other extraordinary things on this Subject for the advantage of Knowledge and the uses of Life 8. In his HYDROSTATICAL PARADOXES he shew'd That the lower parts of Fluids are press'd by the upper That a lighter may gravitate upon one that is more ponderous That if a Body contiguous to it be lower than the highest level of the Water the lower end of the Body will be press'd upwards by the Water beneath That the weight of an external Fluid sufficeth to raise the Water in Pumps That the pressure of an external Fluid is able to keep an Heterogeneous Liquor suspended at the same height in several Pipes though they are of different Diameters That a Body under Water that hath its upper Surface parallel to the Horizon the direct pressure it sustains is no more than that of a Columne of Water which hath the mentioned Horizontal Superficies for its Basis. And if the incumbent Water be contained in Pipes open at both ends the pressure is to be estimated by the meight of a Pillar of Water whose Basis is equal to the lower Orifice of the Pipe parallel to the Horizon and its height equal to a Perpendicular reaching to the top of the Water though the Pipe be much inclined irregularly shaped and in some parts broader than the Orifice That a Body in a Fluid sustains a lateral pressure from it which increaseth in proportion to the depth of the immerst Body in the Fluid That Water may be made to depress a Body lighter than it self That a parcel of Oil lighter than Water may be kept from ascending in it That the cause of the ascension of Water in Syphons may be explained without the notion of abhorrence of a Vacuum That the heaviest Body known will not sink of it self without the assistance of the weight of the Water upon it when 't is at a depth greater than twenty times its own thickness though it will nearer the Surface This is the sum of the general Contents of that Discourse which contains things very useful to be known for the advantage of Navigation Salt-Works Chymistry and other practical purposes 9. In his Book of the ORIGINE of FORMS and QVALITIES he delivers the minds of Men from the imaginary and useless Notions of the Schools about them which have no foundation in the nature of things nor do any ways promote Knowledge or help Mankind but very much disserve those great Interests by setting the Understanding at rest in general obscurities or imploying it in airy Nicities and Disputes and so hindring its pursuit of particular Causes and Experimental Realities In this Treatise he lays the Foundations and delivers the Principles of the Mechanick Philosophy which he strengthneth and illustrates by several very pleasant and instructive Experiments He shews That the most admirable Things which have been taken for the Effects of substantial Forms and are used as proofs of the Notional Hypotheses may be the results of the meer texture and position of parts since Art is able to make Vitriol as well as Nature and Bodies by humane skill may be produced whose supposed Forms have been destroyed He gives many very ingenious instances to prove That the Mechanick Motions and order of the Parts is sufficient to yeeld an account of the difference of Bodies and their affections without having recourse to the Forms and Qualities of the Schools as in the restoration of Camphire to its former smell and nature after its dissolution and seeming extinction in the changes of the colour consistence fusibleness and other Qualites of Silver and Copper in the odd Phaenomena of a certain anomalous Salt and those of the Sea Salt dried powder'd and mix'd with Aqua-Fortis and in the Sal Mirabilis in the production of Silver out of Gold by his Menstruum Peracutum in the transmutation of Water into Earth in a certain Distillation of Spirit of Wine and Oil of Vitriol I say This excellent Person hath by Experiments rare and new about these Subjects made it evidently appear That the internal motions configuration and posture of the parts are all that is necessary for alterations and diversities of Bodies and consequently That substantial Forms and real Qualities are needless and precarious Beings These are some brief and general Hints of those great things this incomparable Person hath done for the information and benefit of Men and besides them there are several others that He hath by him and the Inquisitive expect in which real Philosophy and the World are no less concern'd I received a late Account of them from an ingenious Friend of his Mr. Oldenburgh Secretary to the ROYAL SOCIETY who also renders himself a great Benefactor to Mankind by his affectionate care and indefatigable diligence and endeavours in the maintaining Philosophical Intelligence and promoting the Designs and Interests of profitable and general Philosophy And these being some of the Noblest and most Publick Imployments in which the Services of generous Men can be ingaged loudly call for their Aids and Assistances for the carrying on a Work of so universal an importance But I shall have a fitter place to speak of this and therefore I return to the Illustrious Person of whom I was discoursing And for Philosophical News and further evidence of the Obligation the World hath to this Gentleman I shall here insert the Account of what he hath more yet unpublish'd for its advantage and instruction And I take the boldness to do it because himself hath been pleased to quote and refer to those Discourses in his publish'd Writings concerning which M. O's Account is more particular and he receiv'd it from the Author It speaks thus 1. Another Section of the Vsefulness of Experimental Philosophy as to the Empire of Man over inferiour Creatures where he intends to premise some general Considerations about the Means whereby Experimental Philosophy may become useful to Humane Life proceeding thence to shew That the Empire of Man may be promoted by the Naturalists skill in Chymistry by his skill in Mechanicks or the Application of Mathematicks to Instruments and Engines by his skill in Mathematicks both pure and mixt That the Goods of Mankind may be much increased by the Naturalist's insight into Trades That the Naturalist may much advantage Men by exciting and assisting their curiosity to discover take notice and make use of the home-bred Riches and Advantages of particular Countries and to increase their number by transferring thither those of others That a ground of high expectation from Experimental Philosophy is given by the happy Genius of this present Age and the productions of it That a ground of expecting considerable things from Experimental Philosophy is given by those things which have been found out by illiterate Tradesmen or lighted on by chance That some peculiar and concealed property of a natural thing may inable the knowers of it to perform with ease things that to others seem either not feasible or not practicable without great difficulty That by the
all those Arguments that are brought for our Immortality are in this way clearly disabled For all that we can say will prove but this That the Soul is no Body or part of Matter but this will amount to no evidence if there are a middle kind of Essences that are not corporeal and yet mortal So that when I say Philosophy serves Religion against Sadducism I would not be understood to mean the Peripatetick Hypotheseis but that Philosophy which is grounded upon acquaintance with real Nature This by leaving this whole unintelligible sort of Beings out of its Accounts as things for which there is no shadow of ground from Reason or Nature but good evidence of their non-existence from both disappoints the Sadduce of the advantage he hath from this needless and precarious Principle And by distributing Substance into Body and Spirit without the admission of middle Natures the Real Philosophy gives demonstrative force to those Arguments for our Immortality that prove our Souls are not Bodies and so Sadducism is ruined by it These things I have thought fit to advertise not out of design to censure any particular way of Philosophy but for the security of my Discourse And though I have made a little bold with the Peripateticks here yet the great Name of Aristotle to which they pretend is not concerned for I am convinc'd that he taught no such Doctrine of substantial Forms as his later Sectators and Interpreters have imputed to Him who indeed have depraved and corrupted his sense almost in the whole Body of his Principles and have presented the World with their own Fancies instead of the genuine Opinions of that Philosopher But I proceed III. THe Real Philosophy that inquires into God's Works assists Religion against Superstition another of its fatal Enemies That I may prove this it must be premised That Superstition consists either in bestowing Religious Valuation and Esteem on things in which there is no good or fearing those in which there is no hurt So that this Folly expresseth it self one while in doting upon Opinions as Fundamentals of Faith and Idoliziug the little Models of Fancy for Divine Institutions And then it runs away afraid of harmless indifferent Appointments and looks pale upon the appearance of any usual Effect of Nature It tells ominous Stories of every Meteor of the Night and makes sad Interpretations of each unwonted Accident All which are the Products of Ignorance and a narrow Mind which defeat the Design of Religion that would make us of a free manly and generous Spirit and indeed represent Christianity as if it were a fond sneaking weak and peevish thing that emasculates Mens Understandings making them amorous of toys and keeping them under the servility of childish fears so that hereby it is exposed to the distrust of larger Minds and to the scorn of Atheists These and many more are the mischiefs of Superstition as we have sadly seen and felt Now against this evil Spirit and its Influences the Real Experimental Philosophy is one of the best Securities in the World For by a generous and open Inquiry in the great Field of Nature Mens minds are enlarged and taken off from all fond adherences to their private Sentiments They are taught by it That Certainty is not in many things and that the most valuable Knowledge is the practical By which means they will find themselves disposed to more indifferency towards those petty Notions in which they were before apt to place a great deal of Religion and to reckon that all that will signifie lies in the few certain operative Principles of the Gospel and a Life suitable to such a Faith not in doting upon Questions and Speculations that engender strife and thus the Modern Experimental Philosophy of God's Works is a Remedy against the notional Superstition as I may call it which hath been and is so fatal to Religion and the peace of Mankind Besides which by making the Soul great this Knowledge delivers it from fondness on small Circumstances and imaginary Models and from little scrupulosities about things indifferent which usually work disquiet in narrow and contracted Spirits And I have known divers whom Philosophy and not Disputes hath cured of this Malady This we may observe that those Remedies are the best and most effectual that alter the temper and disposition of the Mind For 't is suitableness to that which makes the way to Mens Judgments and settles them in their Perswasions There are few that hold their Opinions by Arguments and dry Reasonings but by congruity to the Understanding and consequently by relish in the Affections So that seldom any thing cures our intellectual Diseases throughly but what changes these And I dare affirm that the Free Experimental Philosophy will do this to purpose by giving the Mind another Tincture and introducing a sounder Habit which by degrees will repel and cast out all Malignities and settle it in a strong and manly Temperament that will master and put to flight all idle Dotages and effeminate Fears The Truth is This World is a very Bedlam and he that would cure Madmen must not attempt it by Reasoning or indeavour to shew the absurdity of their Conceits but such a course must be taken as may restore the Mind to a right Crasis and that when it is effected will reduce and rectifie the extravagances of the distemper'd Brain which Disputes and Oppositions will but inflame and make worse Thus for instance when frantick Persons are fond of Feathers and mightily taken with the employment of picking Straws 't would signifie very little to represent to them the vanity of the Objects of their Delights and when the Melancholist was afraid to sit down for fear of being broken supposing himself of Glass it had been to little purpose to have declared to him the ridiculousness of his Fears the disposition of the Head was to be alter'd before the particular Phrensie could be cured 'T is too evident how just this is in the application to the present Age Superstitious fondness and fears are a real degree of madness And though I cannot say that Philosophy must be the only Catholick way of Cure for of this the far greatest part of Men is incapable yet this I do affirm that 't is a Remedy for those that are strong enough to take it and the rest must be helped by that which changeth the Genius and this cannot ordinarily be done by any thing that opposeth the particular Fancy However I must say 2. That the sort of Superstition which is yet behind in my account and consists in the causless fear of some Extraordinaries in Accident or Nature is directly cured by that Philosophy which gives fair likely-hoods of their Causes and shews that there is nothing in them supernatural the light of the day drives away Apparitions and vain Images that fancy forms in obscure shades and darkness Thus particularly the Modern Doctrine of Comets which have been always great Bugbears to the guilty
talk endlessly but come to no result and when they are weary of rambling they may sit down if they please but be it when and where they will they know not how they came thither nor what is become of the Question at first debated This is the usual issue of all Syllogistical disputes But in the Platonical and Socratical method these extravagancies may easily be avoided which therefore I think to be the better way for men that would find truth and inform one another But for the Youth that would try their wits and appear subtile in arguing Syllogisms may be proper for their purposes For PHYSIOLOGY They did not sit down in any System or Body of Principles as certain and establish'd They consider'd the incomprehensible wisdom that is in the works of God the difficulties that occur in the seeming plainest things the scantness of our largest knowledge and shallowness of our deepest enquiries of which I spoke before and therefore gave but timerous assent to any notions in Natural Philosophy They held no infallible Theory here Nor would they allow any speculations or accounts of Nature to be more then Hypothesis and probable conjecture And these they taught were not to be rais'd from abstracted notions and the unassisted operations of the mind but to be collected leasurely from a careful observation of particulars So that they thought with much reason that the best Foundation for Natural Philosophy would be a good History of Nature This they saw to be very defective in their Time and that while it remain'd in that imperfection the knowledge of Nature and the use of it would be very scanty and inconsiderable But that from its inlargement more and surer Light might be expected and the uses of Life and Empire of man over the Creatures might be greatly promoted and advanc'd For These ends the Foundation of Solomon's House about that time was lai'd and This divers of them thought the best design that ever was for increasing Natural Knowledge and the advantages of Humane Life and infinitely beyond all the disputing notional ways from which nothing could arise but dispute and notion They consider'd this method of joint endeavours in such a royal and noble Assembly about the Phoenomena and effects of Nature to be the way to make Philosophy operative and useful To take it off from spending it's strength in forming vain Ideas of fancy and wrangling endlesly about Chimaeras and to make an Instrument of Action and profitable works But notwithstanding this They did not wholly slight General Hypotheses and Philosophical conjectures No They enquir'd into all the considerable speculations that are extant both Antient and Modern though they addicted not themselves to any of the Sects of Philosophers They rejected no probable Opinion with contempt nor entertain'd any with fondness They doated on none because they were Antient nor did they contemn any because they were new But receiv'd the likelyhoods of Truth and Knowledge of any date from any hand or in any dress Here I ask'd whether these men were not enemies to Ari-stotle and his Philosophy He answer'd That They gave that respect to Aristotle that was due to his antiquity parts and reputation in the World That they read his Books and thought as well of him as of some others of the Philosophers That they gladly receiv'd any of the Truths or Probabilities that he taught But then That they did not make his Authority absolute or slavishly submit their judgments to all his Dictates They did not reckon him infallible in Philosophy no nor yet free from many actual great mistakes They did not prefer his judgment before all the elder Philosophers or those of his own time Nor did they think he was without Equal or Superiors both in Knowledge and Vertue They had not that partial unjust fondness for him that the Moores and Monks and some other vain men had to the prejudice and disvalue of the Philosophers that were before Him from whom he took most of his Notions He said That the Philosophy taught in some common Schools for Aristotle's was a depravation and corruption of it That it was but Monkery and Moorish Ignorance formed into idle and unintelligible whimsies That the main Principles Foundation and Soul of that Philosophy Their first matter Substantial Forms and Qualities were meer Imaginations that had no ground either from Sense or Reason That they were utterly unaccountable in themselves and served no purpose of Knowledge or Life But rendred all the Philosophy that was built on them fantastical and useless On the other side he said That the Corpuscular Philosophy was the eldest and most accountable Doctrine That it was as antient as Natural Philosophy it self That it was applicable to the Phoenomena of Nature and that it was very easie and intelligible This Theory added he those Philosophers preferred much to the other of Qualities and Forms which in comparison is novel They examined the Philosophy of your Gassendus which restor'd and amplified the Atomical Doctrine And enquired into the Hypotheses of that other great man of your World Renatus Descartes Both whose works had been brought hither by our Missionaries This là tter they consider'd and studied much and in him they found a prodigious wit and clear thoughts and a wonderfully ingenious Fabrick of Philosophy which they thought to be the neatest Mechanical System of things that had appear'd in the World However they adhered not to it as the certain Account of Nature nor yielded their assent as to positive and establish'd Truth But entertain'd what they thought probable and freely dissented in other matters Yea some of them who thought highly of his Mechanical wit and believ'd he had carried matter and motion as far they could go declar'd earnestly against the compleatness and perfection of his Hypotheses and learnedly shew'd That the Mechanical Principles alone would not salve the Phoenomena and that his accounts though they were pretty and ingenious were yet short defective and unsatisfying and in some things not very agreeing and consistent These judg'd that nothing could be done in Physiology without admitting the Platonical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Spirit of Nature and so would have the Mechanical Principles aided by the Vital But in these matters others of them had different thoughts though all agreed in the modesty and freedom of judgment and discourse As to MORAL PHILOSOPHY They did by no means approve of the Contentious Disputing Ethicks that turn'd that useful knowledge into Systems of unprofitable niceties and notions and made it as Cicero speaks to be rather Ostentatio Scientiae then Lex Vitae But they founded theirs upon the excellent knowledge of Humane Nature and Passions Into these they inquir'd much and observ'd the various inclinations and workings of the Humours and Appetites of Men especially they studied themselves and entred into the recesses of their own souls Nor did they stop here but formed their knowledge and observations into solid Rules of Life for
perceive that those promises are hardly kept To appear often in the Press I know is censur'd but I see not why that should be a fault whilst the Books themselves have not greater If a Man write well he may deserve excuse at least if otherwise by use he may mend or if there be no hopes of that his writing often is not worth objecting Nor hath any one need to complain since no one is concern'd about what another Prints further than himself pleaseth And since Men have the liberty to read our Books or not Methinks they might give us leave to write or forbear This I say because I know this ill-natur'd humour puts restraint upon the Pens of some great Men and tempts others to make promises and excuses which I think do not become them For my part I have as little leasure to write Books as other Men for I have that to do which may be reckoned an Imployment but every Man hath some vaâ—…ancies and I love now and then in this manner to imploy mine 'T is an innocent way of entertaining a Mans self to paint the image of his thoughts and no better a Writer than my self may happen to divert if not to instruct some others by it ERRATA The Reader is desired to take notice of the following Errours of the Press some of which are so near in sound 〈◊〉 the words of the Author that they may easily be mistaken for his ESSAY I. For. Read Page Line BEst compactâ—…ess Foâ—…st compactness 13 2 The herb and the flower Herb and flower 16 2 Before us our discoveries Before us our discoveries 25 34 All opinions All their opinions 26 21 Old Law Old Saw 28 29 Heavens above c. Heavens above it 28 32 Other opinions Opinions 30 11 His saying His sayings 31 24 ESSAY II. Revile against Rail against 43 4 Boasts of Boasts 47 16 Isellâ—…s Psellus 53 19 Are certain Contain and are 62 13 ESSAY III. I take 't was I take it 't was 4 10 Virulam Verulam 34 14 Self-absurd Self-assur'd 52 12 ESSAY IV. Since then Since them 17 16 Difference Deference 26 25 Jumblings intermixtures Jumblings and intermixtures 32 13 14 Flighted Slighted 34 7 ESSAY V. Their own interest Their interests 28 8 ESSAY VI. For Read Page Line Streams Steams 14 22 Fâ—…m whatever What ever 56 17 She apprending She apprehended 56 22 ESSAY VII To them All To them All 6 13 14 From the World From your World 6 37 Such of them that Such of them as 7 1 They that made That they made 11 6 Main works Main marks 30 33 〈◊〉 2. 43 31 Note that the Sum of my Lord Bacons Atlantis being the brief contents of his Story printed in the beginning of the 7th Essay was intended as a Preface to it and should have been in the Italick Character but the Printer hath not done that nor made a sufficient Break to distinguish my Lord Bacons Contents ending Page 2. Line 12. from the Authors Story Essay I. Against Confidence in Philosophy And Matters of Speculation ONE of the first things to be done in order to the enlargement and encrease of Knowledg is to make Men senâ—…ible how imperfect their Vnderstandings are in the present state and how lyable to deception For hereby we are disposed to more wariâ—…ess in our Enquiries and taken off from â—…old and peremptory Conclusions which are some of the greâ—…test hindâ—…rances of Intellectâ—…al improvementâ—… in the World Therefore by way of Intrâ—…duction to Philosophy and grounded Science we must endeavour first to destroy the confidence of Assertions and to establish a prudent reservdâ—…ss and modesty in Opinions In order to this I shall here set down some thoughts I have had on this Subject And in doing it I shall 1. Offer some considerable Instanâ—… of Humane Ignorance and Deficiency even in the main and most usual things in Nature 2. I shall enquire into the Caâ—…ses of our imperfection in Knowledg which will afford further evidence and proof of it and 3. Add some Strictâ—…es against Dogmatizing in Philosophy and all matters of uncertain Speculation My Instances shall be drawn 1. From the Nature of our Souls and 2. from the Constitution of our own and other Bodies Abâ—… 〈◊〉 former I consider That if Certainty were any where to be expected one would think it should be had in the Notices of our Souls which are our true selves and whose Sentiments we most in wardly know In things without us our shallowness and ignorance need not be matter of much wonder since we cannot pry into the hidden things of Nature â—…or obsâ—…rue the first Springs and Wheels that set the rest in motion We see but little parcels of the Works of God and want Phaenomena to make entire and secure Hypotheses But if that whereby we know other things know not it self If our Souls are strangers to things within them which they have more advantage to understand than they have in matters of external Nature I think then that this first will be a considerable Instance of the scantness and imperfection of our Knowledg 1. I take notice therefore That the Learned have ever been at great odds and uncertainty about the Nature of the Soul concerning which every Philosopher almost had a distincâ—… Opinion The Chaldâ—…ans held it a Vertue without fâ—…n Xenocrates and the Aegyptians a moving Nâ—…ber Parâ—…ider a compound of Light and Darkness Hesâ—…od and Anâ—…minder a consistence of Earth and Water Thâ—…les call'd in a Nature without rest Heraclides supposed it to be Light Empedocles to be Blood Zeno the Quintessence of the Elements Gâ—…len would have it to be an hot Complexion Hippocrates a Spirit diffused through the Body Plato a self-moving Substance Aristotle an Entelechy or no body knows wâ—… and Varâ—…o an heated and dispersed Air. Thus have some of the greatest Men of â—…ntient times differ'd in one of the first Theories of Humane Nature which may well be reckon'd an Argument of uncertainâ—…y and â—…perfection And yet I account not the difficulties about this to be so hopeless as they are in lesâ—… noted Mysteries The great occasion of this diversity and these mistakes is That Men would form some Image of the Soul in their Fancies as they do in the contemplation of corporeal Objects But this is a wrong way of speculating Immaterials which may be seeâ—… in their effects and attributes by way of reflection but if like children we run behind the Glass to look for them we shall mâ—… nothing there but disappointment 2. There hath been as much trouble and diversity in enquiâ—…ing into the Origine of the Soul as in seâ—…hing into the nature of it In the opinion of some learned Mâ—… It was from the beginning of the World created with the Heavens and Light others have thought it an extract from the Vniversal Soul Some fancied it descended from the Moon others from the Stars or vast spaces of the Aether above the Planets some teach That God is the
certain but 't is possible and I know no absurdity in it and consequently our concluding a Causality from Concomitancy here and in other Instances may deceive us 2. Our best natural Knowledg is imperfect in that after all our confidence Things still are possible to be otherwise Our Demonstrations are raised upon Principles of our own not of Vniversal Nature And as my Lord Bacon notes we judg from the analogy of our selves not the Vniverse Now many things are certain according to the Principles of one Man that are absurd in the apprehensions of many others and some appear impossible to the vulgar that are easie to Men of more improved Understandings That is extravagant in one Philosophy which is a plain truth in another and perhaps what is most impossible in the apprehensions of Men may be otherwise in the Metaphysicks and Physiology of Angels The sum is We conclude this to be certain and that to be impossible from our own narrow Principles and little Scheams of Opinion And the best Principles of natural Knowledg in the World are but Hypotheses which may be and may be otherwise So that though we may conclude many things upon such and such Suppositions yet still our Knowledg will be but fair and hopeful Conjecture And therefore we may affirm that things are this way or that according to the Philosophy that we have espoused but we strangely forget our selves when we plead a necessity of their being so in Nature and an impossibility of their being otherwise The ways of God in Nature as in Providence are not as ours are Nor are the Models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness and profundity of his Works which have a depth in them greater than the Well of Democritus 3. We cannot properly and perfectly know any thing in Nature without the knowledg of its first Causes and the Springs of Natural Motions And who hath any pretence to this Who can say he hath seen Nature in its beginnings We know nothing but Effects nor can we judg at their immediate Causes but by proportion to the things that do appear which no doubt are very unlike the Rudiments of Nature We see there is no resemblance between the Seed and the Herb and the Flowre between the Sperm and the Animal The Egg and the Bird that is hatcht of it And since there is so much dissimilitude between Cause and Effect in these apparent things we cannot think there is less between them and their first and invisible Efficients Now had not our Senses assured us of it we should never have suspected that Plants or Animals did proceed from such unlikely Originals never have imagined that such Effects should have come from such Causes and we can conceive as little now of the nature and quality of the Causes that are beyond the prospect of our Senses We may frame Fancies and Conjectures of them but to say that the Principles of Nature are just as our Philosophy makes them is to set bounds to Omnipotence and to circumscribe infinite Power and Wisdom by our narrow Thoughts and Opinions 4. Every thing in Nature hath relation to divers others so that no one Being can be perfectly known without the knowledg of many more Yea every thing almost hath relation to all things and therefore he that talks of strict Science pretends to a kind of Omniscience All things are linkt together and every Motion depends upon many prerequired Motors so that no one can be perfectly known singly We cannot for instance comprehend the cause of any Motion in a Watch unless we are acquainted with other dependent Motions and have insight into the whole mechanical contexture of it and we know not the most contemptible Plant that grows in any perfection and exactness until we understand those other things that have relation to it that is almost every thing in Nature So that each Science borrows from all the rest and we attain not any single one without comprehending the whole Circle of Knowledg I might say much more on this Subject but I may have further occasion of speaking to it under the second General viz. The Consideration II. Of the Imperfection of our present Faculties and the malign Influence our Senses and Affections have upon our Minds I begin with the SENSES and shall take notice 1. Of their Dulness and 2. of their liableness to Errour and Mistake 1. Our Senses are very scant and limited and the Operations of Nature subtil and various They are only its grosser Instruments and ways of working that are sensible the finer Threads and immediate Actions are out of reach Yea it 's greatest works are perform'd by invisible insensible Agents Now most of our Conceptions are taken from the Senses and we can scarce judg of any thing but by the help of material Images that are thence convey'd to us The Senses are the Fountain of natural Knowledg and the surest and best Philosophy is to be raised from the Phoenomena as they present them to us when we leave these and retire to the abstracted notions of our minds we build Castles in the Air and form Chymerical Worlds that have nothing real in them And yet when we take our accounts from those best Informers we can learn but very little from their Discoveries For we see but the shadows and outsides of things like the men in Plato's Den who saw but the Images of external Objects and but so many as came in through the narrow entrance of their Cave The World of God no doubt is an other thing than the World of Sense is and we can judg but little of its amplitude and glory by the imperfect Idea we have of it From this narrowness of our Senses it is that we have been so long ignorant of a World of Animals that are with us and about us which now at last the Glasses that in part cure this imperfection have discover'd and no doubt there is yet a great variety of living Creatures that our best Instruments are too gross to disclose There is Prodigious fineness and subtilty in the works of Nature which are too thin for our Senses with all the advantages Art can lend them And many the greatest and the best of its Objects are so remote that our Senses reach them not by any Natural or Artificial helps So that we cannot have other than short and confufed apprehensions of those works of Nature And I sometimes fear that we scarce yet see any thing as it is But this belongs to an other consideration viz. 2. Our Senses extremely deceive us in their reports and informations I mean they give occasion to our minds to deceive themselves They indeed represent things truely as they appear to them and in that there is no deception but then we judge the exterior Realities to be according to those appearances and here is the Error and Mistake But because the Senses afford the ground and occasion and we naturally judg according to
their impressions therefore the Fallacies and Deceits are imputed to their misinformations This I premise to prevent a Philosophical mistake but shall retain the common way of speaking and call those the errors of the Senses That these very frequently misreport things to us we are assured even from themselves a straight stick seems crooked in the Water and a square Towre round at a distance All things are Yellow to those that have the Jaundice and all Meats are bitter to the disaffected Palate To which vulgar Instances it will presently be answer'd that the Senses in those cases are not in their just circumstances but want the fit medium due distance and sound disposition which we know very well and learn there was somewhat amiss because our Senses represent those things otherwise at othertimes we see the stick is straight when it is out of the Water and the Tower is square when we are near it Objects have other Colours and Meats other tastes when the Body and its Senses are in their usual temper In such cases Sense rectifies its own mistakes and many times one the errors of another but if it did not do so we should have been alwayes deceived even in those Instances and there is no doubt but that there are many other like deceptions in which we have no contrary evidence from them to disabuse us not in the matters of common Life but in things of remoter speculation which this state seems not to be made for The Senses must have their due medium and distance and temper if any of these are amiss they represent their Objects otherwise to us than they are Now these we may suppose they generally have in the necessary matters of Life if not to report things to us as they are in themselves yet to give them us so as may be for our accommodation and advantage But how are we assur'd that they are thus rightly disposed in reference to things of Speculative Knowledg What medium what distance what temper is necessary to convey Objects to us just so as they are in the realities of Nature I observ'd before that our Senses are short imperfect and uncommensurate to the vastness and profundity of things and therefore cannot receive the just Images of them and yet we judg all things according to those confused and imperfect Idaeas which must needs lead us into infinite errors and mistakes If I would play the Sceptick here I might add That no one can be sure that any Objects appear in the same manner to the Senses of other men as they do to his Yea it may seem probable that they do not For though the Images Motions or whatever else is the cause of Sence may be alike as from them yet the representations may be much varied according to the nature and quality of the recipient we find things look otherwise to us through an Optick Tube then they do when we view them at a distance with our naked eyes the same Object appears red when we look at it through a Glass of that Colour but green when we behold it through one of such a Tincture Things seem otherwise when the Eye is distorted then they do when it is in its natural ordinary posture and some extraordinary alterations in the Brain double that to us which is but a single Object Colours are different according to different Lights and Positions as 't is in the necks of Doves and folds of Scarlet Thus difference in circumstances alters the sensation and why may we not suppose as much diversity in the Senses of several men as there is in those accidents in the perceptions of one There is difference in the Organs of Sense and more in the temper and configuration of the inward parts of the Brain by which motions are convey'd to the seat of Sense in the Nerves Humours and Spirits in respect of tenuity liquidity aptitude for motion and divers other circumstances of their nature from which it seems that great diversity doth arise in the manner of receiving the Images and consequently in the perceptions of their Objects So then though every man knows how things appear to himself yet what impressions they make upon the so different Senses of another he only knows certainly that is conscious to them And though all men agree to call the impression they feel from such or such an Object by the same name yet no one can assuredly tell but that the Sentiment may be different It may be one man hath the impression of Green from that which in another begets the Sense of Yellow and yet they both call it Green because from their infancy they were wont to join that word to that Sentiment which such an Object produc'd in their particular Sense though in several men it were a very divers one This I know some will think hard to be understood but I cannot help that Those that Consider will find it to be very plain and therefore I shall spend no more words about it The Sum is Our Senses are good Judges of Appearances as they concern us but how things are in themselves and how they are to others it should seem we cannot certainly learn from them And therefore when we determine that they are and must be according to the representations of our individual Senses we are very often grosly deceiv'd in such sentences to which yet we are exceeding prone and few but the most exercised minds can avoid them Of this I 'le give a great Instance or two 1. It is almost universally believ'd at least by the vulgar that the Earth rests on the Centre of the World and those ancient Philosophers have been extreamly hooted at and derided that have taught the contrary doctrine For my part I shall affirm nothing of the main question but this I say That the common inducement to believe it stands still viz the Testimony of Sense is no argument of it And whether the opinion of Pythagoras Copernicus Des-Cartes Galilaeo and almost all late Philosophers of the motion of the Earth be true or false the belief of its Rest as far as it ariseth from the presum'd evidence of Sence is an error That there is some common motion that makes the day and night and the varieties of seasons is very plain and sensible but whether the Earth or the Sun be the Body mov'd none of our Senses can determine To Sense the Sun stands still also and no Eye can perceive its Actual motion For though we find that in a little time it hath chang'd its Position and respect to us yet whether that change be caus'd by its translation from us or ours from it the Sense can never tell and yet from this and this only the greatest part of mankind believes its motion On the other side The standing still of the Earth is concluded the same way and yet though it did move it would appear fixt to us as now it doth since we are carried with it in a regular
cannot conceive a Spirit or any being without extension whereas others say They cannot conceive but that whatever is extended is impenetrable and consequently corporeal which diversity I think I have reason to ascribe to some difference in the natural temper of the mind 2. But another very fatal occasion of our mistakes is the great prejudice of Custom and Education which is so unhappily prevalent that though the Soul were never so truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Philosopher call'd it an unwritten table in it self yet this doth very often so scribble on it as to render it incapable of other impressions we judg all things by those Anticipations and condemn or applaud them as they differ or agree with our first Opinions 'T is on this account that almost every Country censures the Laws Customs and Doctrines of every other as absurd and unreasonable and are confirm'd in their own follies beyond possibility of conviction Our first Age is like the melted wax to the prepared Seal that receives any impression and we suck in the opinions of our Clime and Country as we do the common Air without thought or choice and which is worse we usually sit down under those Prejudices of Education and Custom all our Lives after For either we are loth to trouble our selves to examine the Doctrines we have long taken for granted or we are scar'd from inquiring into the things that Custom and common Belief have made Venerable and Sacred We are taught to think with the Hermit that the Sun shines no were but in our Cells and that Truth and Certainty are confin'd within that Belief in which we were first instructed From whence we contract an obstinate adherence to the conceits in which we were bred and a resolv'd contempt of all other Doctrines So that what Astrologers say of our Fortunes and the events of common life may as well be said of the opinions of the most that they are written in their Stars having as little freedom in them as the effects of Destiny And since the Infusions of Education have such interest in us are so often appeal'd to as the dictates of Truth and impartial Reason 't is no wonder we are so frequently deceiv'd and are so imperfect in our Knowledg Another cause of which is 3. The power that Interest hath over our Affections and by them over our Judgments When men are ingag'd by this they can find Truth any where and what is thought convenient to be true will at last be believed to be so Facilè credimus quod volumus So that I do not think that the learned Assertors of vain and false Religions and Opinions do always profess against their Consciences rather their Interest brings their Consciences to their Profession for this doth not only corrupt Mens Practise but very often pervert their Minds also and insensibly mislead them into Errours 4. But our Affections misguide us by the respect we have to others as well as by that we bear to our selves I mentioned The Instances of Antiquity and Authority We look with a superstitious Reverence upon the accounts of past Ages and with a supercilious Severity on the more deserving products of our own a vanity that hath possest all times as well as ours and the golden Age was never present For as an inconsiderable Weight by vertue of it's distance from the Centre of the Ballance will out-weigh much heavier bodies that are nearer to it so the most light and vain things that are far off from the present Age have more Esteem and Veneration then the most considerable and substantial that bear a modern date and we account that nothing worth that is not fetcht from a far off in which we very often deceive our selves as that Mariner did that brought home his Ship Fraught with common Pebbles from the Indies We adhere to the Determinations of our Fathers as if their Opinions were entail'd on us and our Conceptions were ex-Traduce And thus while every Age is but an other shew of the former 't is no wonder that humane science is no more advanced above it's ancient Stature For while we look on some admired Authors as the Oracles of all Knowledg and spend that time and those pains in the Study and Defence of their Doctrines which should have been imploy'd in the search of Truth and Nature we must needs stint our own Improvements and hinder the Advancement of Science Since while we are Slaves to the Opinions of those before us Our Discoveries like water will not rise higher then their Fountains and while we think it such Presumption to endeavour beyond the Ancients we fall short of Genuine Antiquity Truth unless we suppose them to have reach't perfection of Knowledg in spight of their own acknowledgments of Ignorance And now whereas it is observ'd that the Mathematicks and Mechanick Arts have considerably advanc'd and got the start of other Sciences this may be considered as a chief cause of it That their Progress hath not been retarded by this reverential awe of former Discoveries 'T was never an Heresie to out-limn Apelles or to out-work the Obelisks Galilaeuâ—… without a Crime out-saw all Antiquity and was not afraid to believe his Eyes in reverence to Aristotle and Ptolomy 'T is no disparagement to those famous Optick Glasses that the Ancients never us'd them nor are we shy of their Informations because they were hid from Ages We believe the polar vertue of the Loadstone without a Certificate from the dayes of old and do not confine our selves to the sole conduct of the Stars for fear of being wiser than our Fathers Had Authority prevail'd here the fourth part of the Earth had been yet unknown and Hercules Pillars had still been the Worlds Ne ultra Senecd's Prophesie had been an unfulfil'd Prediction and one Moity of our Globes an empty Hemisphere 'T is true we owe much reverence to the Ancients and many thanks to them for their Helps and Discoveries but implicitly and servilely to submit our Judgments to all Opinions is inconsistent with that respect that we may and ought to have to the freedom of our our own Minds and the dignity of Humane Nature And indeed as the great Lord Bacon hath observ'd we have a wrong apprehension of Antiquity which in the common acception is but the nonage of the World Antiquitas seculi est juventus Mâ—…di So that in those Appeals we fetch our Knowledg from the Cradle and the comparative infancy of days Upon a true account the present Age is the greatest Antiquity and if that must govern and sway our Judgments let multitude of days speak If we would reverence the Ancients as we ought we should dâ—… it by imitating their Example which was not supiâ—…ly and superstitionsly to sit down in fond admiration of the Learning of those that were before them but to examine their Writings to avoid their Mistakes and to use their Discoveries in order to the further improvement of Knowledg
Ideot and a Child then whom his Actions were more stupid Besides which testimony we have a worse character of him from Aristocles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. That he neither invented nor writ any thing that was good but railed both at Gods and Men. And yet it should seem by the honour his Country did him that he was not so very a Sot as some thought and as divers Passages in the Story of his Life speak him For he was made High Priest and great Immunities and Priviledges given to Philosophers for his sake But I have nothing to do with the Story of his Life His Disciples were many the most eminent of them reckon'd by Laertius but none hath left so exact an account in writing of the Sceptick Doctrines if they may be so call'd as Sextus Empiricus one much later than those Sectators of Pyrrho The chief ground of Scepticism he saith is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That every reason hath an equal one opposite to it So that they gave no assent to any thing They allow'd Appearances but would not grant that things really are in themselves as they appear to our Senses or that we can by our Reasons judg any thing truly and certainly of them That there is nothing fair or foul just or unjust nothing true or real in any thing as Laertius speaks of the belief of Pyrrho And therefore their Phrases were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Not more this than that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perhaps and not perhaps viz. perhaps it is perhaps it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I suspend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I determine nothing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I comprehend not And for fear they â—…d be Dogmatical even in these Phrases Empericus saitâ—… 〈◊〉 they do only declare their present Affections expressâ—… 〈◊〉 things appear to them without determining any thing 〈◊〉 even not determining so much as this I determine nothing Now besides the professed Dâ—…ples of this Sect divers other ancient Philosophers spoke doubtfully and unresolvedly of things and Cicero in Licullus saith thus of Empedocles Empedocles ut interdum mihi furere videatur abstrusa esse omnia nihil nos sentire nihil cernere nihil omnino quale sit posse reperire Sextus Empiricus mentions divers others who it seems were thought to be Scepticks or very near them as Heraclitus because he taught that Contraries are in the same thing Democritus for denying Hony to be sweet or bitter The Syrenaick Sect holding that only the Affections are comprehended Protagoras for making the Phaenomena particular to every single Person But all these he shews to have been Assertors and very different from the Pyrrhonian Sect. He inquires also of the Academick Philosophy how it agreed with or disagreed from the Sceptick These Philosophers were reputed anciently and by some ever since thought to be too much addicted to that way But Sextus clears them from it beginning with Plato the Founder of the first School of whom he saith That though in his Gymnasticks where Socrates is brought in deriding the Sophists he hath the Sceptick uncertain Character yet in declaring his Opinion he was a Dogmatist particularly in his Doctrines of Idaeas Providence the preference of a Life of Vertue Which if Plate assent to as existent he affirms dogmatically if as probable he differs from the Sceptick in preferring one Opinion before another Those of the New Academy say all things are incomprehensible in which saith Sextus they differ from us because they assert this but we do not know but that they may be comprehended They differ also in asserting Good and Evils and that some things are credible others not whereas the Pyrrhonians count all to be equal To this purpose he speaks of them But for the middle Academy founded by Arcesilaus he saith that that Philosopher's Institution and theirs were almost the same in that Arcesilaus asserted nothing of the existence or non-existence of things not preferring one Opinion before another but in all things suspending Which he did to make tryal of his Disciplâ—… whether they were capable of the Doctrine of Plato which he taught to his Friends Thus that famous Sceptick doth honour to the memory of those Ancients by endeavouring to take what he thought to be credit from them which indeed was ever a disgrace and ought to be so esteemed still For those Pyrrhonians that were of the right strain seem to me to have been a sort of conceited Humorists that took a pride in being singular and venting strange things opposing all knowledg that they might be thought to have the most and to have found out that universal ignorance and uncertainty which others could not see far enough to descry Which way of pretended Philosophy as it gratified their pride so it serv'd their malice and ill-ill-nature which delights much in the Spirit of Contradiction and contempt of other Men. This they shew'd in great degree according to Laertius who saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They accounted all Fools that were not of their own Party So that they were in no wise to be reckon'd as Philosophers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristocles speaks in Eusebius For they pluckt up the Principles of Philosophy by the Roots And indeed their doubting and suspension was not in order to the forming a surer Judgment but a resolution to sit down for ever in despair of Knowledg And therefore they were very improperly call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sookers since their great Principle was that nothing was to be found Upon the whole it was not without cause that Ciceroâ—… Aristocles and other sober Philosophers spoke of their way as down-right madness and we have great reason to believe so of the Founder of the Sect if that be true which is related by Laertius and others of his washing a Sow and running into the Forum with a Spit of Meat in his hand after the Cook that had offended him a thing very unbecoming the Professor of the so much talkâ—… of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or freedom from disturbance And his unconcernment another time was as sottish when he past on and would 〈◊〉 help or take notice of his Friend Anaxarehus when he 〈◊〉 â—…n into a Ditch which was bruitish stupidity rather than Philosophical Indifference And indeed this Sect indeavoured to divest themselves of Hâ—…ne Nature as Pyrro's answer implied when he was upbraided for avoiding a Dog viz. that 't was hard wholly to put off Man and so they were destructive to the Societies and all the Interests of Mankind This I say upon the supposition that they were in earnest and believ'd themselves but I incline to think that they were only humoursom and conceited Fellows rather than I will say that they were absolutely distracted Thus you see I could revile against the Scepticks as well as my Antagonist but letting further censure of them pass I might take notice on this occasion what odd extravagant People have of old had the
name of Philosophers as if those Ages as the Turks now had a reverence for Madmen For many of their Actions and Opinions were very wild freaks of Fancy and Humour and would gain Men in these days as foolish and bad as they are no better name than that of Lunaticks or Bedlams This will appear to any one that shall impartially survey the Histories of their Lives if those Accounts were true that are given of them But indeed there is reason enough to doubt that For the Relations we have of old times are usually very fabulous and uncertain and where the Grecians were concern'd as much as any where for they had the same Character given them that the Apostle bestows upon the Cretians Graecia mendax Which among other things shews how little reason there is we should be superstitiously fond of the broken dublous imperfect Remains of those days But methinks those Philosophers should be greater Men than they were made in those Histories of their Lives and Doctrines or else one may justly wonder how their Names come down to us with so much Renown and Glory But to return to more particular Discourse of the Scepticks Besides Those anciently that had that name without just ground sometimes affixt on them several worthy Moderns have suffer'd under the imputation and indeed by some all Men are accounted Scepticks who dare dissent from the Aristotelian Doctrines and will not slavishly subscribe all the Tenents of that Dictator in Philosophy which they esteem the only true and certain Foundations of Knowledg This learned Man seems to be one of those for the great Gassendus is charged with so much Scepticism on this account that he writ an Exercitation against Aristotle p. 2. and those that slight Aristotle's Grounds saith our Author in his Preface to the Universities must of necessity being always in quest of Principles ever fall short of Science Aristotle's Works it seems are the infallibe Canon of Truth and Certainty in him are hid all the Treasures of natural Wisdom and Knowledg and there is no name given under Heaven by which we can be saved from Scepticism and everlasting uncertainty but his If this be so all the modern Free Philosophers must be Scepticks and there is no help and the Author of the Vanity of Dogmatizing hath no way to escape the imputation nor indeed if this be all hath he any concern to avoid it But the Learned Man may be remembred that in one respect they are not Scepticks being confident in this belief that the Principles of Aristotle are not such Certainties but that 't is possible succeeding Mankind may sometime or other find error and imperfection in them and discover if it have not been done already that they are not the infallible Measures of Truth and Nature But the Free Philosophers are by others accounted Scepticks from their way of enquiry which is not to continue still poring upon the Writings and Opinions of Philosophers but to seek Truth in the Great Book of Nature and in that search to proceed with wariness and circumspection without too much forwardness in establishing Maxims and positive Doctrines To propose their Opinions as Hypotheseis that may probably be the true accounts without peremptorily affirming that they are This among others hath been the way of those Great Men the Lord Bacon and Des-Cartes and is now the method of the Royal Society of London whose Motto is Nutâ—…ius in Verba This is Scepticism with some and if it be so indeed 't is such Scepticism as is the only way to sure and grounded Knowledge to which confidence in uncertain Opinions is the most fatal Enemy Nor doth the Learned Man accuse me of any more than this in his Preface in which he thus speaks I am not angry with the Man who with a great deal of Wit and an unfordable stream of Eloquence excessive courtesie which will ripen with his years prosecutes what he proposeth to himself and takes for a truth not without some savour of modesty For neither doth he derogate from Faith the power of teaching its Tenents nor disclaim all hopes of attaining Science hereafter through a laborious amasement of Experiments Here I am absolv'd from being a Sceptick in the ill sense For I neither derogate from Faith nor despair of Science and the Opinions of those of that character are directly destructive of the one and everlasting discouragements of the other Or if I should affirm that I despair of Science strictly and properly so call'd in the Affairs of Philosophy and Nature If I should say we are to expect no more from our Experiments and Inquiries than great likelyhood and such degrees of probability as might deserve an hopeful assent yet thus much of diffidence and uncertainty would not make me a Sceptick since They taught That no one thing was more probable than an other and so with-held assent from all things So that upon the whole I cannot but wonder that this Philosopher who seems to be so concern'd for the advancement of Knowledg should oppose me in a Design that hath the same end only we differ in the Means and Method For he thinks it is best promoted by perswading that Science is not Vncertainty and I suppose that Men need to be convinc'd that Vncertainties are not Science Now the progress of Knowledg being stopt by extreme Confidence on the one hand and Diffidence on the other I think that both are necessary though perhaps one is more seasonable For to believe that every thing is certain is as great a disinterest to Science as to conceive that nothing is so Opinion of Fulness being as my Lord Bacon notes among the Causes of Want So that after all we differ but in this That the Learned Man thinks it more sutable to the necessities of the present Age to depress Scepticism and it may be I look on Dogmatizing and confident Belief as the more dangerous and common Evil And indeed between the Slaves of Superstition and Enthusiasm Education and Interest almost all the World are Dogmatists while Scepticks are but some more desperate Renegado's whose Intellects are either debauched by Vice or turn'd out of the way by the unreasonable Confidence of vain Opiniators In opposing whose Presumptions I designed also against the neutrality of the Scepticks and did not conceited Scioluts ascribe so much to their Opinions there would be no need of SCIRI'S or Perswasives to easie and peremptory Assents which indeed have more need of Restraints than Incentives since 't is the nature of Man to be far more apt to confide in his Conceptions than to distrust them and 't is a question whether there be any Scepticks in good earnest So that I am so far from deserving Reproof from the Adversaries of Intellectual Diffidence that were there reason for either I might expect Acknowledgments For Confidence in Uncertainties is the greatest Enemy to what is certain and were I a Sceptick I would plead for Dogmatizing the way to bring Men
to stick to nothing being confidently to perswade them to swallow all things For among a multitude of things carelesly receiv'd many will be false and many doubtful and consequently a mind not wholly stupid will some time or other find reason to distrust and reject some of its Opinions Upon review of which perceiving it imbraced Falshoods for great Certainties and confided in them as much as in those it yet retains it will be in great danger of staggering in the rest and discarding all promiscuously Whereas if a Man proportion the degree of his Assent to the degree of Evidence being more sparing and reserv'd to the more difficult and not throughly examin'd Theories and confident only of those that are distinctly and clearly apprehended he stands upon a firm bottom and is not mov'd by the winds of Fancy and Humour which blow up and down the conceited Dogmatists For the Assent that is difficultly obtain'd and sparingly bestow'd is better establish'd and fixt than that which hath been easie and precipitant Upon the whole Matter it appears that this Learned Person had no cause to write against me as a Sceptick And I somewhat the more wonder at it because I find such things attributed to those he is pleas'd to call by that name that no way agree with the Way and Spirit of those Philosophers whose genius I recommend and desire to imitate On which account I thought he had some other notion of Sceptick than was usual and casting mine eye over his late Purgation presented to the Cardinals of the Inquisition I found that his Scepticks were some of the Modern Peripatetical Disputers These it seems by their many complaints against his Writings had obtain'd a general condemnation of them from the Pope and Consistory of Cardinals whom therefore in his Appeal to the said Cardinals he accuseth of Ignorance Corruption of the Aristotelian Doctrines and Tendency to Heresie and Atheism And that these are the Scepticks he means appears from the Preface against me and divers other Passages of his Book So that 't is yet more wonderful that Gossendus and the Author of the Vanity of Dogmatizing should be call'd by a Name which he bestows upon those of so different a temper And thus of that charge of Scepticism with which he begins as the occasion of his writing Having premised which he endeavours to lay the sure Foundations of Science and to establish Certainty in Knowledg But what-ever imperfections there are in that pretended demonstration I shall not for the present take notice of them but only observe that this Gentleman is the Author of that Science Demonstration and Self evidence of which M. Sargeant a late controvertial Writer for the Roman Church makes such boasts of and here are his Grounds Which those learned Men that are concern'd with him may if they please when they have nothing else to do examine Having said thus much of Scepticism and the Scepticks I shall enquire a little into the matter of Certainty a subject of both difficulty and importance It is taken either 1. for a firm Assent to any thing of which there is no reason of doubt and this may be call'd Indubitable Certainty or 2. for an absolute Assurance that things are as we conceive and affirm and not possible to be otherwise and this is Infallible Certainty In the first of these Des Cartes lays his Foundations I cannot doubt but I think though nothing should be as I conceive and there I cannot suspect neither but that I my self that think am I am as sure that I have Idaeas and Conceptions of other things without me as of God Heaven Earth c. Thus far that Philosopher is safe and our Assent is sull and it is so in this likewise That we can compound or disjoin those Images by affirming and denying and that we have a faculty of Reasoning and inferring one thing from another So much as this we clearly perceive and seel in our selves what-ever uncertainty there may be in other matters To these we give a resolv'd and firm Assent and we have not the least reason of doubt here Besides which Principles we find others in our minds that are more general and are us'd and supposed by us in all our Affirmations and Reasonings to which we assent as fully such are these Every thing is or is not A thing cannot be and not be in the same respects Nothing hath no Attributes What we conceive to belong or not to belong to any thing we can affirm or deny of it These are the Principles of all Propositions and Ratiocinations whatsoever and we assent to them fully as soon as we understand their meaning to which I add this great one more That our Faculties are true viz. That what our understandings declare of things clearly and distinctly perceiv'd by us is truly so and agreeing with the realities of things themselves This is a Principle that we believe firmly but cannot prove for all proof and reasoning supposeth it And therefore I think Des-Cartes is out in his method when from the Idaea's he endeavours to prove that God is and from his Existence that our Faculties are true When as the truth of our Faculcies was presupposed to the proof of God's Existence yea and to that of our own also So that that great Man seems to argue in a Circle But to let that pass This we constantly assent to without doubting That our Faculties do not always delude us That they are not mere Impostors and Deceivers but report things to us as they are when they distinctly and clearly perceive them And so this may be reckon'd one of the prime certain Principles and the very Foundation of Certainty in the first sense of it These and such like Principles result out of the nature of our Minds But 2. There are other Certainties arising from the evidence of Sense As That there is Matter and Motion in the World That Matter is extented divisible and impenetrable That Motion is direct or oblique That Matter and Motion are capable of great variety of Modifications and Changes We learn that these and many other such things are so from Sense and we nothing doubt here although the Theory and Speculative consideration of those Matters be full of difficulty and seeming contradiction In these our Assent is universal and indubitable But in many particular cases we are not assured of the report of our Senses yea we dissent from and correct their Informations when they are not in their due Circumstances of right Disposition Medium Distance and the like and when they pronounce upon things which they cannot judg of on which account though our Senses and the Senses of Mankind do represent the Earth as quiescent Yet we cannot from thence have assurance that it doth Rest since Sense cannot judg of an even and regular Motion when it self is carried with the movent so that though it should be true that the Earth moves yet to Sense it would
Body But this Learned Man knows The Platonists assign them Souls immaterial Bâ—…ings divers from the Body and the Peripateticks substantial Forms distinct from Matter Des Cartes indeed thinks them to be pure Machines mov'd altogether after the manner of a Clock or Engine which if it should prove to be truly their case yet have we no reason to believe it so in our selves since we feel it otherwise viz. That we can move and stop many of our Motions upon the command and direction of the Will which Faculty belongs to some Principle Immaterial And if this be always determin'd by something Corporeal and not in our own power as he seems to intimate Farewel Liberty and welcome Stoical Necessity and irresistible Fate in all things For the other things that follow pag. 35. in answer to the Doubts about Sensation particularly our decerning Quantities Distances c. 'T is evident by what he speaks of demonstrating those things by the Opticks that he understands not the force of the Objection and hath said nothing that comes near it as will appear plainly to any capable Person that will take the pains to compare what we both write He comes next p. 36. to my Difficulties about the Memory concerning which I say not as he suggests That 't is impossible to be explicated but that none of the known Hypotheseis have yet explain'd it which is sufficient for my general conclusion of the present Imperfection and the Narrowness of our Knowledg But our Author thinks Sir K. Digby's account to be the true Solution and answers to my Objection that 't is as conceivable how the Images and representations of Objects in the Brain should keep their distinct and orderly situations without confusion or dissipation as how the Rays of Light should come in a direct Line to the Eye or how the Atomical Effluvia that continually flow from all Bodies should find their way To which I reply 1. The multiplying Difficulties doth not solve any for supposing these to be unaccountable or very hard to be explain'd yet this would only argue another defect in our Knowledg and so be a new evidence of the truth of my general Conclusion But a. The propos'd Instances are not so desperate For 1. supposing Light with Des-Cartes which is most probable to consist in the conamen of the aethereal Matter receding from the Centre of its Motion the direct tendency of it to the Eye is no difficulty worth considering or if the Rays be Atomical Streams and Effluxes from the Sun there is then nothing harder to be conceiv'd in this Hypothesis than in the direct spouting of Water out of a Pipe nor any more than in the beating of the Waves against the side of a Ship when it swims in the Sea And 2. for the other Instance of corporeal emissions that find their way to the Bodies with which they have intercourse it would require to be prov'd that the secret Operations of Nature are performed by such material effluvia Perhaps 't is more likely that those strange Effects are not Mechanioal but Vital effected by the continuity of the great Spirit of Nature which is diffus'd through all things or however to suppose the Memory to be as clear and plain as Magnetism and Sympathies will be no great Advantage to the belief of the intelligibleness of it There needs no more here only I take notice of the Charge p. 41. in these words I 'd remember the ingenious Author that he mis-imposeth the third Opinion which relisheth nothing of Philosophy upon Aristotle who taught the Digbaean way To which I say if the Doctrine of Intentional Species be not Aristotle's than the Universities of Europe who have taught this Opinion to be his have hitherto been mistaken and this Assertion that Aristotle deliver'd the Dighaean Doctrine of Atomical Effluvia will alter the whole Hypothesis and then there will be little or nothing of Aristotle in his Schools 2. The Digbaean Atomical Opinion is notoriously known to have been the way of Democritus and Epicurus which Aristotle frequently and professedly opposeth That Democritus taught the Atomical Hypothesis we have Aristotle's affirmation to justifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 speaking of Leucippus and Democritus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dicunt 〈◊〉 Printas magnitudines multitudine quidem infinitas magnitudine vero indivisibiles and as he goes on 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Horum complexione circumplexu omnia gigâ—…i And that these solv'd the way of Sensation by material Images we have from Plutarch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Democritus Epicurus per Idolorum ingressus putarunt visivum evenire This Hypothesis Aristotle endeavours to confute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Absurdum eâ—…iam quod illi non â—…nerit in mentem clubitare cur oculus vidit solus aliorum vero nullum quibus apparent idola And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Democritus plurimi Physiologerum quicnque loquuntur de sensia absurdiâ—… quiddâ—…m faciunt omnia enim sensibitia tactilia faciunt We see then Aristotle thought the Doctrine of Sensation by Corporeal Images absurd in Democritus and Epicurus and therefore he must have much contradicted himself if he taught the same Doctrine with Sir K. Digby about the Memory which was one with that of those Ancients And there is little doubt but that the Memory is excited to Action by the like Instruments that the external Senses are consonantly to that of Plato in his Phâ—…do speaking of the Senses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 viz. That the Memory is begot of them And the same Aristotle affirms almost in the same words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Memory is begot out of the Sense So that I think I am not mistaken in this matter or if I am I err with the great Body of his Sectators But whether the Doctrine 〈◊〉 Intentional Species be Aristotlt's or not 't is no great matter I make this no charge against him And if it be noâ—… 〈◊〉 't is however the common Tenent of his Schools and so lit to be consider'd as an Hypothosis which I have done and shâ—…wn it to be an insufficient account of the Memory To the Difficulty I propose about the Formation of Animals our Author offers two Things The first of them may deservs a word or two about it 〈◊〉 In his own words 't is thus expresâ—… Conceive the first thus Lâ—…'s say the Seed of a Plant or Animal contains invisible parts of all the Animal's Members These let 's say supplyed with moisture increase with some slight mutation whereof the reason may be easily rendred for example that some parts dryer and harder others are more throughly water'd and grow soft and what great matter will be apprehended in the formation of living things You may remember Sir that once when you and I were talking of the wonderful discoveries of the Microscope and the many compleat Animals it discloseth which lay hid from our unaided sight we fell thence into a discourse of the strange and incredible
subtilty of Nature in forming so many distinct Parts and Members and Passages in those invisible Creatures and of the grosness of our Senses in comparison of the fineness and tenuity of those works I then made an offer to you of this Hypothesis of the Formation of Organical Bodies which I exprest to this effect That the Seeds of things are certain and are the things themselves in little having all that is in the compleated Body in smallest and invisible parts and so generation is but accretion and growth to greater bulk and consistence To this purpose our Author here speaks and the Hypothesis receives probability and advantage from the late discoveries of the ingenious Malpeghius and Dr. Grew in his Anatomy of Plants Nor is it unlikely but that Vegetables are folded up in their Seeds and that their Vegetation is only the expanding and unfolding of them But in Animals the thing is of more difficult conception since the immediate matter of many if not of most Generations is an homogeneous fluid To which I know it will be said that the organiz'd Body is in it though it be so small as to be invisible But it is not very probable that an invisible Atome of a Creature should expand it self into the vastness of a Whale or Elephant or that the Original Bodies of those immense Creatures should be undecernable by the acutest sight when the seminal Body if I may so call it of very small Plants are plainly visible And if this be so that the Seed of Animals actually contains the formed Bodies of the Animals themselves those little Bodies must either be supposed created by God in the form and consistence in which they are from the foundation of the World or they are produc'd after in an orderly course of Nature If the former be said some will be apt to ask Whether this will not destroy all Philosophy being so immediate a recourse to Creation and the infinite Power of God And the manner of those Formations is never the more intelligible for being resolv'd into the immediate efficiency of incomprehensible Power and Wisdom But if they are produc'd in a natural way we are then as much aâ—… a loss to find by what Agent and what direction those Corpuscles are form'd as we are to understand the way and manner of it in greater Bodies Or be they produc'd how they will by Creation or Nature yet still the Trouble and Doubts will be as many and great in the conception of their growth to their visible Bulk which we call their Generation For still must be a Director of the Matter by which each part is increast that must separate dispose guide and proportion it so as that â—…o part may exceed none may want and so the Queries and Difficulties that concern the Generation of Organical Bodies are unanswered notwithstanding this Hypothesis Our Author's second Solution concerns only the gross and material Ingredients in the formation of Bodies of which he pretends some account But this is nothing at all to our business which was to enquire after the Principle of Direction of those various and methodical Motions that are requisite to the formation of an Animal or other Organical Body And the Chymical Processes and Elementary Solutions of which he speaks p. 43. signifie no more to the Matter than if a Man should answer an enquiry about the Art and Method of the Motions of a Watch by saying They are perform'd by Steel Iron Brass or Silver wherein the Matter of the Work indeed is declar'd but not the Artifice The Learned Man comes next to the Solution of two difficulties I propose about Matter the Vnion of its Parts and the composition of Quantity p. 45. His answer in short is That there are no actual parts in quantity before division Which if it be so indeed there is then no ground for the Questions how they are united or of what compounded But I shall shew 1. That there are actual Parts and 2. That the Grounds of the contrary Assertion are weak and insufficient 1. The formal nature of Quantity is Extention in the Notion of Aristotle's Schools and divisibility in the Philosophy of Sir K. Digby and our Author both which suppose parts and parts actual for to be extended is to have partes extra partes as the School Phrase is and if the Extension be actual the Parts must be so for it is not conceivable how a thing can be extended but by parts which are really distinct from one another though not separate Nor can a thing be divided except we suppose the Parts preexistent in the divisible for Divisibility is founded upon real distinction and 't is impossible to divide that which is one without any diversity 2. Except there are parts in Matter before Division there are none at all For after they are divided they are no parts but have a compleatness and integrality of their own especially if their Subject were an Homogeneous Body 3. If there are not actual Parts in Quantity Contradictions may be verified de eodem in all the Circumstances which the Metaphysicks teach to be impossible For the same Body may be seen and not seen black and white hot and cold moist and dry and have all other the most contrary Qualities To this Sir K. Digby answers That it is not one part of the thing that shews it self and another that doth not one that is hot and another cold c. But it is the same thing shewing it self according to one possibility of Division and not another To this I say first These distinct Possibilities are founded upon distinct Actualities which are the parts I would have acknowledg'd and such a capacity of receiving things so different cannot be in the same Subject without the supposal of parts actually distinct and divers 2. The Subjects of these contrary Qualities are things actual whereas Possibilities are but Metaphysical Notions and these Subjects are distinct or Contradictions will be reconcil'd from which the Inference seems necessary that Quantity hath Parts and Parts Actual and distinct Possibilities will not salve the Business And 3. why must the common Speech of all Mankind be altered and what all the World calls Parts be call'd Possibilities of Division Which yet if our Philosopher will needs name so they be acknowledg'd distinct and prov'd actual or at least founded immediately upon things that are so my Questions will as well proceed this way as in the common one viz. How the things that answer to these distinct Possibilities are united and of what compounded There is another Answer which I find in our Author 's Peripatetical Institutions the sum of which is That the Contradictions have only a notional repugnance in the Subject as 't is in our Understandings and since the parts have a distinct Being in our understanding from thence 't is that they are capable to sustain Contradictions Which answer if I understand I have reason to wonder at for certainly the
Subject sustains the Contradictories as it is in re and I never heard of a Notion black or white hot or cold but in a Metaphor 'T is the real Substance is the Subject of these Contrarieties which were impossible if it had not divers Realities answering to the Qualities that so denominate and therefore 't is not the Understanding that makes the divers Subjects of these Accidents as our Author suggests but their being such is the ground that we so apprehend them This I think is enough to shew that there are actual Parts in Quantity To which I must add 2. That the Grounds of Sir K. Digby and our Author on which they build their Paradox are insufficient The Reasons are 1. Quantity is Divisibility 1. Divisibility is Capacity of Division 3. What is only capable of division is not actually divided 4. Quantity is not actually divided and therefore hath no parts actual To which I say 1. That Quantity is divisibility is presumed but extension is before it in Nature and our Conception and it is the receiv'd Notion though I think Impenitrability is the truest 2. Division supposeth Vnion and Vnion parts united 3. What is only capable of Division in a mechanical Sense may and ought to be divided in a Metaphysical That is they ought to be divers in their Being before they can be separated and distinct in their Quantity for Separability must suppose Diversity But 2. It is pleaded against Actual Parts in Quantity that if we admit them we cannot stop till we come down to Indivisibles of which to suppose Quantity compounded is said to be absurd and impossible In answer to which I grant the Inference and have acknowledg'd the Hypothesis of Indivisible to be full of seeming Inconsistencies as is the other also and therefore I reckon both among the things that are unconceivable of which there can be no greater Argument than their having driven such great and sagacious wits upon an Assertion that is contrary to our Senses and the apprehension of all the World That there are no parts in Quantity And 2. 'T is no good method of reasoning to deny what is plain and obvious because we cannot conceive what is abstruse and difficult To say that Quantity hath no actual Parts contrary to the suffrage and senses of Mankind because we cannot untie the Difficulties that arise from its being compounded of Indivisibles a nice and intricate Theory Sir I crave your pardon for this Spinose and dry Discourse which I could not well avoid it being one of the main things of Sir K. Digby's and Mr. White 's Philosophy and pretended by the latter as such a Solution of the Doubts I propounded as renders them scarce any Difficulties at all For the other things he objects they are smaller Matters and if you have leisure for such Trifles I refer you to the discussion of them in my larger Answer annext to my Scepsis Scientifica in which also you will find what concerns his justification of Aristotle and his Philosophy I am Sir Your affectionate Friend and Servant J. G. MODERN IMPROVEMENTS OF Useful Knowledge Essay III. Essay III. Modern Improvements OF Useful Knowledge NOtwithstanding the shew of Science that the World of Books makes it must be confest by considerate Men that Knowledge is capable of far greater Heights and Improvements than it hath yet attain'd and there is nothing hath stinted its Growth and hindred its Improvements more than an over-fond superstitious Opinion of Aristotle and the Ancients by which it is presumed that their Books are the Ne Vltra's of Learning and that little or nothing can be added to their discoveries So that hereby a stop hath been put upon Inquiry and Men have contented themselves with studying their Writings and disputing about their Opinions while they have not taken much notice of the great Book of Nature or used any likely Endeavours for further acquaintance with it This whoever will consider and speak impartially must confess and yet in spight of the evil Instuence of this Humour there have been some in all Ages who have freely search'd into the Creatures of God as they are in his World without vainly spending of their time in playing with those Images of them that the phansies of Men have fram'd in theirs And perhaps no Age hath been more happy in liberty of Enquiry than this in which it hath pleased God to excite a very vigorous and active Spirit for the advancement of real and useful Learning This every sensible Man should strive as he is able to promote and I shall now endeavour as far as my weakness will permit to raise the capable and ingenious from a dull and drousie acquiescence in the diseoveries of former timâ—… to a noble vigour in the pursuits of Knowleg And this I 〈◊〉 do by representing the Incouragements we have to proceed from the Helps and Advantages we enjoy beyond those of remote Antiquity In order to this I consider THat there are Two chief ways whereby Knowledg may be advanced viz. 1. By inlarging the HISTORY of Things And 2. By improving INTERCOVRSE and COMMVNICATIONS The History of Nature is to be augmented either by an investigation of the Springs of Natural Motions or fuller Accounts of the grosser and more palpable Phaenomena For the searching out the beginnings and depths of Things and discovering the Intrigues of remoter Nature there are THREE remarkable ARTS and multitudes of excellent INSTRVMENTS which are great Advantages to these later Ages but were either not at at all known or but imperfectly by Aristotle and the Ancients The ARTS in which I instance are Chymistry Anatomy and the Mathematicks The INSTRVMENTS such as the Microscope Telescope Thermometer Barometer and the Air-Pump Some of which were first Invented all of them exceedingly Improved by the ROYAL SOCIETY To begin with the Consideration of the ARTS mentioned I observe That these were very little cultivated or used in Aristotle's Times or in those following ones in which his Philosophy did most obtain FOr the FIRST CHYMISTRY it hath indeed a pretence to the great Hermes for its Author how truly I will not dispute From him 't is said to have come to the Aegyptians and from them to the Arabians Among these it was infinitely roingled with vanity and superstitious Devices But not at all in use with Aristotle and his Sectators Nor doth it appear that the Grecians or the disputing Ages were conversant in these useful and lueiferous Processes by which Nature is unwound and resolv'd into the Rudiments of its Composition and by the violence of those Fires it is made confess those latent parts which upon less provocation it would not disclose Now as we cannot understand the frame of a Watch without taking it into pieces so neither can Nature be well known without a resolution of it into its beginnings which certainly may be best of all done by Chymical Methods By those Enquiries wonderful discoveries are made of their Natures and
Experiments are found out which are not only full of pleasant surprise and information but of valuable use especially in the Practice of Physick For It directs Medicines less loathsome and far more vigorous and freeth the Spirits and purer parts from the clogging and noxious Appendices of grosser Matter which not only hinder and disable the Operation but leave hurtful Dregs in the Body behind them I confess that among the Aegyptians and Arabians the Paracelsians and some other Moderns Chymistry was very phantastick unintelligible and delusive and the boasts vanity and canting of those Spagyrists brought a scandal upon the Art and exposed it to suspicion and contempt but its late Cultivators and particularly the ROYAL SOCIETY have refin'd it from its dross and made it honest sober and intelligible an excellent Interpreter to Philosophy and help to common Life For they have laid aside the Chrysopoietick the delusory Designs and vain Transmutations the Rosie-crucian Vapours Magical Charms and Superstitious Suggestions and form'd it into an Instrument to know the Depths and Efficacies of Nature And this is no small advantage that we have above the old Philosophers of the Notional Way And we have another II. In the Study Vse and vast Improvements of ANATOMY which we find as needful to be known among us as 't is wonderful 't was known so little among the Ancients whom a fond Superstition deterr'd from Dissections For the Anatomizing the Bodies of Men was counted barbarous and inhumane in elder Times And I observe from a Learned Man of our own That the Romans held it unlawfal to look on the Entrails Tettullian severely censures an inquisitive Physician of his time for this practice saying That he hated Man that he might know him Yea one of the Popes I take 't was Boniface 8. threatens to Excommunicate those that should do any thing of this then abominable nature And Democritus was fain to excuse his Dissection of Beasts even to the great Hippocrates Nor does it appear by any thing extant in the Writings of Galen that that other Father of Physicians ever made any Anatomy of humane Bodies Thus shie and unacquainted was Antiquity with this excellent Art which is one of the most useful in humane Life and tends mightily to the eviscerating of Nature and disclosure of the Springs of its Motion But now in these later Ages Anatomy hath been a free and general Practice and particularly in this It hath received wonderful Improvements from the Endeavours of several worthy Inquisitors some of them Ingenious Members of the ROYAL SOCIETY as Sir George Ent Dr. Glisson and Dr. Willis I instance in the most remarkable of their Discoveries briefly And those I take notice of are The Valves of the Veins discover'd by Fabricius ab Aquapendente The Valve at the entrance of the gut Colon found as is generally thought by Bauhinus The Milkie Veins of the Mesentery by Asellius The Receptacle of the Chyle by Pecquet The Ductus Virsungianus by Jo. George Wirsung of Paedua The Lymphatick Vessels by Dr. Joliffe Bartholin and Olaus Rudbeck The internal Ductus Salivaris in the Maxillary Glandule by Dr. Wharton and Dr. Glisson The external Ductus Salivaris in the conglomerated Parotis The Ductus of the Cheek The Glandules under the Tongue Nose and Palate The Vessels in the nameless Glandule of the Eye and the Tear-Glandule by Nich. Steno A new Artery called Arterea Bronchialis by Fred. Ruysch I add the Origination of those Nerves which were of old supposed to arise out of the substance of the Brain but are found by late Anatomists to proceed from the Medulla Oblongata And though the Succus Nutritius be not yet fully agreed upon by Physicians yet it hath so much to say for it self that it may not unreasonably be mentioned among the New Inventions But of all the Modern Discoveries Wit and Industry have made in the Oeconomy of Humane Nature the noblest is that of the Circulation of the Blood which was the Invention of our deservedly-famous Harvey 'T is true the envy of malicious Contemporaries would have robb'd him of the glory of this Discovery and pretend it was known to Hippocrates Plato Aristotle and others among the Ancients But whoever considers the Expressions of those Authors which are said to respect the Circulation will find that those who form the Inference do it by a faculty that makes all kind of Compositions and Deductions and the same that assists the Enthusiasts of our days to see so clearly all our Alterations of State and Religion to the minutest Particulars in the Revelation of St. John And perhaps it may be as well concluded from the first Chapter of Genesis as from the Remains of those Ancients who if they had known this great and general Theory how chance they spake no more of a thing which no doubt they had frequent occasions to mention How came it to be lost without memory among their Followers who were such superstitious porers upon their Writings How chance it was not shewn to be lodg'd in those Authors before the days of Dr. Harvy when Envy had impregnated and determined the Imaginations of those who were not willing any thing should be found anew of which themselves were not the Inventors But 't is not only the remotest Ancients whom time hath consecrated and distance made venerable whose Ashes those fond Men would honour with this Discovery But even much later Authors have had the Glory fastned upon them For the Invention is by some ascribed to Paulus Venetus by others to Prosper Alpinus and a third sort give it to Andreas Caesalpinus For these though either of them should be acknowledged to be the Author it will make as much for the design of my Discourse as if Harvy had the credit and therefore here I am no otherwise concerned but to have Justice for that Excellent Man And the World hath now done right to his Memory Death having overcome that Envy which dog's living Virtue to the Grave and his Name rests quietly in the Arms of Glory while the Pretensions of his Rivals are creeping into darkness and oblivion Thus I have done with the Instances of Anatomical Advancements unless I should hitherto refer the late Noble Experiment of Transfusion of the Blood from one living Animal into another which I think very fit to be mention'd and I suppose 't is not improper for this place Or however I shall rather venture the danger of impropriety and misplacing than omit the taking notice of so excellent a Discovery which no doubt future Ingenuity and Practice will improve to purposes not yet thought of and we have very great likelyhood of Advantages from it in present prospect For it is concluded That the greatest part of our Diseases arise either from the scarcity or malignant temper and corruption of our Blood in which cases Transfusion is an obvious Remedy and in the way of this Operation the peccant Blood may be drawn out without the danger of too
in the Great Macedonian who thought the Bounds of his Conquests to be the end of the World when there were Nations enough beyond him to have eaten up the Conqueror with his proud and triumphant Armies So that here also Modern Improvements have been great and He will think so that shall compare the Geographical Performances of Gemma Frisius Mercator Ortelius Stevinus Bertius and Guil. Blaeu with the best Remains of the most celebrated Geographers of the more ancient Ages Thus I have touched upon some of the Improvements of the ARTS that search into the recesses of Nature with which latter Ages have assisted Philosophical Inquiries And in these I see I have struck farther than I was aware into the account of those things also which lead us to the grosser Phaenomena and my Remarques about Geography are all of that nature However I shall not alter my Method but after I have discours'd the Instruments I mentioned for Useful Knowledge I shall consider somewhat of NATVRAL HISTORY which reports the Appearances and is fundamentally necessary to all the Designs of Science As for the INSTRVMENTS then that are next before I come to the Notes I intend concerning them I observe That The Philosophy that must signifie either for Light or Vse must not be the work of the Mind turned in upon it self and only conversing with its own Idaea's but It must be raised from the Observations and Applications of Sense and take its Accounts from Things as they are in the sensible World The Illustrious Lord Bacon hath noted this as the chief cause of the unprofitableness of the former Methods of Knowledge viz. That they were but the Exercises of the Mind making Conclusions and spinning out Notions from its own native Store from which way of proceeding nothing but Dispute and Air could be expected 'T was the fault that Great Man found in the Ancients That they flew presently to general Propositions without staying for a due information from Particulars and so gradually advancing to Axioms Whereas the Knowledge from which any thing is to be hoped must be laid in Sense and raised not only srom some few of its ordinary Informations but Instances must be aggregated compared critically inspected and examined singly and in consort In order to which Performances our Senses must be aided for of themselves they are too narrow for the vastness of things and too short for deep Researches They make us very defective and unaccurate Reports and many times very deceitful and fallacious ones I say therefore they must be assisted with Instruments that may strengthen and rectisie their Operations And in these we have mighty advantages over Aristotle and the Ancients so that much greater things may well be expected from our Philosophy than could ever have been performed by theirs though we should grant them all the superiority of Wit and Vnderstanding their fondest Admirers would ascribe to those Sages For a weak hand can move more weight by the help of Springs Wheels Leavers and other Mechanick Powers than the strongest could do without them And that we really have these Advantages must be shewn by Instance I mentioned Five that are considerable to that purpose which I took notice of among many others and they were the Telescope Microscope Thermometer Barometer and Air Pump I. The Telescope is the most excellent Invention that ever was for assisting the Eye in remote Discoveries The distance of the Heavens is so vast that our unaided Senses can give us but extreamly imperfect Informations of that Upper World And the Speculations that Antiquity hath raised upon them have for the most part been very mean and very false But these excellent Glasses bring the Stars nearer to us and acquaint us better with the immense Territories of Light They give us more Phaenomena and truer Accounts disperse the shadows and vain Images of the twilight of naked Sense and make us a clearer and larger prospect By these Advantages they inlarge our Thoughts and shew us a more magnificent Representation of the Vniverse So that by them the Heavens are made more amply to declare the Glory of God and we are help'd to nobler and better-grounded Theories I have mentioned in my Account of the Advance of Astronomy some of the most remarkable Discoveries that have been made by these Tubes which exceedingly transcend all the Imaginations of elder Times and by the further improvement of them other things may be disclosed as much beyond all ours And the present Philosophers are so far from desiring that Posterity should sit down contented with their Discoveries and Hypotheses that they are continually sollicitous for the gaining more helps to themselves and those that shall follow for a further progress into the knowledge of the Phaenomena and more certain judgments upon them So that these Glasses are exceedingly bettered since their Invention by Metius and application to the Heavens by Galilaeo and several ingenious Members of the ROYAL SOCIETY are now busie about improving them to a greater height What success and informations we may expect from the Advancements of this Instrument it would perhaps appear Romantick and ridiculous to say As no doubt to have talk'd of the Spots in the Sun and vast inequalities in the Surface of the Moon and those other Telescopical Certainties before the Invention of that Glass would have been thought phantastick and absurd I dare not therefore mention our greatest hopes but this I adventure That 't is not unlikely but Posterity may by those Tubes when they are brought to higher degrees of perfection find a sure way to determine those mighty Questions Whether the Earth move or the Planets are inhabited And who knoweth which way the Conclusions may fall And 't is probable enough that another thing will at last be found out in which this lower World is more immediately concerned by Telescopical Observations which is the most desired Invention of Longitudes upon which must needs ensue yet greater Improvements of Navigation and perhaps the Discovery of the North-West Passage and the yet unknown South Whatever may be thought of these Expectations by vulgar and narrow Minds whose Theories and Hopes are confin'd by their Senses those that consider that one Experiment discovered to us the vast America will not despair But 't is time to pass from this to a second Modern Aid whereby our Sight is assisted which is II. The Microscope The Secrets of Nature are not in the greater Masses but in those little Threds and Springs which are too subtile for the grosness of our unhelp'd Senses and by this Instrument our eyes are assisted to look into the minutes and subtilties of things to discern the otherwise invisible Schematisâ—…s and Structures of Bodies and have an advantage for the finding out of Original Motions To perceive the exactness and curiosity of Nature in all its Composures And from thence take sensible Evidence of the Art and Wisdom that is in its Contrivance To disclose the variety of living
Creatures that are shut up from our bare Senses and open a kind of other World unto us which its littleness kept unknown This Instrument hath been exceedingly improved of late even to the magnifying of Objects many thousand times and divers useful Theories have been found and explicated by the notices it hath afforded as appears by the Microscopical Writings of Dr. Power and Mr. Hooke Members of the ROYAL SOCIETY But III. The Thermometer was another Instrument I mentioned which discovers all the small unperceivable variations in the heat or coldness of the Air and exhibits many rare and luciferous Phaenomena which may help to better Informations about those Qualities than yet we have any And as to this I observe with the great Verulam and the other Bacon the Illustrious Mr. Boyle That Heat and Cold are the right and left hand of Nature The former is the great Instrument of most of her Operations and the other hath its Interest And yet the Philosophy of Aristotle hath neither done nor as much as attempted any thing toward the Discovery of their Natures but contented it self with the jejune vulgar and general description That Heat is a Quality that gathereth together things of a like nature and severs those that are unlike and Cold congregates both But now if we will know any thing deeply in the business of Rarefaction and Condensation the Doctrine of Meteors and other material Affairs of Nature other Accounts about these things must be endeavoured and the bare informations of our Senses are not exact enough for this purpose for their Reports in this kind are various and uncertain according to the temper and disposition of our Bodies and several unobserved accidental Mutations that happen in them This Instrument therefore hath been invented to supply their Defects and it gives far more constant and accurate though perhaps not always infallible Relations but the justest are afforded by the Sealed Thermometer And besides the Vses of this Instrument I suggested it will help very much in framing the History of Weather which may be applied to many excellent Purposes of Philosophy and Services of Life But IV. The Barometer is another late Instrument very helpful to Vseful Knowledge That there is gravity even in the Air it self and that that Element is only comparatively light is now made evident and palpable by Experience though Aristotle and his Schools held a different Theory And by the help of Quick-silver in a Tube the way is found to measure all the degrees of Compression in the Atmosphere and to estimate exactly any accession of weight which the Air receives from Winds Clouds and Vapours To have said in Elder Times That Mankind should light upon an Invention whereby those Bodies might be weigh'd would certainly have appeared very wild and extravagant and it will be so accounted for some time yet till Men have been longer and are better acquainted with this Instrument For we have no reason to believe it should have better luck than the Doctrine of the Circulation the Theory of Antipodes and all great Discoveries in their first Proposals 'T is impossible to perswade some of the Indians that live near the heats of the Line that there is any such thing as Ice in the World but if you talk to them of Water made hard and consistent by Cold they 'l laugh at you as a notorious Romancer And those will appear as ridiculous among the most of us who shall affirm it possible to determine any thing of the weight of the Wind or Clouds But Experience turns the laugh upon the confident incredulity of the Scoffâ—…r and he that will not believe needs no more for his conviction than the labour of a Tryal Let him then fill a Tube of Glass of some Feet in length with Quick-silver and having sealed one end let him stop the other with his Finger and immerge that which is so stop'd into a Vessel of Mercury the Tube being perpendicularly erected let him then subtract his Finger and he will perceive the Quick silver to descend from the Tube into the subjacent Vessel till it comes to 29 Digits or thereabouts there after some Vibrations it ordinarily rests The reason that this remainder of the Mercury doth not descend also is because such a Mercurial Cylinder is just equiponderant to one of the insumbent Atmosphere that leans upon the Quick-silver in the Vessel and so hinders a further descent It is concluded therefore That such a Cylinder of the Air as presses upon the Mercury in the Vessel is of equal weight to about 29 Digits of that ponderous Body in the Tube Thus it is when the Air is in its ordinary temper But Vapours Winds and Clouds alter the Standard so that the Quick-silver sometimes falls sometimes rises in the Glass proportionably to the greater or less accession of gravity and compression the Air hath received from any of those alterations and the Degree of Increase beyond the Standard is the measure of the additional gravity This Experiment was the Invention of Torricellius and used to little more purpose at first but to prove a Vacuum in Nature and the deserted part of the Glass-Tube was by many thought an absolute void which I believe is a mistake But it hath been since improved to this design of weighing the degrees of compression in the Air a thing that may signifie much in giving us to understand its temper in several Places on Hills and in Caves in divers Regions and Climates which may tend to the disclosing many excellent Theories and Helps in Humane Life And the Air is so Catholick a Body and hath so great an influence upon all others and upon ours that the advantage of such an Instrument for the better acquainting us with its nature must needs be very considerable and a good Aid to general Philosophy And who yet knows how far and to what Discoveries this Invention may be improved The World a long time only rudely star'd upon the Wonders of the Loadstone before its use was found for the advantage of Navigation and 't is not impossible but that future Times may derive so much benefit one way or other from this Invention as may equal its esteem to that of the Compass The ROYAL SOCIETY by their Care and Endeavours in the using this Instrument give us hopes that they will let none of its useful Applications to escape us And I know not whether we may not mention it as the first great benefit we have from it that it was an occasion of the Invention of Mr. Boyle's famous Pneumatick Engine And this is the other Instrument I noted and call'd V. The Air-Pump concerning the usefulness of which that excellent Person himself hath given the best Accounts in his Discourse of Physico-Mechanical Experiments made in that Engine by which he hath discovered and proved a rare and luciferous Theory viz. the Elastick Power or Spring of the Air and by this hath put to flight that odd Phancy of
the Fuga Vacui and shewn that the strange Effects which use to be ascribed to that general and obscure cause do arise from the native self-expansion of the Air. The extent of which Elastical Expansion he hath found divers ways to measure by his Engine which also discovers the Influence the Air hath on Flame Smoke and Fire That it hath none in Operations Magnetical That it is probably much interspersed in the Pores of Water and comprest by the incumbent Atmosphere even in those elose retreats What Operation the exsuction of the Air hath on other Liquors as Oil Wine Spirit of Vinegar Milk Eggs Spirit of Vrine Solution of Tartar and Spirit of Wine The gravity and expansion of the Air under Water The interest the Air hath in the vibrations of Pendulums and what it hath to do in the propagation of Sounds That Fumes and Vapours ascend by reason of the gravity of the Ambient and not from their own positive levity The nature of Suction the cause of Filtration and the rising of Water in Siphons The nature of Respiration and the Lungs illustrated by tryals made on several kinds of Animals and the interest the Air hath in the Operations of Corosive Liquors These and many more such-like beneficial Observations and Discoveries hath that great Man made by the help of his Pneumatick Engine and there is no doubt but more and perhaps greater things will be disclosed by it when future ingenuity and diligence hath improved and perfected this Invention For what great thing was absolute and perfect in its first rise and beginning And 't is like this Instrument hereafter will be used and applyed to things yet unthought of for the advancement of Knowledge and the conveniences of Life THus I have performed the first part of my promise by shewing what Advantages the latter Ages and particularly the ROYAL SOCIETY have for deep search into things both by Arts and Instruments newly invented or improved above those enjoy'd by Aristotle and the Ancients I am next II. To recount what Aids it hath received from our better acquaintance with the Phaenomena For this I must consider NATURAL HISTORY more particularly which is the Repository wherein these are lodg'd How this may be compiled in the best order and to the best advantage is most judiciously represented by the Immortal Lord Bacon and to shew how highly It hath been advanced in modern Times I need say little more than to amass in a brief Recollection some of the Instances of newly-discovered Phaenomena which are scatter'd under the Heads of the Arts and Instruments I have discours'd with the Addition of some others As In the HEAVENS those of the Spots and Dinettick motion of the Sun the mountanous protuberances and shadows in the Body of the Moon about nineteen Magnitudes more of Fixed Stars the Lunulae of Jupiter their mutual Eclipsing one another and its turning round upon its own Axis the Ring about Saturn and its shadow upon the Body of that Star the Phases of Venus the increment and decrement of Light among the Planets the appearing and disappearing of Fixed Stars the Altitude of Comets and nature of the Via Lactea By these Discoveries and more such the History of the Heavens hath been rectified and augmented by the Modern Advancers of Astronomy whom in their places I have cited In the AIR Its Spring the more accurate History and Nature of Winds and Meteors and the probable height of the Atmosphere have been added by the Lord Bacon Des-Cartes Mr. Boyle and others In the EARTH New Lands by Columbus Magellan and the rest of the Discoverers and in these new Plants new Fruits new Animals new Minerals and a kind of other World of Nature from which this is supplied with numerous conveniences of Life and many thousand Families of our own little one are continually sed and maintained In the WATERS the great Motion of the Sea unknown in elder Times and the particular Laws of flux and reflux in many places are discover'd The History of BATHES augmented by Savonarola Baccius and Blanchellus of METALS by Agricola and the whole SVBTERRANEOVS WORLD described by the universally Learned Kircher The History of PLANTS much improved by Matthiolus Ruellius Bauhinus and Gerard besides the late Account of English Vegetables publish'd by Dr. Merret a worthy Member of the ROYAL SOCIETY And another excellent Virtuoso of the same Assembly Mr. John Evelyn hath very considerably advanced the History of Fruit and Forest-Trees by his Sylva and Pomona and greater things are expected from his Preparations for Elysium Britanicum a noble Design now under his hands And certainly the inquisitive World is much indebted to this generous Gentleman for his very ingenious Performances in this kind as also for those others of Sculpture Picture Architecture and the like practical useful things with which he hath enrich'd it The History of ANIMALS hath been much enlarged by Gesner Rondeletius Aldrovandus and more accurately inquir'd into by the Micrographers And the late Travellers who have given us Accounts of those remote parts of the Earth that have been less known to these have described great variety of Living Creatures very different from the Animals of the nearer Regions among whom the ingenious Author of the History of the Caribbies deserves to be mentioned as an Instance In our own BODIES Natural History hath found a rich heap of Materials in the above-mentioned Particulars of the Venae Lacteae the Vasa Lymphatica the Valves and Sinus of the Veins the several new Passages and Glandules the Ductus Chyliferus the Origination of the Nerves the Circulation of the Blood and the rest And all the main Heads of Natural History have receiv'd aids and increase from the famous Verulam who led the way to substantial Wisdom and hath given most excellent Directions for the Method of such an HISTORY of NATVRE Thus I have dispatch'd the FIRST Part of my Method proposed in the beginning but stand yet ingaged for the other which is to shew II. That the later Ages have great Advantages in respect of Opportunities and Helps for the spreading and communicating of Knowledge and thereby of improving and enlarging it This I shall demonstrate in three great Instances viz. Printing the Compass and the Institution of the Royal Society For the FIRST Printing It was according to Polydore Virgil the Invention of John Cuthenberg of Mentz in Germany though others give the honour to one Fust of the same City and some to Laurentius a Burger of Harlem But whoever was the Author this is agreed That this excellent Art was first practised about the year 1440 and was utterly unknown in Elder Times at least in all the parts of the World that are on this side the Kingdom of China which they say had it more early but it signifies not to our purpose Now by reason of the Ancients want of this Invention Copies of excellent things could not be so much dispersed nor so well preserv'd either
not broken with ends of Latin nor impertinent Quotations nor made harsh by hard words or needless terms of Art Not rendred intricate by long Parentheses nor gaudy by flanting Metaphors not tedious by wide fetches and circumferences of Speech nor dark by too much curtness of Expression 'T is not loose and unjointed rugged and uneven but as polite and as fast as Marble and briefly avoids all the notorious defects and wants none of the proper Ornaments of Language In this excellent History the Inquisitive may find what were the Reasons of forming such a Combination as the ROYAL SOCIETY what is the Nature of that Constitution what are their Designs and what they have done For there is Collection of some among numerous others that are in their Repository of the Experiments Observations and Instruments which they have invented and advanced for the improvement of real useful Knowledge and a full vindication of the Design from the dark suspicions and objections of jealousie and ignorance BUT that I may not wholly refer my Reader which may look like a put-off I 'le here offer something concerning this Establishment as it is an Advantage for the communication and increase of Science I say then That it was observed by the excellent Lord Bacon and some other ingenious Moderns That Philosophy which should be an Instrument to work with to find out those Aids that Providence hath laid up in Nature to help us against the Inconveniences of this State and to make such applications of things as may tend to universal benefit I say They took notice that instead of such a Philosophy as this That which had usurp'd the Name and obtained in the Schools was but a combination of general Theories and Notions that were concluded rashly without due information from particulars and spun out into unprofitable Niceties that tend to nothing but Dispute and Talk and were never like to advance any Works for the benefit and use of Men. This being consider'd the deep and judicious Verulam made the complaint represented the defects and unprofitableness of the Notional way proposed another to reform and inlarge Knowledge by Observation and Experiment to examine and record Particulars and so to rise by degrees of Induction to general Propositions and from them to take direction for new Inquiries and more Discoveries and other Axioms that our Notions may have a Foundation upon which a solid Philosophy may be built that may be firm tite and close knit and suited to the Phaenomena of things So that Nature being known it may be master'd managed and used in the Services of Humane Life This was a mighty Design groundedly laid wisely exprest and happily recommended by the Glorious Author who began nobly and directed with an incomparable conduct of Wit and Judgment But to the carrying of it on It was necessary there should be many Heads and many Hands and Those formed into an Assembly that might intercommunicate their Tryals and Observations that might joyntly work and joyntly consider that so the improvable and luciferous Phaenomena that lie scatter'd up and down in the vast Campaign of Nature might be aggregated and brought into a common Store This the Great Man desired and form'd a SOCIETY of Experimenters in a Romantick Model but could do no more His time was not ripe for such Performances These things therefore were consider'd also by the later Virtuosi who several of them join'd together and set themselves on work upon this grand Design in which they have been so happy as to obtain the Royal Countenance and Establishment to gather a great Body of generous Persons of all Qualities and sorts of Learning to overcome the difficulties of the Institution and to make a very encouraging and hopeful progress in their pursuits For the account of which Particulars I refer to the History and only take notice How ignorantly those rash and inconsiderate People talk who speak of this Assembly as if they were a company of Men whose only aim is to set up some new Theories and Notions in Philosophy whereas indeed Their first and chief Imployment is carefully to seek and faithfully to report how things are de facto and they continually declare against the establishment of Theories and Speculative Doctrines which they note as one of the most considerable miscarriages in the Philosophy of the Schools And their business is not to Dispute but Work So that those others also that look on them as pursuing phansyful Designs are as wide and unjust in their ill-contriv'd Censure Since Their Aims are to free Philosophy from the vain Images and Compositions of Phansie by making it palpable and bringing it down to the plain Objects of the Senses For those are the Faculties which they employ and appeal to and complain that Knowledge hath too long hover'd in the Clouds of Imagination So that methinks this ignorant Reproach is as if those that doted on the Tales of the Fabulous Age should clamour against Plutarch and Tacitus as idle Romancers For the main intention of this Society is to erect a well grounded Natural History which takes off the heats of wanton Phansie hinders its extravagant Excursions and ties it down to sober Realities But we frequently hear an insulting Objection against this Philosophical Society in the Question What have they done To which I could answer in short more than all the Philosophers of the Notional way since Aristotle opened his Shop in Greece Which Saying may perhaps look to some like a fond and bold Sentence But whoever compares the Repository of this Society with all the Volumes of Disputers will find it neither immodest nor unjust And their History hath given us Instances sufficient of their Experiments Observations and Instruments to justifie a bolder Affirmation But I insist not on this The thing I would have observ'd is That those who make the captious Question do not comprehend the vastness of the Work of this Assembly or have some phantastical Imaginations of it They consider not that the Design is laid as low as the profoundest Depths of Nature and reacheth as high as the uppermost Story of the Vniverse That it extends to all the Varieties of the great World and aims at the benefit of universal Mankind For could they expect that such mighty Projects as these should ripen in a moment Can a Cedar shoot up out of the Earth like a Blade of Grass or an Elephant grow to the vastness of his bulk as soon as a little Insect can be form'd of a drop of Dew No The true knowledge of general Nature like Nature it self in its noblest Composures must proceed slowly by degrees almost insensible and what one Age can do in so immense an Undertaking as that wherein all the Generations of Men are concerned can be little more than to remove the Rubbish lay in Materials and put things in order for the Building Our work is to overcome Prejudices to throw aside what is useless and yeelds no advantage for
knowledge and application of some unobvious and unheeded Properties and Laws of natural things divers Effects may be produced by other Means and Instruments than those one would judge likely and even by such as if proposed would be thought unlikely That the knowledge of peculiar Qualities or uses of Physical things may inable a Man to perform those things Physically that seem to require Books and dexterity of hand proper to Artificers That the uses of scarce one thing in Nature to Humane Life are yet thorowly understood That a great Inducement to hope for considerable Matters from Experimental Philosophy may be taken from the mutual assistance that the Practical and Theorical part of Physick may be brought to afford each other That we are not to make our Estimates of what may be hoped for hereafter when Men shall be assisted with the History of Nature a method of imploying it and true Principles of Natural Philosophy and associated Endeavours by what is already performed without any of those Assistances 2. He hath also in a manner promised Essays touching the concealments and disguises of the Seeds of living Creatures 3. An Appendix to the Physico-Mechanical Treatise concerning the Air. 4. Something concerning Heat and Flame 5. The Sceptical Naturalist shewing the imperfections of Natural Philosophy as we yet have it 6. A Discourse of improbable Truths 7. The production of Qualities by Art 8. Several useful Series of Inquiries and Directions of his whereof divers are extant in the Philosophical Transactions as 1. General Heads for a Natural History of a Country small or great 2. Observations and Directions about the Barometer 3. Inquiries touching the Sea and 4. About Mines 5. Quaeries and Tryals proposed for the improving of that Grand Experiment for the transfusing Blood out of one live Animal into another 6. Others for the finding the Effects of the Rarifying Engine exhausted in Plants Seeds and Eggs of Silk-Worms Besides These he hath a great many other unpublish'd Inquiries and Series of Experiments and Observations of the most considerable parts of Natural Philosophy As 1. About precious Stones 2. Fermentation 3. Heat and Flame 4. An Account of a new kind of Baroscope which he calls Statical and the advantage it hath above the Mercurial 5. A New Experiment shewing how a considerable degree of Cold may be suddenly produced without the help of Snow Ice Hail Wind or Nitre and that at any time of the year viz. by Sal Armoniack 6. A way of preserving Birds taken out of the Eggs and other small Foetus's This is the Account I received of that Noble Person 's further Designs for the advantage of Useful Knowledge and though he hath not made an absolute Promise of those Discourses to the Publique yet he is known to have such and they are with probability expected since he is too generous to detain from the capable and inquisitive those his excellent Discoveries which tend to the common Benefit And thus I have said what may suffice for general Information about the ROYAL SOCIETY and the hopes we may justly conceive of this Constitution And in what I have discoursed I have not deviated from my undertaking which was to shew the advantage that this latter Age hath for the promotion and increase of Knowledge above those of former Times For by describing the Reasons Nature and some of the Effects of this Establishment I have not obscurely suggested the Helps that the World hath and may expect from Them for those great and noble Purposes and 't is easie to see in the very frame of this Assembly that they are fitted with Opportunities to collect most of the considerable Notices Observations and Experiments that are scattered up and down in the wide World and so to make a Bank of all the Vseful Knowledge that is among Men For either by their whole Body or some or other of their particular Members they hold a Learned Correspondence with the greatest Virtuosi of all the known Vniverse and have several of their own Fellows abroad in Forreign Parts by reason of whose Communications they know most of the valuable Rarities and Phaenomena observed by the curious in Nature and all considerable Attempts and Performances of Art Ingenuity and Experiment To which consideration if we add the inquisitiveness of their Genius and the way of their proceeding by particular and cautious Observation the coldness and shiness of their Assent and the numbers of judicious Men that carefully examine their Reports I say If these Particulars be weighed it will appear to the unprejudiced That the World had never such an advantage for the accumulating a Treasure of substantial Knowledge as it hath by this Constitution For single Inquisitors can receive but scant and narrow Informations either from their own Experience or Converses and those they have are frequently very imperfect or very mistaken There is often either vanity or credulity ignorance or design in their Relations which therefore are many times false in the main Matter and oftner in the Circumstance So that the Histories of Nature we have hitherto had have been but an heap and amassment of Truth and Falshood Vulgar Tales and Romantick Accounts and 't is not in the power of particular unassociated Endeavours to afford us better But now the frame of this Society suggests excellent ground to hope from them sincere and universal Relations and the best grounded and most useful Collection of the Affairs of Art and Nature that ever yet was extant And as they have peculiar Priviledges for the gathering the Materials of Knowledge so They have the same for the impartment and diffusion of them I should now put an end to this Discourse but that there is another common prejudice against the ROYAL SOCIETY and all those of that Genius to which I must speak a little The Charge is That they despise the Ancients and all old Learning which have been venerable among the best and wisest of all Times To this I say That the Modern free Philosophers are most ready to do right to the Learned Ancients by acknowledging their Wit and all the useful Theories and Helps we have from them They read and consider their Writings and chearfully entertain any Notices or Observations they have imparted to us They have a respect for their great names and are ready to do honour to them But yet they do not think that those however venerable Sages should have an absolute Empire over the Reasons of Mankind nor do they believe That all the Riches of Nature were discovered to some few particular Men of former Times and that there is nothing left for the benefit and gratification of after-Inquirers No They know There is an inexhaustible variety of Treasure which Providence hath lodged in Things that to the Worlds end will afford fresh Discoveries and suffice to reward the ingenious Industry and Researches of those that look into the Works of God and go down to see his Wonders in the Deep This no
Religion upon it self But that better use may be made of it and by some is will appear by considering particularly how acquaintance with Nature assists RELIGION against its greatest Enemies which are Atheism Sadducism Superstition Enthusiasm and the Humour of Disputing FOr the First Atheism I reckon thus The deeper insight any Man hath into the Affairs of Nature the more he discovers of the accurateness and Art that is in the contexture of things For the Works of God are not like the compositions of Fancy or the Tricks of Juglers that will not bear a clear light or strict scrutiny but their exactness receives advantage from the severest inspection and he admires most that knows most since the insides and remotest recesses of things have the clearest stamps of inimitable Wisdom on them and the Artifice is more in the Wheel-work than in the Case For if we look upon any of the Works of Nature through a Magnifying Glass that makes deep Discoveries we find still more beauty and more uniformity of contrivance whereas if we survey the most curious piece of humane ingenuity by that Glass it will discover to us numerous Flaws Deformities and Imperfections in our most Elegant Mechanicks Hence I gather That the study of God's Works shewing us more of the riches of Nature opens thereby a fairer Prospect of those Treasures of Wisdom that are lodged within it and so furnisheth us with deeper Senses and more Arguments and clearer Convictions of the existence of an infinitely intelligent Being that contrived it in so harmonious and astonishing an order So that if any are so brutish as not to acknowledge him upon the view of the meer external frame of the Universe they must yet fall down before the evidence when Philosophy hath opened the Cabinet and led them into the Jewel-bouse and shewn them the surprizing variety that is there Thus though the obvious Firmament and the motions of the Sun and Stars the ordinary vicissitudes of Seasons and productions of things the visible beauty of the great World and the appearing variety and fitness of those Parts that make up the little one in Man could scarce secure Galen from the danger of being an Atheist Yet when he pryed further by Anatomical Enquiries and saw the wonderful diversity aptness and order of the minutest Strings Pipes and Passages that are in the inward Fabrick He could not abstain from the devoutness of an Anthem of Acknowledgment And that the real knowledge of Nature leads us by the hand to the confession of its Author is taught us by the Holy Pen-man who suggests that the visible things of the Creation declare him The Plebeian and obvious World no doubt doth but the Philosophical much more So that whosoever saith that inquiry into Nature and God's Works leads to any degree of Atheism gives great ground of suspicion that himself is an Atheist or that he is that other thing that the Royal Psalmist calls him that saith in his heart there is no God For either he acknowledgeth the Art and exactness of the Works of Nature or he doth not if not he disparageth the Divine Architect and disables the chief Argument of his existence If he doth and yet affirms that the knowledge of it leads to Atheism he saith he knows not what and in effect this That the sight of the order and method of a regular and beautiful contrivance tends to perswade that Chance and Fortune was the Author But I remember I have discours'd of this elsewhere and what I have said for Philosophy in general from its tendency to devout Acknowledgments is not so true of any as of the Experimental and Mechanick For the Physiology of the modern Peripatetick Schools creates Notions and turns Nature into words of second Intention but discovers little of its real beauty and harmonious contrivance so that God hath no glory from it nor Men any Argument of his Wisdom or Existence And for the Metaphysical Proofs they are for the most part deep and nice subject to Evasions and turns of Wit and not so generally perswasive as those drawn from the plain and sensible Topicks which the Experimental Philosophy inlargeth and illustrates This then gives the greatest and fullest assurance of the Being of God and acquaintance with this kind of Learning furnisheth us with the best Weapons to defend it For the modern Atheists are pretenders to the Mechanick Principles viz. those of meer Matter and Motion and their pretensions cannot be shamed or defeated by any so well as by those who throughly understand that wild Systeme of Opinions These indeed perceive that there is only Nature in some things that are taken to be supernatural and miraculous and the shallow Naturalist sees no further and therefore rests in Nature But the true Philosopher shews the vanity and unreasonableness of taking up so short and discovers infinite Wisdom at the end of the Chain of Causes I say If we know no further than occult Qualities Elements Heavenly Influences and Forms we shall never be able to disprove a Mechanick Atheist but the more we understand of the Laws of Matter and Motion the more shall we discern the necessity of a wise mind to order the blind and insensible Matter and to direct the original Motions without the conduct of which the Vniverse could have been nothing but a mighty Chaos and mishapen Mass of everlasting Confusions and Disorders This of the FIRST viz. That the knowledge of Nature serves Religion against Atheism and that it doth also II. AGainst Sadducism 'T is well known that the Sadduces denyed the existence of Spirits and Immortality of Souls And the Heresie is sadly reviv'd in our days 1. What a Spirit is and whether there be Spirits or not are questions that appertain to the disquisition of Philosophy The Holy Scripture that condescends to the plain capacities of Men useth the word Spirit commonly for the more subtile and invisible Bodies and 't will be difficult from thence to fetch a demonstrative proof of Spirits in the strict Notion That there are Angels and Souls which are purer than these gross Bodies may no doubt be concluded from thence But whether these are only a finer sort of Matter or a different kind of Beings cannot I think be determin'd by any thing deliver'd in the Divine Oracles The Inquiry therefore belongs to Philosophy which from divers Operations in our own Souls concludes That there is a sort of Beings which are not Matter or Body viz. Beings self-motive penetrable and indivisible Attributes directly contrary to those of Matter which is impenetrable divisible and void of Self-motion By these Properties respectively the distinct nature of Spirit and Body is known and by the same that there are Spirits in the strictest sence as well as corporeal Beings Now by stating the Nature and proving the Existence of Spirits a very considerable service is done to Religion For hereby our Notion of the adorable Deity is freed from all material grosness
in which way those must conceive him that acknowledge nothing but Body in the World which certainly is a very great dis-interest to his Glory and suggests very unbecoming thoughts of him And by the due setling the Notion of a Spirit the conceit of the Soul 's Traduction is overthrown which either ariseth from direct Sadducism or a defect in Philosophy Hereby our Immortality is undermined and dangerously exposed But due Philosophical Disquisition will set us right in the Theory For the former of the Errors mention'd viz. the Aâ—…hropomorphite Doctrines that make God himself a corporeal Substance Those cannot be disproved but by the Use and Application of the Principles of Philosophy Since let us bring what Arguments we can from the Scriptures which speak of the Perfection Infinity Immensity Wisdom and other Attributes of God These no doubt will be granted but the Query will be Whether all may not belong to a material Being a question which Philosophy resolves and there is no other way to search deep into this Matter but by those Aids So likewise as to the Traduction of the Soul The Arguments from Scripture against it are very general yea many expressions we find there seem at first sight to look that way And therefore this other help Philosophy must be used here also and by the distinct representation which it gives of the Nature of Sprit and Matter and of the Operations that appertain to each this Error is effectually confuted which it cannot be by any other proceeding Thus Philosophy befriends us against Sadducism in the first Branch of it as it explodes the being of Spirits 2. The other is the denyal of the Immortality of our Souls The establishment of this likewise the Students of Philosophy and God's Works have attempted in all Ages and they have prov'd it by the Philosophical considerations of the nature of Sense the quickness of Imagination the spirituality of the Vnderstanding the freedom of the Will from these they infer that the Soul is immaterial and from thence that it is immortal which Arguments are some of the most demonstrative and cogent that the meer reasons of Men can use but cannot be manag'd nor understood but by those that are instructed in Philosophy and Nature I confess there are other Demonstrations of our Immortality for the plain Understandings that cannot reach those Heights The Scripture gives clear evidence and that of the Resurrection of the Holy Jesus is palpable But yet the Philosophical Proofs are of great use and serve for the conviction of the Infidel to whom the other inducements are nothing and the deeper knowledge of things is necessary to defend this great Article of Religion against such Men since they alledge a sort of Arguments to prove the Soul to be mortal that cannot be consuted but by a reason instructed in the Observations of Nature For the Modern Sadduce pretends that all things we do are performed by meer Matter and Motion and consequently that there is no such thing as an immaterial Being so that when our Bodies are dissolv'd the whole Man is destroyed and lost for ever which dismal conclusion is true and certain if there be nothing in us but Matter and the results of Motion and those that converse but little with Nature understand little what may be done by these and so cannot be so well assured that the Elevations Mixtures and Combinations of them cannot be at last improv'd so far as to make a sensible reasoning Being nor are they well able to disprove one that affirms that they are actually advanc'd to that height whereas he that hath much inquired into the Works of God and Nature gains a clear sight of what Matter can perform and gets more and stronger Arguments to convince him that its Modifications and Changes cannot amount to perception and sense since in all its Varieties and highest Exaltations he finds no Specimens of such Powers And though I confess that all Mechanick Inquirers make not this use of their Inquisitions and Discoveries yet that is not the fault of the Method but of the Men and those that have gone furthest in that way have receded most from the Sadducean Doctrines Among such I suppose I may be allowed to reckon the Noble Renatus Des-Cartes And his Metaphysicks and Notions of Immaterial Beings are removed to the greatest distance from all Corporeal Affections which I mention not to declare or signifie my adherence to those Principles but for an Instance to shew that acquaintance with Matter and the knowledge of its Operations removes the Mind far off from the belief of those high Effects which some ascribe to Corporeal Motions and from all suppositions of the Soul 's being bodily and material Thus Philosophy is an excellent Antidote against Sadducism in both the Main Branches of it But then I must confess also that the Philosophy of the late Peripatetick Writers doth rather assist than overthrow this dangerous Infidelity I mean in what it teacheth concerning Substantial Forms which I fear tends to the disabling all Philosophical Evidence of the Immortality of Humane Souls For these Peripateticks make their Forms a kind of medium between Body and Spirit viz. Beings that are educed as they speak out of Matter and are so dependent on it that they perish utterly or return into the bosom of the Matter as some cant when they cease to inform it But yet they allow not that those Forms are material in their essential Constitution and Nature This is the Peripatetick account of substantial Forms and such they assign to all Bodies and teach That the noblest sort of them are sensitive and perceptive which are the Souls of Brutes If this be so that Beings which are not Spirits but corruptible dependants upon Matter may be endowed with Animadversion and Sense what Arguments have we then to shew that they may not have Reason also which is but an Improvement and higher degree of simple Perception 'T is as hard to be apprehended how any of the results of Matter should perceive as how they should join their Perceptions into Reasonings and the same Propositions that prove the possibility of one prove both so that those who affirm that Beasts also have their degrees of true Reason speak very consonantly to those Principles And if such material corruptible Forms as the Peripateticks describe are sufficient for all the Actions and Perceptions of Beasts I know not which way to go about to demonstrate that a more elevated sort of them may not suffice for the reasonings of Men. To urge the Topicks of Proof I mention'd from Notions Compositions Deductions and the like which are alledged to prove our Souls Immaterial I say to plead these will signifie nothing but this That Humane Souls are no portions of Matter nor corporeal in their formal Essence But how will they evince that they are not educed from it that they depend not on Matter and shall not perish when their respective Bodies are dissolved Certainly
delivered to the Saints and hereby Heresies are said to be confuted and overthrown So that the disabling and suppressing of Disputes seems to be a weakening rather than any advantage to Religion and the Concernments of it To this I say That by the Faith we are to contend for I conceive the Essentials and certain Articles are meant These we may and we ought to endeavour to defend and promote as there is occasion and we have seen how the Real Philosophy will help our Reasons in that Service But pious Contentions for these are not the disputings of which I am now discoursing those are stiff Contests about uncertain Opinions And such I dare very boldly say are no Contentions for the Faith but the Instruments of the greatest mischiefs to it As for those other Disputes that are used to convince Men of the Truths of the Gospel and the great Articles thereof and for the disproving Infidelity and Heresie they are necessary and Philosophy is an excellent help in such Contests So that those other Objections pleadable from the necessity of proving and trying our Faith and convincing Hereticks From the Example of our Saviour's disputing with the Doctors and the Sadduces and of St. Paul at Athens with the Jews These and such other little Cavils can signifie nothing to the disadvantage of what I have said about the Humour of Disputing in Matters of doubtful and uncertain Opinions against which the Real Philosophy is an Antidote ANd thus I have shewn under five material Heads That the knowledge of Nature and the Works of God promotes the greatest Interests of Religion and by the three last it appears how fundamentally opposite it is to all Schism and Fanaticism which are made up and occasioned by Superstition Enthusiasm and ignorant perverse Disputings So that for Atheists and Sadduces and Fanaticks to detest and inveigh against Philosophy is not at all strange 'T is no more than what may well be expected from Men of that sort Philosophy is their Enemy and it concerns them to disparage and reproach it But for the Sober and Religious to do any thing so unadvised and so prejudicial to Religion is wonderful and deplorable To set these right in their Judgment about Philosophical Inquiry into God's Works is the Principal design of these Papers and in order to the further promoting of it I advance to the last Head of Discourse proposed viz. IV. THat the Ministers and Professors of Religion ought not to discourage but promote the knowledge of Nature and the Works of its Author This is the result of the whole Matter and follows evidently upon it And though it will not infer a necessity of all Mens deep search into Nature yet this it will That no Friend or Servant of Religion should hinder or discountenance such Inquiries And though most private Christians and some publick Ministers have neither leisure nor ability to look into Matters of natural Research and Inquisition yet they ought to think candidly and wish well to the endeavours of those that have and 't is a sin and a folly either in the one or other to censure or discourage those worthy Undertakings So that I cannot without trouble observe how apt some are that pretend much to Religion and some that minister in it to load those that are studious of God's Works with all the studious Names that contempt and spight can suggest The Irreligion of which injurious carriage nothing can excuse but their ignorance And I will rather hope that they neither know what they say nor what they do than believe that they have any direct design against the Glory of their Maker or against any laudable endeavours to promote it I know well what mischief Prejudice will do even upon Minds that otherwise are very honest and intelligent enough And there are many common slanders and some plausible Objections in the Mouths of the Zealous against Philosophy which have begot an ill Opinion of it in well-meaning Men who have never examined things with any depth of Inquiry For the sake of such I shall produce the most considerable Allegations of both sorts and I hope make such returns to them as may be sufficient to satisfie those whose Minds are not barr'd by Obstinacy or Ignorance I speak first of the bold and broad Slanders among which that I. Of Atbeism is one of the most ordinary But certainly 't is one of the most unjust Accusations that Malice and Ignorance could have invented This I need not be industrious to prove here having made it appear that Philosophy is one of the best Weapons in the World to defend Religion against it and my whole Discourse is a confutation of this envious and foolish charge Concerning it I take notice That Philosophical Men are usually dealt with by the Zealous as the greatest Patrons of the Protestant Cause are by the Sects For as the Bishops and other Learned Persons who have most strongly oppugned the Romish Faith have had the ill luck to be accused of Popery themselves in like manner it happens to the humblest and deepest Inquisitors into the Works of God who have the most and fullest Arguments of his Existence have raised impregnable Ramparts with much industry and pious pains against the Atheists and are the only Men that can with success serve Religion against the Godless Rout These Superstitious Ignorance hath always made the loudest out-cry against as if themselves were guilty of that which they have most happily oppugned and defeated And the certain way to be esteemed an Atheist by the fierce and ignorant Devoto's is to study to lay the Foundations of Religion sure and to be able to speak groundedly and to purpose against the desperate Cause of the black Conspirators against Heaven And the greatest Men that have imploy'd their Time and Thoughts this way have been pelted with this Dirt while they have been labouring in the Trenches and indeavouring to secure the Foundations of the Holy Fabrick But besides I observe That narrow angry People take occasion to charge the freer Spirits with Atheism because they move in a larger Circle and have no such fond adherence to some Opinions which they adore and count Sacred And for my own part I confess I have not Superstition enough in my Spirit or Nature to incline me to doat upon all the Principles I judge true or to speak so dogmatically about them as I perceive confident and disputing Men are wont But contenting my self with a firm assent to the few practical Fundamentals of Faith and having fix'd that end of the Compass I desire to preserve my Liberty as to the rest holding the other in such a posture as may be ready to draw those Lines my Judgment informed by the Holy Oracles the Articles of our Church the Apprehensions of wise Antiquity and my particular Reason shall direct me to describe And when I do that 't is for my self and my own satisfaction but am not concern'd to impose my Sentiments
upon others nor do I care to endeavour the change of their Minds though I judge them mistaken as long as Vertue the Interests of Religion the Peace of the World and their own are not prejudiced by their Errors By this modest indifference I secure Charity for all the diversities of Belief and equally offer my Frienship and Converses to the several Sects and Perswasions that stick to the plain Principles of the Gospel and a Vertuous Life overlooking their particular fondnesses and follies This is the temper of my Genius and this some warm People who have more Heat than Light are apt to call Scepticism and cold Neutrality But that it deserves better Names I have made appear in some other Papers True it is That the Men of the meer Epicurean sort have left God and Providence out of their Accounts But other Philosophers have shewn what Fools they are for doing so and how absurd their pretended Philosophy is in supposing things to have been made and ordered by the casual hits of Atoms in a mighty Void And though their general Doctrine of Matter and Motion be exceeding ancient and very accountable when we suppose Matter was at first created by Almighty Power and its Motions ordered and directed by Omniscient Wisdom Yet the supposal that they are independent and eternal is very precarious and unreasonable And that all the regular Motions in Nature should be from blind tumultuous jumblings intermixtures is the most unphilosophical Fansie and ridiculous Dotage in the World So that there is no reason to accuse Philosophy of a Fault which Philosophy sufficiently shames and reproves and yet I doubt too many have entertain'd great prejudice against it upon this score and 't is a particular brand upon some of the modern Men that they have revived the Philosophy of Epicurus which they think to be in its whole extent Atheistical and Irreligious To which I say that the Opinion of the World 's being made by a fortuitous concurrence of Atoms is impious and vile And this those of Epicurus his Elder School taught Whereas the late Restorers of the Corpuscularian Hypothesis hate and despise the wicked and absurd Doctrine But thus far they think the Atomical Philosophy reasonable viz. as it teacheth That the Operations of Nature are performed by subtile streams of minute Bodies and not by I know not what imaginary Qualities and Forms They think That the various Motions and Figures of the parts of Matter are enough for all the Phaenomena and all the varieties which with relation to our Senses we call such and such Qualities But then they suppose and teach That God created Matter and is the supreme Orderer of its Motions by which all those Diversities are made And hereby Piety and the Faith of Providence is secured This as far as we know any thing of elder Times was the ancient Philosophy of the World and it doth not in the least interfere with any Principle of Religion Thus far I dare say I may undertake for most of the Corpuscularian Philosophers of our times excepting those of M. Hobbes his way And therefore I cannot but wonder at a late Reverend Author who seems to conclude those Modern Philosophers under the name and notion of such Somatists as are for meer Matter and Motion and exclude immaterial Beings whereas those Learned Men though they own Matter and Motion as the material and formal causes of the Phenomena They do yet acknowledge God's Efficiency and Government of all Things with as much seriousness and contend for it with as much zeal as any Philosophers or Divines whatsoever And 't is very hard that any number of Men should be exposed to the suspicion of being Atheists for denying the Peripatetick Qualities and Forms and there is nothing else overthrown by the Corpuscularian Doctrines as they are managed by those Philosophers So that methinks that Reverend Person hath not dealt so fairly with the great Names of Des-Cartes and Gassendus where he mentions them promiscuously with the meer Epicurean and Hobbian Somatists without any note to distinguish them from those Sadduces For both those celebrated Men have laboured much in asserting the Grand Articles of Religion against the Infidel and Atheist But 2. 't is alledg'd by some Philosophy disposeth Men to despise the Scriptures or at least to neglect the study of them and therefore is to be flighted and exploded among Christians To this I say That Philosophy is the knowledge of God's Works and there is nothing in God's Works that is contrary to his Word How then should the study of the one incline Men to despise the other Certainly had there been any such impious tendency in searching into God's Works to the lessening of our value of the Scriptures The Scripture it self would never have recommended it so much unto us Yea this is so far from being true that on the contrary the knowledge of God's Works tends in its proper nature to dispose Men to love and veneration of the Scriptures For by familiarity with Nature we are made sensible of the Power Wisdom and Goodness of God fresh Instances of which we shall find in all things And 't is one great design of the Scripture to promote the Glory of these Attributes How then can he that is much affected with them chuse but love and esteem those Holy Records which so gloriously illustrate the Perfections he admires Besides by inquiry into God's Works we discover continually how little we can comprehend of his Ways and Menagements and he that is sensible of this will find himself more inclined to reverence the declarations of his Word though they are beyond his reach and though he cannot fathom those Mysteries he is required to believe Such a disposition is necessary for the securing our Reverence to the Divine Oracles and Philosophy promotes it much So that though 't is like enough there may be those that pretend to Philosophy who have less veneration and respect for the Scripture than they ought yet that impious disesteem of those sacred Writings is no effect of their Philosophy but of their corrupt and evil Inclinations And to remove the scandal brought upon Natural Wisdom by those Pretenders it may be observed that none are more earnest or more frequent in the proof and recommendation of the Authority of Scripture than those of Philosophical Inclination and Genius who by 〈◊〉 â—…mblick Capacity and Profession have the best opportunities to give testimony to the Honour of that Divine Book But to justifie the imputation of the disservice Philosophy doth Religion and the Scriptures it may by some be pleaded That Philosophy viz. that which is called the new teacheth Doctrines that are coutrary to the Word of God or at least such as we have no ground from Scripture to believe For instance That the Earth moves and That the Moon is of a Terrestrial Nature and capable of Inhabitants which Opinions are presumed to be impious and Antiscriptural In return to this
desired either not to know at all or not in comparison with the plain Doctrines of the Gospel Or if any should take the words in the largest sense then all sorts of Humane Learning and all Arts and Trades are set at nought by the Apostle And if so the meaning can be no more than this That he preferred the Knowledge of Christ before these For 't is ridiculous to think that he absolutely slighted all other Science The Knowledge of Christ is indeed the chiefest and most valuable Wisdom but the Knowledge of the Works of God hath its place also and ought not quite to be excluded and despised Or if Philosophy be to be slighted by this Text all other Knowledge whatsoever must be condemn'd by it But it will be urged 2. That there is a particular Caution given by the Apostle against Philosophy Col. 2. 8. Beware lest any one spoil you through Philosophy To this I have said elsewhere That the Apostle there means either the pretended Knowledge of the Gnosticks the Genealogies of the Jews or the disputing Learning of the Greeks and perhaps he might have a respect to all those sorts of Science falsly so call'd That the Disputing Philosophy of the Greeks is concerned in the Caution will appear very probable if we consider That much of it was built on meer Notion that occasioned division into manifold Sects which managed their Matters by Sophistry and Disputations full of nicity and mazes of Wit and aimed at little but the pride of mysterious talk of things that were not really understood Such a Philosophy the Apostle might justly condemn and all Wise Men do the same because 't is very injurious to Religion Real Knowledge and the Peace of Men. But what is this to that which modestly inquires into the Creatures of God as they are That collects the History of his Works raising Observations from them for the Discovery of Causes and Invention of Arts and Helps for the benefit of Mankind What vanity what prejudice to Religion can be supposed in this Is this think we that Philosophy that Wisdom of this World which the great Apostle censures and condemns He is bold that saith it speaks a thing he knows not and might if he pleased know the contrary Since the Method of Philosophy I vindicate which proceeds by Observation and Experiment to Works and uses of Life was not if at all the way of those Times in which the Apostles liv'd nor did it begin to shew it self in many Ages after and therefore cannot be concerned in St. Paul's Caution to his Colossians nor in his smartness against worldly Wisdom elsewhere for by that we are to understand the Fetches of Policy the Nicities of Wit and Strains of Rhetorick that were then engaged against the progress of the Gospel But what is all this to the Philosophy of God's Works which illustrates the Divine Glory and comments upon his Perfections and promotes the great Design of Christianity which is doing good and in its proper Nature tends to the disposing of Mens Minds to Vertue and Religion But 3. If Philosophy be so excellent an Instrument to Religion it may be askt and the Question will have the force of an Objection why the Disciples and first Preachers of the Gospel were not instructed in it They were plain illiterate Men altogether unacquainted with those Sublimities God chose the foolish things of this World to confound the wise So that it seems he did not shew this kind of Wisdom that respect which according to our Discourse is due unto it I answer That this choice the Divine Wisdom made of the Publishers of the Glad Tydings of Salvation is no more prejudice or discredit to Philosophy than it is to other sorts of Learning and indeed 't is none at all to any For the special Reasons of God's making this Election seem such as these viz. That his Power might more evidently appear in the wonderful propagation of the Religion of Christ Jesus by such seemingly unqualified Instruments That the World might not suspect it to be the contrivance of Wit Subtilty and Art when there was so much plainness and simplicity in its first Promoters And perhaps too it was done in contempt of the vain and pretended knowledge of the Jews and Greeks over which the plainness of the Gospel was made gloriously to triumph To which I add this It might be to shew That God values Simplicity and Integrity above all Natural Perfectious how excellent soever So that there being such special Reasons for the chusing plain Men to set this grand Affair on foot in the World it can be no disparagement to the Knowledge of Nature that it was not begun by Philosophers And to counter-argue this Topick we may consider That The Patriarchs and Holy Men of Ancient Times that were most in the Divine Favour were well instructed in the Knowledge of God's Works and contributed to the good of Men by their useful Discoveries and Inventions Adam was acquainted with the Nature of the Creatures Noah a Planter of Vineyards Abraham as Grotius collects from Ancient History a great Mystes in the Knowledge of the Stars Isaac prosperous in Georgicks Jacob blessed in his Philosophical Stratagem of the speckled Rods. Moses a great Man in all kinds of Natural Knowledge Bezaleel and Aholiab inspired in Architecture Solomon a deep Naturalist and a Composer of a voluminous History of Plants Daniel Hananiah Mishael and Azariab skilled in all Learning and Wisdom Ten times better saith the Text than the Magicians and Astrologers in Nebuchadnezzar's Realm And to accumulate no more Instances the Philosophers of the East made the first Addresses to the Infant Saviour CONCLUSION WE see upon the whole That there is no shadow of Reason why we should discourage or oppose modest Inquiries into the Works of Nature and whatsoever ignorant Zeal may prompt the common sort to me-thinks those of generous Education should not be of so perverse a frame Especially it becomes not any that minister at the Altar to do so great a disservice to Religion as to promote so unjust a Conceit as that of Philosophy's being an Enemy unto it The Philosophers were the Priests among the Egyptians and several other Nations in Ancient Times and there was never more need that the Priests should be Philosophers than in ours For we are liable every day to be called out to make good our Foundations against the Atheist the Sadduce and Enthusiast And 't is the Knowledge of God in his Works that must furnish us with some of the most proper Weapons of Defence Hard Names and damning Sentences the Arrows of bitter words and raging passions will not defeat those Sons of Anak these are not fit Weapons for our Warfare No they must be met by a Reason instructed in the knowledge of Things and fought in their own Quarters and their Arms must be turned upon themselves This may be done and the advantage is all ours We have Steel and
his Nature The belief of these is necessary to all the parts of Religion He that comes unto God in any way of Worship or Address must know that he is and in some measure what Namely he must know and own the commonly acknowledg'd Attributes of his Being 2. A second necessary Principle is The Providenee of God viz. the Knowledge That he made us and not we our selves that he preserves us and daily provides for us the good things we enjoy This is necessary to the Duties of Prayer Praise and Adoration And if there be no Providence Prayer and Thanksgiving and other Acts of Worship are in vain 3. A third Fundamental is Moral Good and Evil. Without this there can be no confession of Sin no respect to Charity Humility Justice Purity or the rest that we call Vertues These will be confes'd to be Fundamentals of Religion And I shall not dispute how many more may be admitted into the number These we are sure are such in the strictest sense for all Religion supposeth and stands upon them And they have been acknowledg'd by Mankind in all Ages and Places of the World But besides these there are other Principles of Religion which are not in the same degree of absolute necessity with the former but yet are highly serviceable by way of incouragement and assistance I reckon four viz. 1 That God will pardon us if we repent 2. That he will assist us if we endeavour 3. That he will accept of Services that are imperfect if they are sincere 4. That he will righteously reward and punish in another World These contain the Matter and Substance of the Gospel more clearly and explicitly reveal'd to the Christian Church but in some measure owned also by the Gentiles So that I may reckon that the Principles I have mention'd are the sum of the Religion of Mankind I mean as to the Doctrinal Part of it and the Duties recited before are the Substance of the Practical which primarily and most essentially is Religion And Christianity takes in all these Duties and all these Principles advancing the Duties to higher degrees of Excellency and Perfection incouraging them by new Motives and Assistances and superadding two other Instances Baptism and the Lord's Supper And for the Principles it confirms those of Natural Religion it explains them further and discovers some few new ones And all these both of the former and the latter sort are contain'd in the Creed Here are all the Fundamentals of Religion and the main Assisting Principles also And though our Church require our assent to more Propositions yet those are only Articles of Communion not Doctrines absolutely necessary to Salvation And if we go beyond the Creed for the Essentials of Faith who can tell where we shall stop The sum is Religion primarily is Duty And Duty is All that which God hath commanded to be done by his Word or our Reasons and we have the substance of these in the Commandments Religion also in a secondary sense consists in some Principles relating to the Worship of God and of his Son in the ways of devout and vertuous living and these are comprised in that Summary of Belief called the Apostles Creed This I take to be Religion and this Religion I shall prove to be reasonable But I cannot undertake for all the Opinions some Men are pleased to call Orthodox nor for all those that by many private Persons and some Churches are accounted essential Articles of Faith and Salvation Thus I have stated what I mean by Religion The OTHER thing to be determined and fixt is the proper Notion of Reason For this we may consider that Reason is sometimes taken for Reason in the Faculty which is the Vnderstanding and at other times for Reason in the Object which consists in those Principles and Conclusions by which the Understanding is informed This latter is meant in the Dispute concerning the Agreement or Disagreement of Reason and Religion And Reason in this sense is the same with natural Truth which I said is made up of Principles and Conclusions By the Principles of Reason we are not to understand the Grounds of any Man's Philosophy nor the Critical Rules of Syllogism but those imbred Fundamental Notices that God hath implanted in our Souls such as arise not from external Objects nor particular Humours or Imaginations but are immediately lodged in our Minds independent upon other Principles or Deductions commanding a sudden assent and acknowledged by all sober Mankind Of this sort are these That God is a Being of all Perfection That nothing hath no Attributes That a Thing cannot be and not be That the Whole is greater than any of its Parts These and such-like are unto Vs what Instincts are to other Creatures And these I call the Principles of Reason The Conclusions are those other Notices that are inferred rightly from these and by their help from the Observations of Sense And the remotest of them that can be conceived if it be duly inferred from the Principles of Reason or rightly circumstantiated Sense is as well to be reckoned a Part and Branch of Reason as the more immediate Conclusions that are Principles in respect of those distant Truths And thus I have given an account also of the proper Notion and Nature of Reason I AM to shew next 2. That Religion is reasonable and this implies two things viz. That Reason is a Friend to Religion and that Religion is so to Reason I begin with the FIRST and here I might easily shew the great congruity that there is between that Light and those Laws that God hath placed in our Souls and the Duties of Religion that by the expressness of his written Word he requires from us and demonstrate that Reason teacheth All those excepting only the two Positives Baptism and the Holy Eucharist But there is not so much need of turning my Discourse that way and therefore I shall confine it to the Principles of Religion which are called Faith and prove that Reason exceedingly befriends these It doth this I. By proving some of those Principles And II. By defending all For the clearing both let us consider That the Principles of Religion are of two sorts Either 1. Such as are presupposed to Faith or such as 2. are formal Articles of it Of the first are The Being of a God and the Authority of the Scripture And of the second such as are expresly declared by Divine Testimony as the Attributes of God the Incarnation of his Son and such like I. For the former they are proved by Reason and by Reason only The others we shall consider after 1. That the Being of a God the Foundation of all is proved by Reason the Apostle acknowledgeth when he saith That what was to be known of God was manifest and to the Heathen Rom. 1. 19. and he adds vers 20. That the invisible Things from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the Things that are
act like his own Temptations and Perswasions In brief there is nothing more strange in this Objection than that Wickedness is Baseness and Servility and that the Devil is at leasure to serve those whom he is at leasure to tempt and industrious to ruine And 2. I see no necessity to believe that the Devil is always the Witches Confederate but perhaps it may fitly be considered whether the Familiar be not some departed Humane Spirit forsaken of God and Goodness and swallowed up by the unsatiable desire of Mischief and Revenge which possibly by the Laws and capacity of its State it cannot execute immediately And why we should presume that the Devil should have the liberty of wandering up and down the Earth and Air when he is said to be held in the Chains of Darkness and yet that the separated Souls of the Wicked of whom no such thing is affirm'd in any Sacred Record should be thought so imprison'd that they cannot possibly wag from the Place of their Confinement I know no shadow of Conjecture This Conceit I 'm confident hath prejudic'd many against the belief of Witches and Apparitions they not being able to conceive that the Devil should be so ludicrous as Appearing Spirits are sometimes reported to be in their Frolicks and they presume that Souls departed never revisâ—… the free and open Regions which confidence I know nothing to justifie For since good Men in their state of separation are said to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why the wicked may not be supposed to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the worst sense of the word I know nothing to help me to imagine And if it be so supposed that the Imps of Witches are sometimes wicked Spirits of our own Kind and Nature and possibly the same that have been Sorcerers and Witches in this Life This Supposal may give a fairer and more probable account of many of the Actions of Sorcery and Witchcraft than the other Hypothesis that they are always Devils And to this Conjecture Pleadventure to subjoin another which also hath its probability viz. 3. That 't is not impossible but that the Familiars of Witches are a vile kind of Spirits of a very inferiour Constitution and Nature and none of those that were once of the highest Hierarchy now degencrated into the Spirits we call Devils The common division of Spirits is in my Opinion much too general and why may we not think there is as great a variety of Intellectual Creatures in the Invisible World as of Animals in the Visible And that all the Superiour yea and Inferiour Regions have their several kinds of Spirits differing in their natural Perfections as well as in the Kinds and Degrees of their Depravities Which if we suppose 't is very probable that those of the basest and meanest Orders are they who submit to the mention'd Servilities And thus the Sagess and grandeur of the Prince of Darkness need not be brought in question on this Occasion IV. BVt IV. the Opinion of Witches seems to some to accuse Providence and to suggest that it hath exposed Innocents to the fury and malice of revengeful Fiends yea and supposeth those most obnoxious of whom we might most reasonably expect a more special care and protection most of the cruel practices of those presum'd Instruments of Hell being upon Children who as they least deserve to be deserted by that Providence that superintends all things so they most need its Guardian Influence To this so specious an Objection I have these things to answer 1. Providence is an unfathomable Depth and if we should not believe the Phaenomena of our Senses before we can reconcile them to our Notions of Providence we must be grosser Scepticks than ever yet were extant The miseries of the present Life the unequal distributions of Good and Evil the ignorance and barbarity of the greatest part of Mankind the fatal disadvantages we are all under and the hazard we run of being eternally miserable and undone these I say are things that can hardly be made consistent with that Wisdom and Goodness that we are sure hath made and mingled it self with all things And yet we believe there is a beauty and harmony and goodness in that Providence though we cannot unriddle it in particular Instances nor by reason of our ignorance and imperfection clear it from contradicting Appearances and consequently we ought not to deny the being of Witches and Apparitions because they will create us some difficulties in our Notions of Providence 2. Those that believe that Infants are Heirs of Hell and Children of the Devil as soon as they are disclosed to the World cannot certainly offer such an Objection for what is a little trifling pain of a moment to those eternal Tortures to which if they die as soon as they are born according to the tenour of this Doctrine they are everlastingly exposed But however the case stands as to that 't is certain 3. That Providence hath not secur'd them from other violences they are obnoxious to from cruelty and accident and yet we accuse It not when a whole Townful of Innocents fall a Victim to the rage and ferity of barbarous Executioners in Wars and Massacres To which I add 4. That 't is likely the mischief is not so often done by the evil Spirit immediately but by the malignant influence of the Sorceress whose power of hurting consists in the fore-mention'd Ferment which is infused into her by the Familiar So that I am apt to think there may be a power of real Fascination in the Witches Eyes and Imaginations by which for the most part she acts upon tender Bodies Nescio quis teneros oculus For the Pestilential Spirits being darted by a spightful and vigorous Imagination from the Eye and meeting with those that are weak and passive in the Bodies which they enter will not fail to infect them with anoxious Quality that makes dangerous and strange Alterations in the Person invaded by this poisonous Influence which way of acting by subtil and invisible Instruments is ordinary and familiar in all natural Efficiencies And 't is now past question that Nature for the most part acts by subtil Streams and Aporrhaea's of Minute Particles which pass from one Body to another Or however that be this kind of Agency is as conceivable as any of those Qualities which our Ignorance hath called Sympathy and Antipathy the reality of which we doubt not though the manner of Action be unknown Yea the thing I speak of is as easie to be apprehended as how Infection should pass in certain tenuious Streams through the Air from one House to another or as how the biting of a mad Dog should fill all the Blood and Spirits with a venomous and malign Ferment the application of the Vertue doing the same in our Case as that of Contact doth in this Yea some kinds of Fascination are perform'd in this grosser and more sensible way as by striking giving Apples and the
policy and menages of the Instruments of Darkness are to us altogether unknown and as much in the dark as their Natures Mankind being no more acquainted with the Reasons and Methods of Action in the other World than poor Cottagers and Mechanicks are with the Intrigues of Government and Reasons of State Yea peradventure 2. 't is one of the great Designs as 't is certainly the Interest of those wicked Agents and Machinators industriously to hide from us their influences and ways of acting and to work as near as is possible incognito upon which supposal 't is easie to conceive a reason why they most commonly work by and upon the weak and ignorant who can make no cunning Observations or tell credible Tales to detect their Artifice Besides 3. 't is likely a strong Imagination that cannot be weaken'd or disturb'd by a busie and subtil Ratiocination is a necessary requisite to those wicked Performances without doubt an heightned and obstinate Fancy hath a great influence upon impressible Spirits yea and as I have conjectur'd before on the more passive and susceptible Bodies And I am very apt to believe that there are as real Communications and Intercourses between our Spirits as there are between Material Agents which secret Influences though they are unknown in their Nature and ways of acting yet they are sufficiently felt in their Effects For Experience attests that some by the very majesty and greatness of their Spirits discover'd by nothing but a certain noble Air that accompanies them will bear down others less great and generous and make them sneak before them and some by I know not what stupifying vertue will tie up the Tongue and confine the Spirits of those who are otherwise brisk and voluble Which thing supposed the influences of a Spirit possess'd of an active and enormous Imagination may be malign and fatal where they cannot be resisted especially when they are accompanied by those poisonous Reaks that the Evil Spirit breaths into the Sorceress which likely are shot out and applyed by a Fancy heightned and prepared by Melancholy and Discontent And thus we may conceive why the Melancholick and Envious are used upon such occasions and for the same reason the Ignorant since Knowledge checks and controuls Imagination and those that abound much in the Imaginative Faculties do not usually exceed in the Rational And perhaps 4. the Daemon himself useth the Imagination of the Witch so qualified for his purpose even in those Actions of mischief which are more properly his for it is most probable that Spirits act not upon Bodies immediately and by their naked Essence but by means proportionate and sutable Instruments that they use upon which account likely 't is so strictly required that the Sorceress should belive that so her Imagination might be more at the Devotion of the mischievous Agent And for the same reason also Ceremonies are used in Inchantments viz. for the â—…egetting this Diabolical Faith and heightning the Fancy to a degree of strength and vigour sufficient to make it a fit Instrument for the design'd performance These I think are Reasons of likelihood and probability why the Hellish Confederates are mostly the Ignorant and the Melancholick VIII VIII THe frequent Impostures that are met with in this kind beget in some a belief that all such Relations are Forgeries and Tales and if we urge the evidence of a Story for the belief of Witches or Apparitions they will produce two as seemingly strong and plausible which shall conclude in Mistake or Design inferring thence that all others are of the same quality and credit But such Arguers may please to consider 1. That a single Relation for an Affirmative sufficiently confirmed and attested is worth a thousand Tales of forgery and imposture from whence an Universal Negative cannot be concluded So that though all the Objector's Stories be true and an hundred times as many more such Deceptions yet one Relation wherein no fallacy or fraud could be suspected for our Affirmative would spoil any Conclusion could be erected on them And 2. It seems to me a belief sufficiently bold and precarious that all these Relations of Forgery and Mistake should be certain and not one among all those which attest the Affirmative Reality with Circumstances as good as could be expected or wish'd should be true but all fabulous and vain Certainly they have no reason to object Credulity to the Assertors of Sorcery and Witchcraft that can swallow so large a Morsel And I desire such Objectors to consider 3. Whether it be fair to infer that because there are some Cheats and Impostors that therefore there are no Realities Indeed frequency of deceit and fallacy will warrant a greater care and caution in examining and scrupulosity and shiness of assent to things whereing fraud hath been practiced or may in the least degree be suspected But to conclude because that an old Woman's Fancy abused her or some knavish Fellows put tricks upon the ignorant and timorous that therefore whole Assizes have been a thousand times deceived in judgement upon Matters of Fact and numbers of sober Persons have been forsworn in things wherein Perjury could not advantage them I say such Inferences are as void of Reason as they are of Charity and good Manners IX IX IT may be suggested further That it cannot be imagin'd what design the Devil should have in making those solemn Compacts since Persons of such dehauch'd and irreclaimable Dispositions as those with whom he is supposed to confederate are pretty securely his antecedently to the Bargain and cannot be more so by it since they cannot put their Souls out of possibility of the Divine Grace but by the Sin that is unpardonable or if they could so dispose and give away themselves it will to some seem very unlikely that a great and mighty Spirit should oblige himself to such observances and keep such a-do to secure the Soul of a silly Body which 't were odds but it would be His though He put himself to no further trouble than that of his ordinary Temptations To which Suggestions 't were enough to say that 't is sufficient if the thing be well prov'd though the Design be not known and to argue negatively à fine is very unconclusive in such Matters The Laws and Affairs of the other World as hath been intimated are vastly differing from those of our Regions and therefore 't is no wonder we cannot judge of their Designs when we know nothing of their Menages and so little of their Natures The ignorant looker-on can't imagine what the Limner means by those seemingly rude Lines and Scrawls which he intends for the Rudiments of a Picture and the Figures of Mathematick Operation are non-sense and dashes at a venture to one un-instructed in Mechanicks We are in the dark to one anothers Purposes and Intendments and there are a thousand Intrigues in our little Matters which will not presently confess their Design even to sagacious Inquisitors And therefore 't
Analogy of Nature which useth not to make precipitious leaps from one thing to another but usually proceeds by orderly steps and gradations whereas were there no order of Beings between Us who are so deeply plunged into the grossest Matter and pure unbodied Spirits 't were a mighty jump in Nature Since then the greatest part of the World consists of the finer portions of Matter and our own Souls are immediately united unto these 't is exceeding probable that the nearer orders of Spirits are vitally join'd to such Bodies and so Nature by degrees ascending still by the more refin'd and subtile Matter gets at last to the pure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or immaterial Minds which the Platonists made the highest Order of Created Beings But of this I have discoursed elsewhere and have said thus much of it at present because it will enable me to add another Reason of the unfrequency of Apparitions and Compacts viz. 3. Because 't is very likely that these Regions are very unsutable and disproportion'd to the frame and temper of their Senses and Bodies so that perhaps the Courser Spirits can no more bear the Air of our World than Bats and Owls can the brightest Beams of Day Nor can the Purer and Better any more endure the noysom Steams and poisonous Reeks of this Dunghil Earth than the Delicate can bear a Confinement in nasty Dungeons and the foul squalid Caverns of uncomfortable Darkness So that 't is no more wonder that the better Spirits no oftner appear than that Men are not more frequently in the Dark Hollows under-ground Nor is 't any more strange that evil Spirits so rarely visit us than that Fishes do not ordinarily fly in the Air as 't is said one sort of them doth or that we see not the Batt daily fluttering in the Beams of the Sun And now by the help of what I have spoken under this Head I am provided with some things wherewith to disable another Objection which I thus propose XI XI IF there be such an intercourse between Evil Spirits and the Wicked How comes it about that there is no correspondence between Good Angels and the Vertuous since without doubt these are as desirous to propagate the Spirit and Designs of the Vpper and better World as those are to promote the Interest of the Kingdom of Darkness Which way of arguing is still from our Ignorance of the State and Government of the other World which must be confest and may without prejudice to the Proposition I defend But particularly I say 1. That we have ground enough to believe that Good Spirits do interpose in yea and govern our Affairs For that there is a Providence reaching from Heaven to Earth is generally acknowledg'd but that this supposeth all things to be order'd by the immediate influence and interposal of the Supreme Deity some think is not very Philosophical to suppose since if we judge by the Analogy of the Natural World all things we see are carried on by the Ministery of Second Causes and Intermediate Agents And it doth not seem so Magnificent and Becoming an apprehension of the Supreme Numen to fancy his immediate Hand in every trivial Management But 't is exceeding likely to conjecture that much of the Government of us and our Affairs is committed to the better Spirits with a due subordination and subserviency to the Will of the chief Rector of the Universe And 't is not absurd to believe that there is a Government that runs from Highest to Lowest the better and more perfect orders of Being still ruling the inferiour and less perfect So that some one would fancy that perhaps the Angels may manage us as we do the Creatures that God and Nature have placed under our Empire and Dominion But however that is That God rules the Lower World by the Ministery of Angels is very consonant to the Sacred Oracles Thus Deut. 32. 8 9. When the Most High divided the Nations their Inheritance when he separated the Sons of Adam he set the Bounds of the People 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the number of the Angels of God as the Septuagint renders it the Authority of which Translation is abundantly credited and asserted by its being quoted in the New Testament without notice of the Hebrew Text even there where it differs from it as Learned Men have observ'd We know also that Angels were very familiar with the Patriarchs of old and Jacob's Ladder is a Mystery which imports their ministring in the Affairs of the Lower World Thus Origen and others understand that to be spoken by the Presidential Angels Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let us go Like the Voice heard in the Temple before the taking of Jerusalem by Titus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And before Nebuchadnezzar was sent to learn Wisdom and Religion among the Beasts He sees a Watcher according to the LXX an Angel and an Holy One come down from Heaven Dan. 4. 13. who pronounceth the sad Decree against Him and calls it the Decree of the Watchers who very probably were the Guardian Genii of of Himself and his Kingdom And that there are particular Angels that have the special Rule and Government of particular Kingdoms Provinces Cities yea and of Persons I know nothing that can make improbable The instance is notorious in Daniel of the Angels of Persia and Graecia that hindred the other that was engaged for the Concerns of Judaea yea our Saviour himself tells us that Children have their Angels and the Congregation of Disciples supposed that St. Peter had his Which things if they be granted the good Spirits have not so little to do with Us and our Matters as is generally believed And perhaps it would not be absurd if we referr'd many of the strange Thwarts and unexpected Events the Disappointments and lucky Coincidences that befal us the unaccountable Fortunes and Successes that attend some lucky Men and the unhappy Fates that dog others that seem born to be miserable the Fame and Favour that still waits on some without any conceivable Motive to allure it and the general neglect of others more deserving whose worth is not acknowledg'd I say these and such-like odd things may with the greatest probability be resolv'd into the Conduct and Menages of those Invisible Supervisors that preside over and govern our Affairs But if they so far concern themselves in our Matters how is it that they appear not to maintain a visible and confest Correspondence with some of the better Mortals who are most fitted for their Communications and their Influence To which I have said some things already when I accounted for the unfrequency of Apparitions and I now add what I intend for another return to the main Objection viz. 2. That the Apparition of Good Spirits is not needful for the Designs of the better World what-ever such may be for the Interest of the other For we have had the
at large by such Hellish Covenants and Combinations since thereby they confirm and harden their Hearts against God and put themselves at greater distance from his Grace and his Spirit give the deepest Wound to Conscience and resolve to wink against all its Light and Convictions throw a Bar in the way of their own Repentance and lay a Train for Despair of Mercy These certainly are sure ways of being undone and the Devil we see hath great Interest in a Project the success of which is so attended And we know he made the Assault de facto upon our Saviour when he tempted him to fall down and worship So that this Learned Author hath but little Reason to object 3. That to endeavour such an express Covenant is contrary to the Interests of Hell which indeed are this way so mightily promoted And whereas he suggests that a thing so horrid is like to startle Conscience and awaken the Soul to Consideration and Repentance I Reply That indeed considering Man in the general as a Rational Creature acted by Hopes and Fears and sensible of the Joys and Miseries of another World one would expect it should be so But then if we cast our Eyes upon Man as really he is sunk into Flesh and present Sense darkned in his Mind and governed by his Imagination blinded by his Passions and besotted by Sin and Folly hardned by evil Customs and hurried away by the Torrent of his Inclinations and Desires I say looking on Man in this miserable state of Evil 't is not incredible that he should be prevailed upon by the Tempter and his own Lusts to act at a wonderful rate of Madness and continue unconcerned and stupid in it intent upon his present Satisfactions without sense or consideration of the dreadfulness and danger of his Condition and by this I am furnished also to meet a fourth Objection of our Author's viz. 4. That 't is not probable upon the Witches part that they will be so desperate to renounce God and eternal Happiness and so everlastingly undo their Bodies and Souls for a short and trivial Interest which way of arguing will only infer That Mankind acts sometimes at prodigious degrees of brutishness and actually we see it in the Instances of every day There is not a Lust so base and so contemptible but there are those continually in our Eyes that feed it with the Sacrifice of their Eternity and their Souls and daring Sinners rush upon the blackest Vilanies with so little remorse or sense as if it were their design to prove that they have nothing left them of that whereby they are Men. So that nought can be inferr'd from this Argument but that Humane Nature is incredibly degenerate and the vileness and stupidity of Men is really so great that things are customary and common which one could not think possible if he did not hourly see them And if Men of Liberal Education and Acute Reason that know their Duty and their Danger are driven by their Appetites with their Eyes open upon the most fatal Rocks and make all the haste they can from their God and their Happiness If such can barter their Souls for Trifles and sell Everlasting for a Moment sport upon the brink of a Precipice and contemn all the Terrors of the future dreadful day why should it then be incredible that a brutish vile Person sotted with Ignorance and drunk with Malice mindless of God and unconcerned about a future Being should be perswaded to accept of present delightful Gratifications without duly weighing the desperate Condition Thus I suppose I have answered also the Arguments of this Great Man against the Covenants of Witches and since a Person of such Sagacity and Learning hath no more to say against what I defend and another of the same Character the ingenious Dr. Parker who directed me to him reckons these the strongest things that can be objected in the Case I begin to arrive to an higher degree of Confidence in this belief and am almost inclined to fancy that there is little more to be said to purpose which may not by the improvement of my Considerations be easily answered and I am yet the more fortified in my Conceit because I have since the former Edition of this Book sent to several Acute and Ingenious Persons of my Acquaintance to beg their Objections or those they have heard from others against my Discourse or Relations that I might consider them in this But I can procure none save only those few I have now discuss'd most of my Friends telling me That they have not met with any that need or deserve my notice By all this it is evident that there were Witches in Ancient Times under the Dispensation of the Law and that there were such in the Times of the Gospel also will not be much more difficult to make good I had a late occasion to say something about this in a Letter to a Person of the highest Honour from which I shall now borrow some things to my present purpose I Say then II. That there were Compacts with Evil Spirits in those times also is me-thinks intimated strongly in that saying of the Jews concerning our Saviour That he cast out Devils by Beelzebub In his return to which he denies not the Supposition or possibility of the thing in general but clears himself by an appeal to the Actions of their own Children whom they would not tax so severely And I cannot very well understand why those times should be priviledg'd from Witchcraft and Diabolical Compacts more than they were from Possessions which we know were then more frequent for ought appears to the contrary than ever they were before or since But besides this There are Intimations plain enough in the Apostle's Writings of the Being of Sorcery and Witchcraft St. Paul reckons Witchcraft next Idolatry in his Catalogue of the Works of the Flesh Gal. 5. 20. and the Sorcerers are again joyn'd with Idolaters in that sad Denunciation Rev. 21. 8. And a little after Rev. 22. 15. they are reckon'd again among Idolaters Murderers and those others that are without And me-thinks the Story of Sâ—…non Magus and his Diabolical Oppositions of the Gospel in its beginnings should afford clear Conviction To all which I add this more general Consideration 3. That though the New Testament had mention'd nothing of this Matter yet its silence in such Cases is not Argumentative Our Saviour spake as he had occasion and the thousandth part of what he did or said is not Recorded as one of his Historians intimates He said nothing of those large unknown Tracts of America nor gave any intimations of as much as the Existence of that Numerous People much less did he leave Instructions about their Conversion He gives no account of the Affairs and State of the other World but only that general one of the Happiness of some and the Misery of others He made no discovery of the Magnalia of Art or Nature no
and Illusions To make a due return to this we must consider a great and difficult Problem which is What is a Real Miracle And for answer to this weighty Question I think 1. That it is not the strangeness or unaccountableness of the thing done simply from whence we are to conclude a Miracle For then we are so to account of all the Magnalia of Nature and all the Mysteries of those honest Arts which we do not understand Nor 2. is this the Criterion of a Miracle That it is an Action or Event beyond all Natural Powers for we are ignorant of the Extent and Bounds of Nature's Sphere and Possibilities And if this were the character and essential Mark of a Miracle we could not know what was so except we could determine the extent of natural causalities and fix their Bounds and be able to say to Nature Hitherto canst thou go and no further And he that makes this his measure whereby to judge a Miracle is himself the greatest Miracle of Knowledge or Immodesty Besides though an Effect may transcend really all the Powers of meer Nature yet there is a world of Spirits that must be taken into our Account And as to them also I say 3. Every thing is not a Miracle that is done by Agents Supernatural There is no doubt but that Evil Spirits can make wonderful Combinations of Natural Causes and perhaps perform many things immediately which are prodigious and beyond the longest Line of Nature but yet these are not therefore to be called Miracles for they are Saecred Wonders and suppose the Power to be Divine But how shall the Power be known to be so when we so little understand the Capacities and extent of the Abilities of Lower Agents The Answer to this Question will discover the Criterion of Miracles which must be supposed to have all the former Particulars viz. They are unaccountable beyond the Powers of meer Nature and done by Agents Supernatural And to these must be superadded 4. That they have peculiar Circumstances that speak them of a Divine Original Their mediate Authors declare them to be so and they are always Persons of Simplicity Truth and Holiness void of Ambition and all secular Designs They seldom use Ceremonies or Natural Applications and yet surmount all the Activities of known Nature They work those wonders not to raise admiration or out of the vanity to be talkt of but to seal and confirm some Divine Doctrine or Commission in which the Good and Happiness of the World is concern'd I say by such Circumstances as these Wonderful Actions are known to be from a Divine Cause and that makes and distinguisheth a Miracle And thus I am prepared for an Answer to the Objection to which I make this brief return That though Witches by their Confederate Spirit do those odd and astonishing things we believe of them yet are they no Miracles there being evidence enough from the badness of their Lives and the ridiculous Ceremonies of their Performances from their malice and mischievous Designs that the Power that works and the end for which those things are done is not Divine but Diabolical And by singular Providence they are not ordinarily permitted as much as to pretend to any new Sacred Discoveries in Matters of Religion or to act any thing for confirmation of Doctrinal Impostures So that whether Miracles are ceased or not these are none And that such Miracles as are only strange and unaccountable Performances above the common Methods of Art or Nature are not ceas'd we have a late great evidence in the famous GREATREX concerning whom it will not be impertinent to add the following account which I had in a Letter from Dr. G. R. Lord Bishop of D. in the Kingdom of Ireland a Person of singular Piery and Vertue and a great-Philosopher He is pleased thus to write THe great discourse now at the Coffee-Houses and every-where is about M.G. the famous Irish Stroker concerning whom it is like you expect an account from me He undergoes various Censures here some take him to be a Conjurer and some an Impostor but others again adore him as an Apostle I confess I think the Man is free from all Design of a very agreeable Conversation not addicted to any Vice nor to any Sect or Party but is I believe a sincere Protestant I was three weeks together with him at my Lord Conwayes and saw him I think lay his hands upon a thousand Persons and really there is something in it more than ordinary but I am convinc'd it is not miraculous I have seen pains strangely fly before his hand till he hath chased them out of the Body Dimness cleared and Deafness cured by his Touch twenty Persons at several times in Fits of the Falling-Sickness were in two or three minutes brought to themselves so as to tell where their pain was and then he hath pursued it till he hath driven it out at some extream part Running Sores of the Kings-Evil dried up and Kernels brought to a Suppuration by his hand grievous Sores of many months date in few dayes healed Obstructions and Stoppings removed Cancerous Knots in the Breast dissolved c. But yet I have many Reasons to perswade me that nothing of all this is Miraculous He pretends not to give Testimony to any Doctrine the manner of his Operation speaks it to be natural the Cure seldom succeeds without reiterated Touches his Patients often relapse he fails frequently he can do nothing where there is any decay in Nature and many Distempers are not at all obedient to his Touch. So that I confess I refer all his Vertue to his particular Temper and Complexion and I take his Spirits to be a kind of Elixir and Vniversal Ferment and that he cures as Dr. M. expresseth it by a Sanative Contagion This Sir was the first Account of the Healer I had from that Reverend Person which with me signifies more than the Attestations of multitudes of ordinary Reporters and no doubt but it will do so likewise with all that know that excellent Bishop's singular Integrity and Judgment But besides this upon my inquiry into some other Particulars about this Matter I received these further Informations from the same Learned Hand As for M.G. what Opinion he hath of his own Gift and how he came to know it I Answer He hath a different apprehension of it from yours and mine and certainly believing it to be an immediate Gift from Heaven and 't is no wonder for he is no Philosopher And you will wonder less when you hear how he came to know it as I have often received it from his own Mouth About three or four years ago he had a strong impulse upon his Spirit that continually pursued him from what-ever he was about at his Business or Devotion alone or in company that spake to him by this inward Suggestion I have given thee the Gift of Curing the Evil. This Suggestion was so importunate that he
Witches because it suggests palpable and current Evidence of our Immortality For though we have reasonable Evidence enough from the Attributes of God the Phaenomena of Providence and the Nature of our Souls to convince any but those who will stupidly believe that they shall die like Beasts that they may live like them Yet the Philosophick Arguments that are produced for the Article though very cogent are many of them speculative and deep requiring so great an attention and sagacity that they take no hold upon the whifling Spirits that are not used to Consider nor upon the common fort that cannot reach such Heights But they are both best convinced by the Proofs that come nearest the Sense which indeed strike our Minds fullest and leave the most lasting Impressions whereas high Speculations being more thin and subtile easily slide off even from Understandings that are most capable to receive them This is one of the Main Reasons that engaged me on this Argument because it affords considerable Evidence of that great Truth which every Christian ought to be solicitous to have made good And really if we compute like Men and do not suffer our selves to be abused by the Flatteries of Sense and the deceitful Gayeties that steal us away from God and from our selves there is nothing can render the thoughts of this odd Life tollerable but the expectation of another And Wise Men have said That they would not have a Moment if they thought they were not to live again This perhaps some may take to be the discontented Paradox of a Melancholick vext and mean Condition that is pinched by the straightness of Fortune and envies the Heights of others Felicity and Grandeur But by that time those that judge so have spent the Heats of Frolick Youth and have past over the several Stages of Vanity when they come to sit down and make sober reflections upon their Pleasures and Pursuits and sum up the Accompt of all that is with them and before them I doubt not but their considering Thoughts will make Solomon's Conclusion and find that 't is but a misery to live if we were to live for nothing else So that if the content of the present Life were all I were to have for the hopes of Immortality I should even upon that account be very unwilling to believe that I was mortal For certainly the Pleasures that result from the Thoughts of another World in those that not only see it painted in their Imaginations but feel it begun in their Souls are as far beyond all the titillations of Sense as a real lasting Happiness is beyond the delusive Images of a Dream And therefore they that think to secure the injoyment of their Pleasures by the infamy of our Natures in the overthrow of our future Hopes indeavour to damm up the Fountain of the fullest and cleanest Delights and seek for limped Waters in the Sinks and Puddles of the Streets But this would afford Matter for another Discourse into which I must not digress but here make an end of this Anti-fanatical Religion AND Free Philosophy In a Continuation of the NEW ATLANTIS Essay VII Essay VII The Summe of My Lord Bacon's NEW ATLANTIS WE parted from Peru with design to pass to China and Japan by the South Sea and after we had been long driven up and down by contrary Winds and wandred in the greatest Wilderness of Waters in the World without the least hopes of making any Land in that immense undiscover'd Abyss that was beyond both the Old World and the New it pleased God to bring us into the Harbour of a most Angelical Country that lay hid in the greatest Ocean in the Universe We found there a People of singular Goodness and Humanity who received us with most affectionate kindness and provided for us with a Parent-like Care and Indulgence We were lodg'd in a fair Pile of Buildings call'd the Strangers House appointed for such Occasions and there we had all things both for our Whole and Sick that belonged to Charity and Mercy The Governour of that House a most obliging and benign Person acquainted some of our number with divers remarkable Matters concerning the Kingdom of BENSALEM so it was call'd Particularly with the strange entrance and beginning of Christianity there and the excellent Foundation of SOLOMON's House a Royal Society erected for Enquiries into the Works of God After we had been there a little while one of the Fathers of that House came to the Town where we were He entred in State and within few days having had notice of us he order'd that one of our Company should be brought to him The rest chose me to wait on the great Man which I did and was receiv'd by him with much goodness He gave me a particular account of the Foundation of Solomon's House and the State of Philosophy in Bensalem granting permission it should be declared to the World Accordingly it was publisht by Verulamius in his History call'd the NEW ATLANTIS and thus far his Account went But now I shall enter upon a Relation of things of which yet there hath been no News from Bensalem On the third day after I had been with the Father of Solomon's House a Servant came to me from the Governor of ours just as we had dined to desire me to spend the Afternoon with him I received the invitation with a chearful respect and went immediately with the Officer to attend his Lordship He led me through the Garden of our House into another the largest and most beautiful I ever saw It was encompast with a lofty Stone-Wall The Stone were blue naturally streakt with green It had Mounts Grotto's and Summer-Houses very pleasant and magnificent The Walks were large planted with Ever-greens and the Fruit-Trees of all sorts that we have and many that we have not set in the old Quincuncial Lozenge Figures after the manner of the ancient hanging Gardens of Babylon It had Wildernesses Ponds Aviaries and all things else that can render such a place agreeable I could have dwelt in this Paradise but the Servant led me on into a square Cloyster'd Court having handsome Buildings on all sides fenced on the South with a tall Grove of Cedar The Cloysters were paved with red and green Marble and supported with pollisht Pillars of a speckled Stone very clear and shining Hence we went into a fair spacious Hall adorned with large Maps of all sorts here were some Servants decently clad they were playing at Chess as soon as I entred they arose and saluted me very civilly with a modest sweetness in their looks that seem'd very obliging My Guide conducted me up Stairs into a noble Gallery hung with most excellent Pictures of Famous Men and Philosophers and at which I was much surprized of some that I had seen He left me here to give the Governor notice that I was come and presently I saw him enter with a mild chearfulness mixt with a manly gravity in his
well learn'd to apply the Doctrines they had been taught that he that should endeavour to undeceive them was sure to hear what an Enemy this Reason this Carnal Reason this Vain Philosophy was to Free Grace and Faith and how little able to judge of those Rich those Precious those Spiritual Enjoyments 'T was time now in such an Age as this to assert the sober use of Reason and to rescue Religion by it And They did this happily and shamed all false pretences to the Spirit shewing That there was nothing but Nature and Complexion in the Illuminations Incomes Raptures Prophesies New Lights fluency of Expression mysteriousness of Phrase and other wonderful things of the Enthusiasts which were ignorantly taken to be Divine Communications to the great abuse of Religion and the Souls of Men Perceiving I say that this dangerous Phanatick Spirit was the evil Genius of the Age they bent all their force against it and detected the imposture and labour'd zealously to disabuse the credulous People who were exceeding apt to be taken with such glorious Nothings But of this I shall have another occasion to speak more ANd because the wildness of Enthusiasm and reproaches of Reason had expos'd Christianity it self to the Suspicions of some and Contempts of others as if it were a precarious unreasonable thing that depended only upon Mens Fancies Therefore here They labour'd also with very pious pains to demonstrate the Truth and Reasonableness of the Christian Religion The Beeing of God The Immortality of Humane Souls And Authority of Scripture which they did with much Zeal and much Judgment And these Doctrines were too seasonable and necessary in that Age in which the most glorious Professors laid the whole stress of Religion upon Fancies and thereby undermin'd the Foundations of Faith and Truth and by many Vanities and endless Divisions had made so many Infidels and unhappily dispos'd so many others to go the same way Against these therefore They bent their strength and rescued multitudes especially those of the springing Generation from the hands both of the Enthusiast and the Infidel Answering and discrediting all the new Pretensions and Objections both of the one and the other And their Endeavours here were very needful because the Ancient Books of those kinds were despis'd and neglected by the concern'd Parties and they were not so suitable to the Guize and Fashion of our Age and many Exceptions were started a-new and many other vain things boasted of to which those elder Discourses did not apply their force But these new Defenders of the Christian Truths met them all and spake the things that were suitable as well as those that were strong and true By these means the reasonable sober Spirit began to propagate and the Enthusiast who took notice of it and knew it would destroy his Glorious Imaginations rais'd a loud clamour against these Men as Socinians and advancers of Proud Reason above Free Grace and Faith From this envious and foolish Charge they sufficiently justified themselves by several Sermons and publick Determinations in their Academical Solemnities against the chief Principles of Socinianism sirenously asserting the Deity of Christ and Immortality of Humane Souls c. and vigorously opposing the main Socinian Tenents In consequence of which they shew'd the sure and safe ways to destroy those Opinions without hurting the Catholick Doctrines which many had wounded to do them spight and in this Design some of them appeared in publick with great success HAving thus asserted the Honour of our Faculties and maintain'd the Fundamental Interests of Religion They took notice what unworthy and dishonourable Opinions were publish'd abroad concerning God to the disparagement of all his Attributes and discouragement of vertuous Endeavours and great trouble and dejection of many pious Minds and therefore here they appear'd also to assert and vindicate the Divine Goodness and love of Men in its freedom and extent against those Doctrines that made his Love Fondness and his Justice Cruelty and represented God as the Eternal Hater of the far greatest part of his reasonable Creatures and the designer of their Ruine for the exaltation of meer Power and arbitrary Will Against these sowr and dismal Opinions They stood up stoutly in a time when the Assertors of the Divine Purity and Goodness were persecuted bitterly with nick-names of Reproach and popular Hatred They gave sober Accounts of the Nature of God and his Attributes suitable to those Declarations of himself he hath made by the Scriptures and our Reasons They shew'd continually how impossible it was that Infinite Goodness should design or delight in the misery of his Creatures That God never acts by meer arbitrary Will but by a Will directed by the Perfections of his Nature That to act arbitrarily is Imperfection and Impotence That he is tyed by the excellency of his Beeing to the Laws of Right and Just and that there are independent Relations of True and Good among things antecedent to all Will and Vnderstanding which are indispensible and eternal That Goodness is the Fountain of all his Communications and Actions ad extra That to glorifie God is rightly to apprehend and celebrate his Perfections by our Words and by our Actions That Goodness is the chief moral Perfection That Power without Goodness is Tyranny and Wisdom without it is but Craft and Subtilty and Justice Cruelty when destitute of Goodness That God is not pleased with our Praises otherwise than as they are the suitable Actings of his Creatures and tend to make them love him in order to their being happy in him By such Principles as These which are wonderfully fertile and big of many great Truths they undermined and from the bottom overthrew the fierce and churlish Reprobatarian Doctrines And those Truths they proved from the Scripture and the Nature of God and Reason of Things with all possible clearness and strength of Evidence OBserving further That Faith was preach'd up as the whole of Religion and that represented variously phantastickly and after an unintelligible manner drest up in Metaphors and Phrases and dangerous Notions that prescinded it from Good Works and made them unnecessary Here they appeared also and detected the vanity and canting of this Airy Divinity Stating the Notion of Faith plainly and clearly and stripping it out of its Chymerical cloathing Teaching That Faith in the general is the Belief of a Proposition affirm'd and Divine Faith the belief of a Divine Testimony and Evangelical Saving Faith such a Belief as works on the Will and Affections and produceth the Works of Righteousness So that the Faith that is said to justifie in the forensick sense is a complex thing and takes in an Holy Life and all the Graces of the Spirit which are call'd by the name of Faith because that is the Root of all the rest Thus they asserted the necessity of a real inward Righteousness against the Solifidian and Antinomian Heresies which had poison'd the whole Body of the then Current
ESSAYS ON SEVERAL Important Subjects IN PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION By JOSEPH GLANVILL Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty and Fellow of the R. S. Imprimatur Martii 27.1675 Thomas Tomkins LONDON Printed by J. D. for John Baker at the Three Pidgeons and Henry Mortlock at the Phoenix in St. Pauls Church-Yard 1676. ESSAYS VIZ. I. Against CONFIDENCE in PHILOSOPHY II. Of SCEPTICISM and CERTAINTY III. MODERN IMPROVEMENTS of Knowledg IV. The USEFULNESS of PHILOSOPHY to THEOLOGY V. The Agreement of REASON and RELIGION VI. Against SADDUCISM in the matter of WITCHCRAFT VII ANTIFANATICK Theologie and FREE Philosophy To the most Honourable HENRY Lord Marquess and Earl of Worcester Earl of Glamorgan Lord HERBERT Of Chepstow Ragland and Goure Lord President of Wales Lord Lieutenant of the Counties of Glocester Hereford Monmouth and Bristol Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter And one of the Lords of His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council c. MY LORD ALthough perhaps in strictness of judging there is somewhat of Impertinency in such Addresses yet Custome hath obtain'd licence for us Writers thus to express our acknowledgments of favours and to give publick testimonies to the Deserts of excellent Persons Your Lordship affords me plenty of subject for both these and I humbly crave your leave to use the Liberty that is granted without â—…ensure â—…n such occasions to declare part of my resentments of them There is nothing more substantial or valuable in Greatness than the power it gives to oblige for by doing benefits we in some measure are like to Him who is the Lover of Men and causeth his Sun to shine upon the good and upon the evil Nor doth God Himself glory in the absoluteness of his Power and uncontroulableness of his Soveraign Will as he doth in the displays of his Goodness This my Lord is the right and honourable use of that Greatness he is pleased to vouchsafe unto Men and this is that which makes it amiable and truly illustrious Your Lordship knows this and are as much by Nature as by Judgment formed to live according to such measures And I think there was never Person of your Lordship's rank whose generaâ—… fashion and converfation was more suited to the sweetest and most obliging Rules of living For besides that your natural Genius hath nothing â—…aughty or rough in it nothing but what is modest gentle and agreeable your Lordships whole deportment is so affable and condescending that the benignity of your temper seems to strive for superiority over the greatness of your quality which yet it no way lessens but illustrates This is that which highly deserves and commands the love and venerations of all that have the honour and happiness to know you And you may justly challenge their devotion and highest esteem upon all other accounts that can give a great Person any title to them For your immediate descent is from a long masculine line of great Nobles and you are a Remainder of the illustrious Blood of the PLANTAGENETS What your Family hath deserv'd from the Crown the vast supplies afforded his late Majesty by that Loyal Mâ—…quess your Grand-Father and the sufferings of your House for Him do sufficiently declare to the World But your Lordship hath no need that Arguments of Honour and respect should be fetâ—…ht from your Progenitors the highest are due to your personal Vertues and that way oâ—… living whereby you give exaâ—…ple to Men of quality and shew how Honour and Interest is to be upheld For you spend not your time and Estate in the â—…anities and Vices of the Town but live to your Country and in it after a spâ—…d and most honourable Fashion observing â—…he Magâ—…ence and Charâ—…ty of the ancient Nobility with all the Decency and Imprâ—…ements of 〈◊〉 Times And perhaps your Lâ—… â—…ay is one of the best Pâ—…ns the Aâ—… yieâ—… of a Regular greatness 〈◊〉 which grâ—… is without vanity and Nobleness without Luxury or Intemperance Where we see a vast Family without noise or confusion and the greatest â—…lenty and freedom without provocations to any Debauchery or Disorder So that your Lordship's cares and thoughts are not taken up with the little designs that usually entertain idle or vainly imployed Men but in the Service of your King and Country and conduct of your Affairs with prudence and generosity in which you not only serve the present Age but provide for the future And my Lord among the acknowledgments that are due to your Vertues I cannot but observe the care you tâ—…e for the constant daily Worship of God in your Family according to the Protestant Religion profest by the Church of England and the example your Lordship gives by your own attendance on it This is the fâ—…rest Foundation of greatness yea 't is the Crown and lustre of it And when all other magnificence is in the dust and is shrivel'd into nothing or at the best into a cold and faint remembrance the effects of this will stay by us and be our happiness for ever And all other splendors in comparison are but like the shining of â—…ten wood to the Glorys of the Sun and Stars This also is the best fence and security to our present comforts and injoyments both in respect of that temperance and soâ—…ety it produccth and chiefly on the account of the blessing of the Supream Donor who hath made it the promises of this Life as well as of that which is to come And therefore the wickedness of those that take Liberty from their Riches and worldly greatness to defie God and despise Religion is as foolish and improvident as 't is monstrous and unreasonable and those brutish Men do not render themselves more hateful for their impiety than they are despicable for their folly But I need not say this to your Lordship who are sensible of the absurdities and malignity of this vice and give not the least countenance or incouragement to it by your practice being cautious to abstain from all expressions that grate on the Honour of God as you are free from any that can give just offence unto Men For your Lordship is none of those that shoot the arrows of bitter words and set their mouths against the Heavens but your discourse and conversation is adorn'd with that modesty and decency that becomes a great Nobleman and a good Christian. My Lord I have not given you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just acknowledgments with design to â—…fie or please your Lordship I know I need your pardon for the trouble your modesty receives from them but I have done it for the sake of others because we live in an Age wherein there is scarcity of such examples I know 't is ufually indecent to commend Persons to themselves but the custome of Dedications will excuse this which even severity and ill nature cannot impeach of flattery or extravagance And as I owe this Testimony to the merits whereby you serve and oblige the Age so I should acknowledg the Obligations your
Lordship hath conferr'd on my self but this will be a great duty and business of my Life for such empty expressions as these verbal ones are very unsuitable returns for real and great favours and if ever better acknowledgments are in my power I shall still remember what I owe your Lordship I now most humbly present you with a Collection of some Essays upon subjects of importance The design of them is to lay a foundation for a good habit of thoughts both in Philosophy and Theology They were some of them written several years ago and had trial of the World in divers Editions Now they come abroad together with some things that are new reduced to such an Order as is most agreeable to my present judgment I could have added much upon such fertile and useful Arguments but I am willing to believe I have said enough for the capable and ingenious and I doubt too much for others If your Lordship shall pardon their imperfections and accept of the devotion where-with they are offer'd you it will be the greatest honour and satisfaction to My Lord Your Lordships most humble Most obliged and most intirely devoted Servant JOSEPH GLANVILL The PREFACE I Shall not trouble the Râ—… with much formality or 〈◊〉 of Prefacing but only give a brief account of the following Discourses I know it will be no plâ—…usible excuse for any of their Imperâ—…ctions to alledg that some of them were written when I wâ—… very young since they came abroad again in an Age wherein more maturity of judgment is expected But the truth is I am not grown so much wiser yet as to have alter'd any thing in the main of those conceptions If I had thought it worth the while I might have been more exact in new modelling and could perhaps have given them a turn that would have been more agreeable to some phancies but my Laziness or my Judgment made me think there was no need of that trouble The FIRST Essay against Confidence in Philosophy is quite changed in the way of Writing and in the Order Methought I was somewhat fetter'd and tied in doing it and could not express my self with that case freedom and fulness which possibly I might have commanded amid fresh thoughts Yet 't is so alâ—…'d as to be in a manner new The SECOND of Scepticism and Certainty was written when I was warm in the Consideration of those matters for the satisfaction of a particular Friend what I say was enough for his use though the Subject is capable of much more and I had inlarged on it but that I am loâ—…h to ingage further in Philosophical Arguments I have annext some of the things I said to Mr. White but the main of this Essâ—…y was never extant before The THIRD of Modâ—…rn Improvements was first a Controversie I have here given it another shape As I never begun a Quarrel so I never will continue any when I can fairly let it fall The Discourse was written violently against by one who was wholly unconcern'd The interest be pretended was the defence of his Faculty against a Passage wherein he would have me say That the ancient Physicians could not cure a Câ—…t-finger which I never affirm'd or thought But that Person it now so well known that I need say no more of him or of that Câ—…est His long studied and triumphant Animadversions have given me no reason or occasion to alter any thing in the Treatise except some few Errors of the Press over which he most â—…d He hath writtâ—… divers things against 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have kept the promise I publickly made and have never read them Besides this Antagonist the learned Dr. Meric Casaubon writ Reflections on this Essay in a Letter to Dr. Peter Du Moâ—…n who it seems had presented it to him They were Printed in â—…e year 1669 and my Answers soon after ready But considerâ—…g that the Doctor allow'd all that which was my main design â—…d only oppos'd his own mistakes and suspicious I thought fit to suppress my Reply and was the rather silent because not willing to appear in a Controversie with a Person of Fame and Learning who had treated me with so much Civility and in a way so different from that of my other Assâ—…ants I have further to advertise concerning this Essay That whereas I mention several Discourses of Mr. Boyl's as intended for the Publick 't is likely that some of them by this may be extant though my privacy and retirement hath not afforded me the notice of their publication The FOURTH Essay of the Usefulness of Philosophy to Theology was Printed under the Title of Philosophia Piaâ—… I was commanded to reprint it by a Person of Honour and great Fame for whose Learning and universal Accomplishments I have high and just venerations This put into my thoughts the design of revising of some of my other Writings and bringing them together into a small Collection which I have here done The FIFTH of the Agreement of Reason and Religion was at first a Visitation Sermon twice Printed before I have now only cast it into the form of a Discourse It contains the substance of many thoughts and anxieties about that important matter in a little compass My chief care was to state and represent the whole affair clearly which I think I have done The subject â—…b been written on by divers since who some of them have perplext the matter again others have added no one thought They have written a great deal I wish I could say to purpose I know this freedom is capable of a wrong interpretation but I am urged to it by a little vexaâ—…on that the prâ—…enders to such a subject should afford me no advantage for the improving my conceptions on it The SIXTH Essay was one of the first written and printed four times already It stands in this place because it 〈◊〉 a pâ—…rticular service Philosophy doth in securing one of the out-works of Religion The Daemon of Tedworth that was annext is ready to be Printed by it self with a further Confirmation of that certainâ—… though much opposâ—…d Relation Since the publishing of these Considerations there hath a thing been put out of the Question of Wiâ—…choraft denying there are Witches upon some of the weakest pretences I have urged and disabled Who ever reads this Essay will see that that Writer was answer'd before he gave himself the trouble to be an Author on that Subject The SEVENTH is entirely new 'T is a description of such a Genius in Theology and Philosophy as I confess I my self like and I believe some others may But I blame no Mans differenâ—… sentiment who allows the liberty of judging that himself takes I have borrowed the countenance and colour of my Lord Bacons story of which I have given the brief contents The Essay is a mixture of an Idaea and a disguised History Reader I have done now But I make thee no promise that I will not write again for I