity and respect all those who shall do me the Honour to Criticise upon me without passion and I shall be always ready to follow Truth as soon as it shall be discovered to me I disavow all Principles which may conclude any Error but I pretend that those persons cannot be justly treated as Heretics who even opinionatively maintain such Principles from which Divines may draw impious Consequences provided the Defenders of these Principles disavow these Consequences for if this were true every one might be treated as an Heretic These are my following Proofs which are drawn even from what passes for Reasonable in the Common Opinions of Philosophers and this not to render them odious Or ridiculous but that I may prove what I design from Universally-received Opinions which Peripatetics insist so much upon that they continually insult over their Adversaries The First Proof Peripatetics and almost all Men believe That Beasts have Souls and these Souls are more Noble than the Bodies they Animate 'T is an Opinion Received at all Times and in all Nations That a Dog suffers pain when he is beaten that he is capable of the Motions of the Passions Fear Desire Envy Hatred Joy Sorrow and that he knows and loves his Master yet from this Opinion may be drawn such Consequences as are directly repugnant to what Faith teaches us The First Consequence contrary to Faith That God is unjust Beasts suffer pain and some are more unhappy than others Now they have never made an ill use of their Liberty for they never had any Then God is unjust who punishes them who makes them unhappy and unequally unhappy although they are equally innocent Then is this Principle false That under a Just God nothing can he miserable without having deserved it A Principle which nevertheless St. Augustine makes use of against the Pelagians to prove Original Sin Moreover there is this difference betwixt Men and Beasts That Men after Death may be happy which recompences the pains they endure in this Life But Beasts lose all at Death they have been unhappy and innocent and no Recompense attends them Thus an innocent Man may suffer in order to Merit and yet God be Just But if a Beast suffers God is unjust Perhaps it may be said That God may do whatever he pleases with a Beast provided he observes the Rules of Justice in respect of Man but if an Angel thought that God could not punish him without having deserved it and yet might do what he pleased with Man should we approve of this Thought Certainly God is Just to all his Creatures and is the most vile are capable of being miserable they must needs be capable of becoming criminal Second Consequence repugnant to Faith That God Wills Disorder and that Nature is not Corrupted The Soul of a Dog is a Substance more Noble than the Body it Animates for according to St. * De Quantit Animae ch 31 32 c. lib. 4. de Anima ejus Origine ch 13. and elsewhere Augustine it is a Spiritual Substance more Noble than the most Noble Bodies Besides Reason shows us That Bodies can neither Know nor Love that Pleasure Pain Joy Sadness and other Passions cannot be Modifications of Bodies 'T is believed That Dogs know and love their Masters that they are susceptible of the Passions of Fear Desire Joy Sadness and many others The Soul of Dogs is not then a Body but a Substance more Noble than Bodies Now the Soul of a Dog is made for his Body it has no other End or Felicity than the Enjoyment of Bodies Then the Nature of Man is not Corrupted and Concupiscence is no Disorder God might make Man for the Enjoyment of Bodies he might subject him to the Motions of Cupiscence c. Perhaps it may yet be said That the Soul of Beasts is made for Man but this is a weak Subterfuge For it 's indifferent to me whether my Dog or Horse has or has not a Soul 'T is not the Soul of a Horse which carries or draws me 't is his Body 'T is not the Soul of a Chicken which Nourishes me but its Flesh Now God could and consequently ought to create Horses who should do all Things we have need of without a Soul if it be true That he has made them only for our use Moreover the Soul of a Horse is better than the Noblest Bodies therefore God ought not to create it for the Body of Man Lastly God ought not to have given Souls to Flies which Swallows feed upon Swallows are but of little use to Man they might have fed upon Grain like other Birds Why then must there be an infinite Number of Souls annihilated to preserve the Bodies of these Birds since the Soul of a Fly is worth more than the Body of the most perfect Animals If then we are assured that Beasts have Souls that is Substances that are more Noble than Bodies we take away from God his Wisdom and make him Act irregularly we destroy Original Sin and consequently overthrow Religion by taking away the Necessity of a Mediator The Third Consequence contrary to Faith The Soul of Man is Mortal or at least the Souls of Beasts pass from one Body to another The Soul of a Beast is a Substance distinct from its Body Now it is Annihilated then Substances may naturally be Annihilated Then although the Soul of Man be a Substance distinct from his Body it may be Annihilated when the Body is destroyed Thus one may demonstrate by Reason That the Soul of Man is Immortal But if we grant as a most Certain Truth That no Substance can be naturally Annihilated the Soul of Beasts will Subsist after Death and since they are made for Bodies the least we can infer is That they pass from one Body into another that they may not be useless in Nature This is a Consequence which appears more Reasonable Now we believe That God
is Just and Wise that He loves not Disorder that Nature is Corrupted that the Soul of Man is Immortal and the Soul of Beasts is Mortal Because indeed 't is not a Substance distinct from their Bodies Therefore in the Language of Monsieur de la Ville which condemns Men from Consequences which he draws from their Principles the Cartesians may represent him as criminal and all Mankind besides because they believe that Beasts have Souls What would Monsieur de la Ville say if from his own way of Arguing we should accuse him of Impiety because he maintains Opinions from whence we deduce That God is not Just Wise Powerful Sentiments which overthrow Religion which oppose Original Sin which take away the only Demonstration that Reason furnishes us with to prove the Immortality of the Soul What would he say if we should treat him as unjust and cruel for making innocent Souls suffer and even Annihilating them for the Nourishment of Bodies which they Animate He is a Sinner they are innocent 'T is only to nourish his Body that he kills Bodies and Annihilates their Souls which are of more value than bodies Again If his Body could not subsist but by the Flesh of Animals or if the Annihilation of one Soul could make him immortal this Cruelty however unjust it is might perhaps be pardonable but how many Substances wholly innocent does he Annihilate only to preserve for a few days a Body justly condemned to death for sin Would he be so little a Philosopher as to excuse himself upon the Custom of the places where he lives But if his Zeal had carried him to the Indies where the Inhabitants build * Linsch ch 37. Hospitals for Beasts where the Philosophers and many of the best Sort of Men are so charitable even in respect to Flies that for fear of killing them by breathing or walking they wear a fine Cloath before their Mouths and fan the Ways in which they pass would he then be afraid to make innocent Souls suffer or Annihilate them for the preservation of a Sinners Body Would he not rather choose their Opinion who allow the Soul of a Beast to be no more Noble than their Body nor distinct from it and by publishing this Sentiment acquit himself of the Crimes of Cruelty and Injustice whereof these People would accuse him if having the same Principles he followed not their Custom This Example might be sufficient to show That we ought not to treat Men as Heretics and dangerous persons because we may draw impious Consequences from their Principles even when they disavow these Consequences But be it as it will I think it is infinitely more difficult to Answer these Consequences that I have now drawn than these of Monsieur de la Ville The Cartesians would ve very ridiculous if they treated Monsieur de la Ville and other persons who are not of their Opinion as Impious and Heretical 'T is only the Authority of the Church which may decide in Matters of Faith and the Church has not obliged us and probably whatever Consequences shall be drawn from Common Principles will not oblige us to believe That Dogs have a Soul more Noble than their Bodies that they know not their Masters that they neither Fear Desire nor suffer any thing Because it is not necessary that Christians should be instructed in these Truths The Second Proof Almost all Men are perswaded that sensible Objects are true Causes of the Pleasure and Pain which is felt by their means They believe that Fire disperses that agreeable Heat which rejoyces us That Nourishments act in us and give us the agreeable Sensations of Tasts They doubt not but 't is the Sun which ripens Fruits that are necessary for Life and that all Sensible Objects have a Vertue which is proper to them by which they can do us much Good or Evil. Let us see whether we cannot draw from these Principles such Consequences as are contrary to what Religion obliges us to believe A Consequence impugning the First Principle of Morality by which we are obliged to love God with all our Power and to fear him only 'T is a Common Notion according to which all Men act That we should love or fear whatever has Power to do us good or hurt to make us sensible of Pleasure or Pain to make us Happy or Unhappy This is a supposed Principle we ought therefore to love and fear them This is a Reasoning which all the World Naturally makes and which is yet a general Principle of the Corruption of Manners It is evident by Reason and the first of Gods Commandments that all the Motions of our Soul whether Love or Fear Desire or Joy should tend towards God and that all the Motions of our Body should be regulated and determined by External Objects By the Morion of our Body we may approach to Fruit avoid a Blow fly a Beast that would devour us But we ought to love and fear God only All the Motions of our Soul ought to tend towards him alone We ought to love him with all our Power This is an indispensible Law We can neither love nor fear what is below us without being disordered and corrupted To be afraid of a Beast ready to devour us or to fear the Devil is to do them honour To love Fruit to desire Riches to rejoyce in the Heat of the Sun as if it were the true Cause thereof nay even to love ones Father Protectour Friend as if they were capable of doing as good this is to give them that honour which is due to God only We must not love any one in this sense 'T is permitted and we ought to love our Neighbour by wishing or procuring for him as a Natural or Occasional Cause whatever may conduce to his Happiness but not otherwise We must love our Brethren not as capable of doing us good but as of enjoying with us the true Good These Truths appear evident to me but Men strangely obscure them when they suppose that Bodies which are about us can act in us as true Causes Indeed the greatest part of Christian Philosophers pretend that Creatures can do nothing if God did not concur to their Action and so Sensible Objects cannot act in us without the Efficacy of the First Cause We ought neither to fear nor love them but God only on whom all things depend This Explication shows Men condemn the Consequences which I have drawn from their Principle But if I should say with Monsieur de la Ville that 't is a slight of Philosophers to cover their Impiety if I should charge them with the crime of maintaining at the expence of Religion Aristotles Opinions and the Prejudices of their Senses if by examining their Heart I should impute to them a secret desire of debauching Mens Morals by the defence of a Principle which justifies all sorts of disorders and opposes the first Principle of Christian Morality by the Consequences
Good And when we Sin what do we Nothing for we love a false Good that God enclines us not to love by an invincible Impression We cease to seek the true Good and make useless the motion which God imprints on us Now when we love any particular Good only or against Order we receive from God as great an impression of Love as if we stopt not at this Good Moreover this particular determination which is neither necessitated nor invincible is also given us of God Therefore when we Sin we produce no new modification in our selves However I confess when we do not Sin but resist Temptation we may say in one Sense that we give our selves a new modification because we would think of other things than on the false Goods which tempt us But what we then do is produced by the action which God impresses on us that is by our motion towards Good in general or by our Will assisted by Grace or illuminated by a light or impelled by a preingaged Pleasure For in short if 't is pretended that to Will different things is to give our selves different Modifications I grant that in this Sense the Mind can diversly modifie it self by the action it receives from God But it must always be observed that that action that God performs in us depends upon us and is not invincible in respect to particular Goods For when a particular Good is presented to us we have an internal Sensation of our liberty in respect to it as we have of our Pleasure and Pain when we feel it We are even convinced of our Freedom by the same reason that we are convinced of our Existence for 't is the internal Sensation we have of our Thoughts which teaches us that we are And if in the time that we are conscious of our liberty in respect to a particular Good we ought to doubt whether or no we are free because we have no clear Idea of our liberty We must also doubt of our Pain and Existence at the time even when we are very unhappy since we have no clear Idea either of our Souls or of our Pain It is not the same with internal Sensation as with our external Senses These always deceive us in something when we follow their information but our internal Sensation never deceives us 'T is by my external Senses that I see Colours upon the surface of Bodies that I hear sounds in the Air and feel pain in my Hand c. and I am deceiv'd if I judge of these things upon the relation of my Senses But 't is by internal Sensation that I see Colours hear Sounds suffer Pain and I deceive not my self to think I see when I see hear when I hear or suffer when I suffer provided I stay there I explain not these things more at large because they are evident of ' emselves Thus having an internal Sensation of our liberty at the same time that a particular Good presents it self to our Mind we ought not to doubt whether we are free in respect to this Good Yet as we have not always this internal Sensation and sometimes only consult what remains of it in our memory after a very confused manner We may think of the abstracted Reasons which hinder us from feeling our selves persuaded that it is not possible for Man to be free Like a Stoic that wants nothing and who can Philosophise at his ease can imagine that Pain is not an Evil because the internal Sensation he has of it does not actually convince him of the contrary He may prove as Seneca has done by Reasons that in one Sense are true that 't is even a contradiction that a wise Man can be unhappy Yet when the internal Sensation we have of our selves will not suffice to convince us that we are free we may perswade our selves of it by Reason For being convinced by Reason that God only acts for himself and that he cannot give us any motion which tends not towards him the impression towards good in general may be invincible but it is plain the impression he gives us towards particular Goods must necessarily be free For if this impression was invincible we should not have any motion to go to God altho' he gives us motion only for himself and we should be necessitated to stop at particular Goods although God Order and Reason forbid it So that we should not Sin through our own default and God would be truly the cause of our Irregularities since they would not be free but purely natural and absolutely necessary Thus although we should not be convinced of our liberty by the internal Sensation we have of our selves we might by Reason discover that its necessary that Man should be created free supposing that he be capable of desiring particular Goods and that he can desire these Goods only by the impression or motion that God continually gives him for himself which may likewise be proved by Reason But 't is not the same of the capacity we have of suffering any Pain To discover that we have this capacity there is no other way but internal Sensation and yet no one doubts but Man is subject to Pain As we know not our Soul by a clear Idea as I have elsewhere explained 't would be in vain for us to try to discover what it is in us which terminates the action that God imprints on us or what it is in us which is overcome by a determination that is not invincible and that may be changed by our Will or impression towards whatever is good and by its union with him who includes the Ideas of all Beings For as we have no clear Idea of any modification of our Soul there is only an internal Sensation which teaches us that we exist and what we are 'T is this Sensation therefore that we must consult to convince our selves that we are free It answers us clearly enough when we actually propose any particular good to our selves For there is no Man who can doubt that he is not invincibly carried to Eat a Fruit or to shun some inconsiderable Pain But if instead of hearkning to our internal Sensation we give attention to abstracted Reasons which divert us from thinking of our selves it may be we might even lose the sight of our selves and forget what we are and that endeavouring to reconcile the knowledge of God and the absolute power he has over us with our liberty we should fall into an Error which would overthrow all the Principles of Religion and Morality Here is an Objection that is used to be made against what I have said and although it be very trivial it nevertheless is a difficulty to some Men. The hatred of God say they is an action wherein there is no Good Therefore it is perfectly the Sinners and God has no part in it Consequently Man acts and gives himself a new modification by an action which proceeds not from God I Answer That Sinners hate