the Father begot his Son and that the Father and the Son produced the Holy Ghost for these Emanations are necessary But the World not being a necessary Emanation of God those who see his Being the most clearly do not see evidently which are his external productions Nevertheless I do believe that the Blessed are certain that there is a World but it is because God assures them of it in making his Will known to them after a manner which is unknown to us And even we here below are certain of it because Faith teaches us that God has Created this World and that this Faith is Consonant to our Natural Judgments or to our compound Sensations when they are confirm'd by all our Senses corrected by our Memory and rectified by our Reason It is true it seems at first that the Proof or Principle of our Faith supposes there are Bodies Fides ex auditu It seems to suppose Prophets Apostles Holy Writ and Miracles But if we observe it strictly we shall find that though we only suppose appearances of Men of Prophets of Apostles of Holy Writ of Miracles c. What we have learn'd by those pretended appearances is absolutely undeniable since as I have prov'd it in divers parts of this Work God alone can represent those pretended appearances to the Mind and God is no deceiver for Faith it self supposes all this Now in the appearance of Holy Scripture and Miracles we learn that God has Created an Heaven and an Earth that the Word was made Flesh and other Truths of this kind which suppose the existence of a Created World So that it is certain by Faith that there are Bodies and thereby all those appearances become Realities I need not inlarge any farther to answer an Objection which appears too abstruse to the common sort of Men and I am of Opinion that this will suffice to satisfie all those who are not too difficult Therefore we must conclude from all this that we can and even that we ought to correct the Natural Judgments or compound perceptions which have a relation to sensible Qualities which we attribute to external Bodies or to that which we animate But as to the Natural Judgments that have a relation to the actual Existence of Bodies though we might absolutely forbear forming free Judgments agreeable to them we ought not to do it because those Natural Judgments agree perfectly with Faith Besides I have particularly made this Remark that Men should seriously reflect upon this Truth That nothing but Eternal Wisdom can inlighten us and that all the sensible knowledge in which our Body has any share is deceitful or at least is attended with that Light to which we feel our selves oblig'd to submit I am sensible that the common sort of Men will not approve these Thoughts and that according to the abundance or defect of their Animal Spirits they will either laugh or be frightned at these Arguments For the Imagination cannot indure abstract and extraordinary Truths It either looks upon them as frightful Spectres or ridiculous Phantasms But I had rather be expos'd to the raillery of strong and bold Imaginations and to the Indignation and Fear of the weak and timorous than to be wanting in what I owe to Truth and to those generous defenders of the Mind against the efforts of the Body who know how to distinguish the answers of illuminating Wisdom from the confused noise of a perplexing and seducing Imagination AN EXPLANATION OF THE Fifth Chapter of the Second Book Of Memory and Spiritual Habits I Forbear speaking of Memory and Spiritual Habits in this Chapter for several Reasons the chief of which is that we have no clear Idea of our Soul For what means have we clearly to explain the dispositions which the Operations of the Soul leave in it which dispositions are its Habits since we do hot even clearly know the Nature of the Soul It is evident that we cannot distinctly know the alterations a Being is capable of when we do not distinctly know the Nature of that Being For if for instance Men had no clear Idea of extension they would in vain endeavour to discover the Figures of it However since some are desirous I should speak upon a matter which in it self is not known to me this is the method I will observe to follow none but clear Idea's in it I suppose that God only acts in the Mind and represents the Idea's of all things to it and that when the Mind perceives any Object by a very clear and lively Idea it is because God represents that Idea to it after a very perfect manner I suppose moreover that the Will of God being absolutely consonant to Order and Justice it is sufficient to have a right to a thing to obtain it These Suppositions which are distinctly conceiv'd being made the Spiritual Memory explains it self easily for Order requiring that Persons who have often thought on some Object should the easier think on it again and have a clearer and more lively Idea of it than those who have thought but little on it the Will of God which operates continually according to Order represents to their Mind as soon as they desire it the clear and lively Idea of that Object So that according to that Explanation the Memory and other Habits of pure Intelligences consist not in a facility of operation which results from certain Modifications of their Being but from an immutable Order of God and in a Right which the Mind acquires over those things Which have already been submitted to it and the sole power of the Mind depends immediately arid only on God the force or facility which all Creatures find in their Operations being in that sense only the Efficacious Will of the Creator And I do not think we are obliged to abandon this Explanation upon the account of the ill habits of Sinners and of the Damn'd for tho' God does whatever is real and positive in the Actions of Sinners it is evident by what I have said in the first Explanation that God is not the Author of Sin However I do believe and think my self oblig'd to believe that after the action of the Soul there still remains some alterations which do dispose it to that same Action But as I know them not I cannot explain them for I have no clear Idea of my Mind in which I can discover all the Modifications it is capable of I believe by Theological Proofs and not by clear and evident ones See the Explanation on the 7th Chap. of the 2d part of the third Book that the Reason for which pure Intelligences see Objects which they have already consider'd more clearly than others is not meerly because God represents those Objects to them in a more lively and more perfect manner but because they are really better dispos'd to receive the same Action from God in them Just as the facility which some persons have acquir'd to play upon some Instruments does
God than of Bodies and when they look within themselves they discover more clearly certain Wills of God according to which he preserves all Beings than those of their best Friends or of those whom they have study'd all their life For that Union of their Mind with God and of their Will with his I mean with the Eternal Law or with the Immutable Order is an immediate direct and necessary Union and the union they have with sensible Objects being only Establish'd for the preservation of their Health and Life it only makes them know those Objects according to the relation they have to that design It is this immediate and direct Union which is only known says St. Augustin by those whose Mind is purified which enlightens us in the most secret recesses of our Reason and exhorts and moves us in the most inward part of our Heart 'T is this which teaches us what God Thinks and even what God Wills that is his Eternal Truths and Laws for no body can question our knowing some of them evidently But the union we have with our best Friends does not teach us evidently either what they think or what they will We think we know it perfectly but we are commonly mistaken when we only know it because they tell it us The Union we have by our Senses with Bodies which surround us cannot inform us neither For the relation of the Senses is never absolutely true nay it is often false in all respects according as I have explained it in this Book And therefore I say that it is more difficult than Men think to prove positively that there are Bodies notwithstanding our Senses assure us there are because Reason does not assure us of it so positively as we imagine and because it is necessary to consult it with great application to be satisfied in it But as Men are more sensible than reasonable and hearken more willingly to the Testimony of their Senses than to that of internal Truth they have always consulted their Eyes to assure themselves of the Existence of Matter without giving themselves the trouble to consult their Reason And therefore they are surprised when they are told that it is difficult to demonstrate it They think it is sufficient to open their Eyes to see that there are Bodies and in case there is any fear of being deluded they think it sufficient to draw near and to touch them after which they can hardly conceive there can be any reason to doubt of their Existence But our Eyes represent Colours to us upon the surface of Bodies and Light in the Air and in the Sun Our Ears convey Sounds to us as being dispers'd thrô the Air and Bodies which reverberate the Eccho And if we credit the Relation of the other Senses Heat will be in Fire Sweetness in Sugar Odor in Musk and all sensible qualities in the Bodies which seem to exhale or to disperse them Nevertheless it is certain by the Reasons I have alledg'd in the first Book of The Search after Truth That all those Qualifications are not out of the Soul which feels them at least it is not evident that they are in the Bodies which surround us Why then should we conclude on the bare Relation of the Senses which deceive us on all occasions that there are indeed external Bodies and even that these Bodies are like unto those we see I mean those which are the immediate Object of our Soul when we look upon any with the Eyes of our Body Certainly this is not without its difficulty what ever men may say of it Moreover if we may assure our selves of the exiistence of any Body by the bare Relation of our Senses it is particularly of that to which our Soul is immediately united The most lively Sensation and that which seems to have the most necessary Relation to any Body actually existing is Pain Nevertheless it happens often that those who have lost an Arm feel violent Pains in it even long after its Amputation They are very sensible that they have lost it when they consult their Memory or look upon their Body but the sensation of Pain deceives them And if as it sometimes comes to pass one should suppose their absolutely losing the Remembrance of what they have been and their retaining no other Sense but that by which they feel a Pain in their imaginary Arm certainly they could never persuade themselves that they have not an Arm in which they feel such cruel Pains There have been Men who fancied they had Horns upon their heads others who believed themselves to be Butter or Glass or that their Body was not form'd like other Men that it was like that of a Cock of a Woolf of an Ox. It will be urg'd that they were mad and I grant it But their Soul might be mistaken in those things and consequently all Men may fall into the like Errors if they judge of things according to the Relation of their Senses For it is observable that those Mad-men really behold themselves as they fancy they are The Error is not precisely in the Sentiment they have but in the Judgment they form for if they did say barely that they feel or behold themselves like a Cock they would not be deceived They are only deceived in believing that their Body is like unto that which they feel I mean to that which is the immediate Object of their Mind when they consider themselves Thus those who believe they are such as they really are are no more judicious than Mad-men in the judgment they form of themselves if they only judge barely according to the Relation of their Senses It is not by Reason but good Fortune they are not deceiv'd But at the bottom how can we be certain whether those who are called Mad-men are really so Might not one say that they only seem to be mad because they have particular Sentiments For it is evident that a Man is look'd upon as a Mad-man not because he sees that which is not but because he sees the contrary of what others see whether others are deceived or not A Peasant's eyes for instance are disposed in such a manner that he sees the Moon such as she really is or such only as she is seen We partly see those things when we behold the Moon through a Telescope or perhaps as she will be seen at some time or other with Prospectives of a new Invention He looks upon her with Admiration and cries out to his companions What huge Mountains do I see what deep Valleys what Seas what Lakes what Gulphs what Rocks Do you not see many Seas towards the East and that there is hardly any thing but Lands and Mountains towards the West and South Do you not behold a Mountain on that very side much higher than any of those we have ever seen and do you not admire a perfect black Sea or a horrid Whirl pool in the centre of that Planet What will
Desires as greatness excites our admiration and esteem those Expressions prevail upon us by the Motions they produce in us When Men understand or think they understand a difficult obscure Author they think better of themselves than of those who do not understand him they look upon them as ignorant Persons The pains they have been at to understand him ingages them in his defence They justifie their study in revering him and making others do the same And as Men delight in justifying themselves they never fail to praise and to defend such an Author zealously and after a very lively and sensible manner These Reasons and some ethers that are less strong are sufficient in my Opinion to show that Tertullians Obscurity is no wise disadvantageous to him in the minds of some Persons and that probably they would never have admired him so much had the Truths which are dispersed through his Works been reduced to their plainest and most clear Ideas We alwayes reduce Mathematical Relations and Truths to their Exponents I mean to the plainest Terms that can express them and we disingage them from whatever might perplex or obscure them For Geometricians love plain Truth they do not desire to convince by Impression but by Evidence and Light What would become of many of Tertullians Thoughts should any one reduce them to their Exponents according to the Rules of Geometricians and Logicians and also strip them of that sensible show which dazzles Reason We ought to try that Experiment if we design to judge solidly of that Authors Arguments However I do not pretend that Tertullian ought to have written like a Geometrician Figures which express our Sentiments and Motions in relation to Truths which we expose to others are absolutely necessary And I am of Opinion that particularly in Discourses of Religion and Morality we ought to make use of such Ornaments as are proper to make Men pay that respect to Truth which is due to it and of such Motions as are fit to move the Soul and incline it to Vertuous Actions But we ought never to adorn Phantasms which are without substance or reality We must never excite useless Motions and if we would forcibly imprint conviction and certainty on the Minds of those who hearken to us that Conviction must have a relation to something that is true and solid We must never convince nor suffer our selves to be convinced without knowing evidently distinctly and precisely of what it is we convince People or what it is we are convinced of We must know what we say and what we believe And we must love Truth and Knowledge and not blind others after having suffered our selves to be blinded AN EXPLANATION OF THE Nature of IDEAS In which I Shew How we see all things in God both Eternal Truths and Laws I Was in hopes that what I have said about the Nature of Ideas would be enough to make Men apprehend that it is God who inlightens us But I find by Experience that there are many Persons who are incapable of sufficient attention to conceive the Reasons I have given of that Principle Whatever is abstracted is incomprehensible to most Men nothing affects them but that which is sensible and fixes and maintains the light of their Mind They cannot consider and consequently cannot apprehend that which falls not under the apprehension of their Senses nor Imagination This is what I have often said and what I can never respect too much It is evident that Bodies are not visible of themselves that they cannot act over our Mind nor represent themselves to it This wants no Proof But is infinitely more certain than that Bodies communicate their Motions to each other when they meet But this is only certain to those who silence their Senses to hearken to their Reason All Men fancy that Bodies push one another because the Senses tell them so But they do not believe that Bodies are of themselves absolutely invisible and incapable to act on the Mind because the Senses do not say it but seem to intimate the contrary There are nevertheless some Persons whose solid and steady Reason elevates it self to the most abstracted Truths They contemplate them with attention and resist the impression of their Senses and Imagination with great Courage But by degrees the Body stupifying the Mind they relapse Those Ideas are dissipated and their Imagination exciting others that are more lively and more sensible those first are no longer like any thing but Spectors which Men mistrust and of which they dread the illusion We easily doubt Persons or things that are not familiar to us or that have not afforded us some sensible Pleasures For 't is Pleasure that wins the Heart and Familiarity removes Trouble and disquiet from the Mind Therefore those who are not used to Metaphysical and Abstracted Truths are very much inclined to believe that those have a mind to seduce them who only study to inform them They look with a kind of diffidence and horrour on such Ideas as have nothing that is agreeable or sensible in them and the love they have for Quiet and Felicity soon delivers them from a sight which disturbs them and which seems incapable of contenting them Were not the present question of the utmost consequence the Reasons abovesaid and some others which are not necessary to be related would oblige me to speak no further of it For I foresee that whatever I may say upon that subject will never enter into the mind of certain Persons But this Principle that there is none but God who inlightens us and that by the manifestation of an immutable and necessary Reason or Wisdom appears to me so conformable to Religion that I think my self indispensibly obliged to explain and maintain it as much as I can I had rather be called a Visionary a Lunatick and bear all the Ridicule that the Imagination which in little Souls is alwayes sarcastical opposes to such Reasons it does not apprehend or cannot defend it self against than to grant that Bodies are capable of inlightning me that I am my own Master Reason and Light and that to get a solid knowledge of all things I need only consult my self or Men who perhaps may make a great deal of Noise at my Ears but who certainly cannot inlighten my Mind Therefore I yet here advance some Reasons to maintain the Sentiment I have established in the Chapters to which this belongs Every one agrees that all Men are capable of knowing Truth and the Philosophers nay even the least among them own that Man participates of a certain Reason which they do not determine Therefore they define him Animal RATIONIS particeps for every one knows at least confusedly that the Essential difference of Man consists in the necessary union he has with the Universal Reason though it is not commonly known who it is that includes that Reason which Men take but little care to discover I see for instance that two and two make four
of Being or Manner of Being For Instance When we say Bodies tend to their Center they descend by their Gravity and ascend by their Levity that they move naturally and successively change their Forms that they act by their Vertues Qualities Faculties c. Such Terms signifie nothing and all these Propositions are absolutely false in the sense that most Philosophers take them There is no Center in the Sense commonly meant Gravity Form Nature c. stir up no Idea either of Being or Manner of Being they are loose impertinent Terms which wise Men should avoid The Knowledge of Fools is impertinent Talk says the Scripture These Terms are only proper to cover the Ignorance of the falsely Learned and to make the Stupid and Libertine believe that God only is not the True Cause of all Things This methinks is certain and easily conceived yet most Men speak freely without being at the trouble to examine whether the Terms they use have a clear and exact signification And there are many Voluminous Authours in whom it is very difficult to find a Passage where they understood what they wrote Those therefore who read much and respectively hearken to the Loose and General Discourses of the falsely Learned are grosly ignorant nor do I see any way for them to grow wiser but by making and constantly renewing their Resolution of believing no Man upon his Word and before they have joined very distinct Ideas to the most common Terms which others use For these Terms are not clear as is generally thought but only seem so through Custome for Men fancy they understand well what they say and hear when they say and hear the same Thing a hundred times over without ever examining it AN EXPLANATION OF THE Conclusion of the Three First BOOKS That Physicians and Spiritual Guides are absolutely necessary for us but that it 's dangerous to consult and follow them on many Occasions CErtainly Man before his Fall had all things that were necessary to keep his Mind and Body in a perfect State he needed neither Physician nor Guide but consulted inward Truth as the infallible Rule of his Duty and his Senses were so faithful that they never deceived him in the use he was to make of external Bodies for the preservation of his own But since the Fall all things are extreamly changed we consult our own Passions much more than the Eternal Law or Truth and our Senses are so disordered that by following them we sometimes lose our Health and Life Divines and Physicians are absolutely necessary and those who pretend to know best how to govern themselves upon all occasions commonly fall into the grossest Errors which too late teaches them that they follow a Master that is not over-wise However I think I may say it has not so disordered all the Faculties of the Soul but that we may consult our selves on many occasions and it often happens through the defect of it that we lose the Life of our Soul and Body Of the former by consulting Casuists that are ignorant in Religion and Morality and who do not so throughly examine the Consciences as to discover the ingagements and dispositions of those that consult them Of the latter by applying our selves to ignorant Physicians and such as are unacquainted with the Constitution of our Bodies What I have said as a Conclusion to the three first Books of the Search after Truth has occasioned some Persons to imagine that I pretended that for the preservation of Life and Health we ought to follow our Senses and Passions in all things and that to be instructed in our Duty it was needless to consult any one since Eternal Wisdom is our Master who speaks clearly to us in the most secret parts of our Reason And though I never said nor thought that Physicians and Guides were useless yet some Persons that are hasty at judging and concluding believe it was my Opinion because perhaps 't was theirs and because they don't so much consider Man as he is now as what he was before the Fall But to explain my self further upon this Question Man may be considered two wayes in Health and Sickness If in the first I think his Senses are much more useful to preserve it than the Reason and Experience of the ablest Physicians There 's no need of consulting the Physician to know how much a Man must weigh whether Wood and Stones are proper Food whether he may throw himself down a Precipice His Senses teach him after a most short and indisputable way what he ought to do upon the like occasions And this methinks is sufficient to justifie what I have said for a Conclusion to the three first Books But 't is not enough to justifie what I think and even what I have said elsewhere viz. Book 2. p. 20. That our Senses admirably well discharge their Duty and conduct us after so just and faithful a manner to the ends they were designed for that they seem to be injuriously charged with Corruption and Irregularity For I alwayes believed that such a justness exactness and admirable Order as is in our Sensations with reference to the preservation of Life was no effect of Sin but the first institution of Nature 'T is Objected that this Order is now much subverted and that if we follow our Senses we should not only eat Poyson but frequently eat more than we could digest But I think our Senses would never tempt us to eat Poyson and that if by chance our Eyes should induce us to taste it we should not find in it that relish as would prevail with us to swallow it supposing the Poyson was not disguised For there 's much difference between Poyson as Naturally produced and poyson'd Food between crude Pepper and pepper'd Meats I confess our Senses incline us to eat poyson'd Meat but they don't tempt us to eat Poyson perhaps not to taste it provided this Poyson be in that condition that God produced it for our Senses reach only to the Natural Order of things as at first established by God I grant also that at present our Senses tempt us to eat certain Meats to excess but 't is because they are not in their Natural State We should perhaps never overcharge our selves with Corn if we ground it with Teeth given us for this end but 't is grounded sifted kneaded and baked and even sometimes with Milk Butter and Sugar it is also eaten with Conserves and Ragoos of several sorts which provoke the Appetite so that we must not be surprized if our Senses tempt us to excess when Reason and Experience joyn to surprize them 'T is the same in respect of Flesh which the Senses abhor when Raw and full of Blood as is seen in an Animal that dyes of it self but Men have thought upon killing Beasts letting out their Blood boiling the Flesh seasoning and disguising it and after this accuse their Senses of Corruption and Disorder because they have used their Reason
to prepare other sorts of Diet than Nature supplies indeed I confess it necessary that Men should make use of the same Reason to moderate their Eating And if Cooks have found out the art of making us eat old Shooes in a Ragoo we ought to use our Reason and distrust these adulterated Meats which are not such as God made them for he gave us our Senses only in relation to the Order of Natural Things We must also observe that our Imagination and Senses are mistrustful when we take unusual Food For if a Man had never eaten nor seen any one eat of a certain Fruit which he had met with he would at first have some aversion and sense of fear in tasting it his Imagination and Senses would naturally be very attentive to the relish he tasted Though never so hungry he would eat but little the first time and if this Fruit had any dangerous quality it would not fail to excite some surprize in him Thus his Machine is disposed after such a manner that he would decline it another time and the aversion which he had for it sensibly discovering it self in his looks would deter others from eating it All this would or might be performed in him without the assistance of his Reason for I speak not here of those supplies which Reason and Instruction may afford But seeing our Friends take bad Nourishments we do the same for we live by Opinion and Example emboldens us We examine not the effect these Nourishments produce in us and we are not afraid to eat to excess Thus our Senses do not so much share in the Intemperance as is believed It is true there are possibly such Fruits whose relish may impose upon us though we are never so attentive to the admonition of our Senses but this is certainly very rare and we must not conclude from particular Instances that our Senses are corrupt and commonly deceive us in reference to the good of the Body perhaps they deceive because we have altered our Organ by Unnatural Nourishment 'T is certain that high-seasoned Dishes which we feed on do by their too penetrating Particles hurt the Fibres of our Tongue and vitiate its delicateness and discernment The Example of such as relish only Ragoos is a proof of this for if we find no savour in Corn and Raw Flesh it is because our Tongue is become insensible of their parts their motions being moderate But though we suppose there are Fruits whose taste is capable of beguiling the most delicate Senses and which are yet in their Natural Perfection we must not believe that this is the effect of Sin but because 't is impossible that the Sensation of Taste which is formed and perfected according to the most simple Laws of Nature should have sufficient discernment for all sorts of Meats Besides the defect of this Sense would not be remediless because when Mothers have an aversion for dangerous Fruits they communicate it to their Children not only in the Womb but much more when born into the World for Children only eat what is given them by their Mothers who Machinally and by the Air of their Countenance impress upon them that horrour which they themselves have for Fruits that are dangerous to be eaten So that God has sufficiently provided by our Senses for the preservation of Life and nothing can be better ordered For as Order requires that the Laws of the Union of our Soul and Body should be very simple they must be very general and God ought not to establish particular Laws for cases that happen very seldom Reason on such occasions must assist the Senses for Reason is useful in all things But the Senses are determined by some Natural Judgments which are more useful than can be conceived as I have proved in the First Book yet even these Judgments are sometimes Erroneous for 't is impossible it should be otherwise without multiplying the most simple Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body If we consider Man as he is now in a State of Infirmity we must grant that his Senses often deceive him even in things that relate to the Preservation of Life for the Oeconomy of his Machine being troubled it is impossible but in proportion to that trouble there should be many irregular Motions excited in his Brain however his Senses are not so corrupted as is ordinarily believed and God has so wisely provided for the Preservation of Life by the Laws of the Union of the Soul and Body which although they are very simple are often sufficient to restore our Health that it is a much surer way to follow them than to use our Reason or such Physicians who do not carefully study the Disposition of their Patients for even as a Wound closes up and heals of it self when constantly cleansed and licked as is seen in wounded Animals so common Distempers are soon dispersed when we let them alone and precisely observe such a state of Life as these Diseases by a kind of Instinct and Sensation dictate to us A Man for Example who has a Feaver finds that Wine is bitter and offensive to him in that condition yet this same person finds it agreeable and good when in Health It even often happens that Wine is very good for the Sick when they relish it provided this relish is not an effect of some previous Habit of Drinking but that their desire of it proceed from the present Disposition of their Body So that we cannot doubt but that we ought to consult our Senses in Sickness what way we should take for the recovery of our Health And this is what I believe we ought to do The Distempered should be extreamly attentive to certain secret Desires which the actual Disposition of their Body does sometimes excite in them but above all to take heed lest these Desires should proceed from some preceding Habit they must let loose their Imagination and think on nothing that may determine it observe their present Inclination and examine whether it is the effect of their Disposition This done they ought to follow it but with much Caution for 't is extreamly difficult to be assured whether these secret Inclinations proceed from the Disposition of their Body and it is sometimes useful to consult some Experienced Person upon it But if the Sick letting loose his Imagination as I have said find nothing presented to his Mind he must rest and keep to a sick Diet for this will probably excite in him some Desire or dissipate the Humours that cause the Sickness For if the Distemper is increased notwithstanding such a strict Diet and Rest that it 's necessary to have recourse to Experience and Physicians he must then exactly tell every thing to some skilful Physician who if possible knows his Constitution he must explain clearly to him the beginning and progress of the Distemper and the condition he was in before he fell sick thereby to consult the Experience and Reason of
Second Causes which I have just now Refuted Or perhaps it might be concluded That The Search after Truth is a Book full of visible and gross Contradictions as some Persons do who it may be have not equity or penetration enough to make them fit Judges of the Works of others The Holy Scripture the Fathers and most good Men oftener speak of sensible Goods Riches and Honours according to the common Opinion than according to the true Ideas they have of them JESVS CHRIST introduces Abraham speaking to the wicked Rich Man Fili recepisti BONA in vita tua Thou hast received thy good things in thy life time that is Riches Honours What we through prejudice call good our good that is our Gold or our Silver is in an hundred places in the Scripture called our Maintenance or our Substance and even our Honesty or that which honours us Pawpertas honestas á Deo sunt But must this manner of speaking used by the Holy Scripture Eccl. 11.14 and most Pious Persons make us think they contradict themselves or that they look upon Riches and Honours as real goods and that therefore we ought to love and seek after them No without doubt because these wayes of speaking complying with prejudices signifie nothing And we see in other places JESVS CHRIST has compared Riches to Thorns has told us we must renounce them because they are deceitful and that whatsoever is great and alluring in this World is an abomination before God We must not therefore collect the passages of Scripture or of the Fathers to judge of their Opinion by the greatest number of them except we would continually attribute the most unreasonable prejudices to them This once supposed Matth. 6.28 29 30. we see that the Holy Scripture positively sayes That 't is God who has Created every thing even the grass of the field That 't is he who cloaths the Lillies with such ornaments as our SAVIOVR prefers before the Glory of Solomon There is not only two or three but an infinite number of passages which ascribe to God the pretended Efficacy of Second Causes and which destroy the Nature of the Peripatetics Besides we are carried by a kind of Natural Prejudice not to think on God in common Effects and to attribute Power and Efficacy to Natural Causes and seldom any thing but Miracles induce us to think on him as the Author of them And the sensible impression ingages us in favour of Second Causes Philosophers hold this Opinion because say they the Senses convince us of it and this is their strongest Proof Lastly This Opinion is received by all those who follow the Judgments of the Senses Our common Language is formed from this prejudice and we as generally say that Fire has a power to burn as we call Gold and Silver our good Therefore the passages drawn from the Holy Scriptures or the Fathers for the Efficacy of Second Causes prove no more than those that an Ambitious or Covetous Man shall choose to justifie his own Conduct But 't is quite different with those passages we may bring to prove that God does all things For this Opinion being contrary to Prejudice these passages must be understood in their utmost rigour for the same Reason that we ought to believe that 't is the Sentiments of the Cartesians that Beasts are insensible although they have said it but two or three times and continually say to the contrary in all familiar Discourses affirming they feel see and understand In the First Chapter of Genesis God commands the Earth to produce Plants and Animals and likewise the Waters to bring forth Fish And consequently sayes the Peripatetics Water and Earth have received a Power capable of producing these Effects I don't see the certainty of this Conclusion And although we were even obliged to explain this Chapter by it self without having any recourse to other passages of Scripture there would be no necessity to receive this consequence This way of explaining the Creation is accommodated to our conception of things therefore 't is not necessary to take it literally nor ought we to make use of it to maintain Prejudices As Animals and Plants are upon the Earth Fowls live in the Air and Fish in the Water so God to make us apprehend 't is by his Order they are in these places has produced them there 'T is from the Earth that he formed Animals and Plants not that the Earth was capable of generating them or that God to that end gave it a Power or Vertue which it still keeps for we all agree that the Earth does not produce Horses or Oxen but because from the Earth the Bodies of these Animals were formed as is declared in the following Chapter Formatis igitur Dominus Deus de humo cunctis animantibus Terrae Ver. 19. universis volatilibus Coeli Animals were formed out of the Earth formatis de humo and not produced by the Earth Also after Moses has related how Beasts and Fish were produced by vertue of the Command which God gave the Earth and Water to produce them he adds that 't was God himself who made them that we might not attribute their production to the Earth and Water CREAVIT quae DEVS cete grandia omnem animam viventem atque notabilem quam PRODVXERVNT aquae in species suas omne volatile secundùm genus suum And a little lower after having spoken of the formation of Animals he adds Et FECIT DEVS bestias terrae juxta species suas jumenta omne reptile terrae in genere suo We may observe by the by that where the Vulgar reads it Producant aquae reptile animae viventis volatile super terram the Hebrew has it Volatile VOLITET For as it clearly appears by the passage I related from the Second Chapter this word omitted shows that Fowls were not produced from the Water and that the design of Moses is not here to prove that the Waters had received a true Power to bring forth Fish and Fowl but only to denote the place design'd for each by the Order of God whether to live or be produced in And volatile VOLITET super terram For commonly when we say that the Earth produces Trees and Plants we only design to show that it supplyed them with the Water and Salt which is necessary for their Germination and Growth But I will stay no longer to explain the other passages of Scripture which literally taken favour Second Causes for we are not obliged Besides 't would be very dangerous to understand such expressions literally as are maintained upon common Opinions agreeably to which the Language is formed the Vulgar speaking every thing according to the impression of the Senses and prejudices of Infancy The same Reason which obliges us to take such passages of the Scripture in the Letter as are directly opposite to Prejudices still gives us just cause to believe that the Fathers never
no one has opposed a distinct Treatise of these two Faculties of the Soul although they are naturally inseparable In fine the Senses and Imagination don't differ any more from the pure Understanding than the Passions do from the Inclinations so that we must distinguish these two last Faculties as it has been usual to do with the three first that we may be better able to discern what the Soul receives from its Author by means of the Body from that which it has from him independant of the Body The only inconvenience that will naturally result from the distinction of these two things thus naturally united will be as it happens upon like occasions a necessity of repeating some things which have been already said Man is one although composed of many parts and the union of these parts is so strict that it can't be touch'd in one place without affecting the whole all his Faculties have such a mutual dependance upon one another and are so subordinate that 't is impossible to explain any one of 'em without speaking something of the other Thus by endeavouring to avoid confusion I am obliged 10 repetition but 't is better to repeat than confound because my business is to write as clear as I can and in this necessity of repetition I can only endeavour so to repeat as not to be troublesom to my Reader The Passions of the Soul are Impressions of the Author of Nature which incline us to love out Body and whatever may be useful to its preservation as the Natural Inclinations are the Impressions of the same Author which chiefly incline us to love him as the Soverain Good The natural or occasional Cause of these Impressions is the motion of the Animal Spirits to beget and cherish an agreeable disposition to the Object which is perceived so that the Mind and Body are mutually assistant on this occasion For 't is the Order of God that the Motions of our Body which are proper to execute the Order of our Will should follow it and that the Motions of our Body which are mechanically excited in us at the sight of any Object should be accompanied with a passion of our Soul which inclines us to will that which appears useful to the Body 't is this continual impression of the Will of God upon us which so strictly unites us to a portion of Matter and if this impression of his Will should but cease for one moment we should from that moment be freed from the dependance we have upon all the changes which happen to our Body I can't comprehend how some persons imagine that there is an absolutely necessary connection between the Motions of the Spirit and Blood and the Emotions of the Soul some little particles of Choler are violently mov'd in the Brain therefore the Soul must necessarily be agitated with some Passion and this Passion must rather be Anger than Love What relation can be conceived betwixt the Idea of an Enemies Imperfection a Passion of Contempt or Hatred and betwixt the Corporeal Motion of some Particles of Blood which beat against some parts of the Brain How can a Man perswade himself of such a dependance and that the Union or Alliance of two things so different and incompatible as Mind and Matter can be caused and preserved after any other manner than by the continual and Almighty and Omnipotent Will of the Author of Nature Those who think that Bodies do necessarily and of themselves communicate Motion in the moment of their Concourse think something like truth for indeed this prejudice has some foundation Bodies seem to have an essential relation to Bodies but the Mind and Body are two kinds of Beings so opposite that those who think the Emotions of the Soul do necessarily follow the Motions of the Spirits and Blood think something that has not the least appearance of truth certainly 't is only our own Consciousness of the Union of those two Beings and our Ignorance of the continual Operations of God upon his Creatures which makes us imagine another Cause of the Union of our Soul and Body besides the Will of God It is difficult to determine whether this relation or connexion of the thoughts of Mans Mind with the Motion of his Body is the Punishment of Sin or the Gift of Nature and some Persons believe it would be rashness to decide either way 't is well known that Man before Sin was no Slave but absolate Master of his Passions and by his Will did easily stay the agitation of the Blood which caused them But I should be hardly perswaded that the Body did not sollicite the Soul of the first Man to an enquiry after things which were proper for the preservation of his Life or that Adam before his Fall was insensible that Fruits were agreeable to his sight and pleasant to his taste especially if I may believe the Scripture and that this so just so marvellous an Oeconomy of his Senses and Passions for the preservation of his Body was a Corruption of Nature rather than the first Institution Doubtless Nature is now corrupted the Body acts with too much power upon the Mind instead of submissively representing to it its necessities it tyrannizes over it and ravishes it from God to whom it ought to be inseparably united and continually prompts it to a pursuit of such sensible things as may be proper for its conservation the Mind is become as it were immaterial and earthy by Sin that relation and Essential Union which it has with God is lost I mean God has withdrawn himself from it as much as possible without destroying or annihilating it Innumerable disorders have followed the absence or estrangement of him who kept it in order and without making a longer enumeration of our Miseries Man is by the fall throughly corrupted in all his parts But this fall has not destroyed the Work of God that which God gave to the first Man is always sound in him the immutable Will of God which constitutes the Nature of every thing was not changed by the levity and inconstancy of Adam s Will every thing that God did Will he yet Wills and because his Will is efficacious he effects whatever he Wills Mans Sin was indeed the occasion that the Divine Will did not constitute the Order of Grace but Grace is not contrary to Nature the one destroys not the other Because God fights not against himself he never repents and his Wisdom having no limits his Works will have no end The Will of God which constitutes the Order of Grace is joined to that Will which effects the Order of Nature not to change it but to repair it There are only two General Wills in God and whatever is well regulated in the World depends upon one of these The Passions are very well ordered if they are only considered in order to the Bodies preservation although they sometimes deceive us in few and particular Cases which the Universal Cause has not
only true amongst Christians and was absolutely false in the Mouth of Seneca and Epicurus and in short of all the Philosophers who appeared the most reasonable because the Yoke of JESVS CHRIST is only sweet to those that belong to him and his Burthen only seems light to us when his Grace supports us under it CHAP. IV. That the Pleasures and Motions of the Passions engage us in Errors at the sight of Good and therefore we ought continually to resist them With the manner how to oppose Libertinism WHatsoever we have already in general explained about the qualities and effect of the Passions shews them not to be free they take up their residence in our Breasts without our leave and there is nothing but the consent of our Will which absolutely depends upon us The prospect of Good is naturally followed with a Motion and Sensation of Love a Shaking of the Brain and Motion of the Spirits a new Emotion of the Soul which increases the first Motion of Love and a new Sensation of the Soul which augments the first Sensation of Love and in fine a Sensation of Complacency which recompences the Soul for the Bodies being in a state convenient for it All these things pass in the Soul and Body Naturally and Mechanically that is without their having any part in it since our consent only truly depends upon us This Consent must also be regulated preserved and kept free notwithstanding all the endeavours of our Passions to the contrary 'T is to God alone that it must submit its liberty yielding only to the Voice of the Author of Nature Internal Evidence and to the secret reproaches of Reason We should never consent but when we clearly see we should make an ill use of our liberty if we refused it And this is the chief Rule that must be observed to avoid Error 'T is God only who evidently shews us that we must submit to what ever he requires to him alone therefore we must wholly devote our selves There is no Evidence in the Alurements and Caresses the Frights and Menaces we receive from our Passions They are only confused and obscure Sensations to which we must never give ear We must stay till these false lights of the Passions are dissipated and wait for a purer light to guide us till God himself speaks to us We must enter into our selves and there enquire for him that never leaves us but continually instructs us He speaks low but his Voice is distinct he illuminates but little yet his light is pure Rather his Voice is as strong as 't is distinct and his Light as bright and active as 't is pure But our Passions keep us always out of our selves and by their noise and darkness hinder us from being instructed by his Voice and illuminated by his Light He even speaks to those who ask nothing of him and those whose Passions have put them at the greatest distance from him do nevertheless now and then hear some of his Words But they are such Words as are strong threatning and terrible and pierce more than a two edged Sword which penetrates the most secret Recesses of the Soul and discerns the thoughts and motions of the Heart Heb. 4.12 13. For all things are open before his Eyes and he cannot behold the irregularity of Sinners without making them inwardly to feel his severe Reproaches We ought therefore to enter into our selves to approach near him to desire him to inform us of what we would know to hearken to and obey him For if we always give ear to him we should never be deceiv'd and by continually Obeying him we should free our selves from the miseries and inconstancies of our Passions to which Sin has subjected us We must not think with some pretended Wits whom the pride of their Passions have reduced to the condition of Beasts and who having so long contemned the Law of God seem at last to know no other than that of their infamous Passions We ought not I say like those Men that are guided merely by Flesh and Blood to imagine that in following the motions of our Passions and secret desires of our own Hearts we shou'd follow God and obey the voice of the Author of Nature for this would be the utmost blindness and according to St. Paul Rom. 1. the temporal punishment for Impiety and Idolatry that is the punishment of the greatest Crimes Indeed this punishment is so much the greater as that instead of appeasing the wrath of God as all other temporal ones do it continually exasperates and encreases it until the terrible day wherein his just anger shall triumph over all Sinners Their Arguments however want not probability and seeming very agreeable to common Sense they are favoured by the Passions and could never be destroy'd by all the Philosophy of Zeno. We must love good say they and pleasure is the character that Nature has united to it and by this character we can never be deceived since it proceeds from God who has affixed it thereto that we might distinguish it from evil We must also fly evil continue they and pain is the character that Nature has united to that nor can we be deceiv'd by it since God has instituted it that thereby we might discern it from good We taste Pleasure when we abandon our selves to our Passions and feel Pain and Bitterness in resisting them Therefore the Author of Nature would have us give up our selves to our Passions and never resist them since the Pleasure and Pain he makes us feel in these occurrences are certain proofs of his Will in respect to them To follow God therefore is to persue the desires of our own Hearts and to obey him is to conform our selves to the instinct of Nature which enclines us to satisfie our Senses and Passions After this manner they confirm themselves in their impious Opinions and by this means endeavour to stifle the secret reproaches of their Reason and for the punishment of their Crimes God permits them to be dazled with these false lights which blind instead of enlightning them but with such a blindness as they are insensible of and wish not to be delivered from God gives them over to a reprobate Sense abandons them to the desires of their Hearts to shameful Passions and Actions unworthy of Man as the Scripture tells us that after being as it were fatned by their Debauches they may to all Eternity become the victims of his Wrath. But we will solve the difficulty they propose which the Sect of Zeno not being able to do have denied that Pleasure was good or Pain an evil But this was too rash an attempt and unbecoming Philosophers and I dont believe it ever made those change their Opinion who experimentally found that a great Pain was a great Misery Since therefore Zeno and all the Heathen Philosophy could not resolve this difficulty offered by the Epicureans therefore we must have recourse to a more solid and
enlightened Philosophy 'T is true that Pleasure is good and Pain an evil and that Pleasure and Pain by the Author of Nature have been affixed to the use of certain things to make us capable of judging whether they are good or bad That we must choose the good fly the evil and generally follow the motions of our Passions All this is true but it only relates to the Body to preserve which and long to continue a Life like to that of Beasts we must suffer our selves to be governed by our Passions and Desires The Senses and Passions were only given us for the good of the Body sensible Pleasure is the character which Nature has joined to the use of certain things that without taking the pains to examine them by Reason we might employ 'em for the preservation of the Body but not that we should love them for we ought to love nothing but what Reason most certainly discovers to us to be our good We are Rational Beings and God who is our chief Good requires not of us a blind Love a Love of Instinct or one that is forced but a Love of Choice of Knowledge and such a one as subjects our Mind and Hearts to him He induces us to love him by discovering to us by the light that accompanies the delection of his Grace that he is our Soveraign Good but inclines us to the good of the Body only by instinct and a confused sensation of Pleasure because the good of the Body deserves neither the application of the Mind nor exercise of our Reason But farther our Body is not our selves 't is something that belongs to us without which absolutely speaking we may exist The Good of the Body therefore is not properly our good for Bodies can be only the good of Bodies which we may make use of for the good of our Body but we must not unite our selves to them Our Soul has likewise a Good peculiar to her self viz. that good only that is superiour to her who alone preserves and produces in her the sensations of Pain and Pleasure For in fine all the objects of our Senses are of themselves uncapable of making us perceive them and 't is God alone that can teach us they are present by the sensation he gives us of them which is a Truth the Heathen Philosophers could never comprehend We may and I confess ought to love what is capable of making us feel Pleasure And 't is for that reason we must love none but God because 't is only he who can act in our Souls since sensible objects can only move the Organs of our Senses But perhaps it may be answered by some what matters it from whence these agreeable Sensations come we will enjoy them Ingrateful as they are not to acknowledge the hand that so kindly bestows these Goods They would have a just God give unjust Rewards and recompense them for the Crimes they commit against him at the very time they commit them They would make use of his immutable Will which is the Order and Law of Nature to force undeserved favours from him For by a criminal Artifice they produce such motions in their Bodies which obliges him to make them taste all sorts of Pleasures But Death will corrupt this Body and God whom they have made subservient to their unjust Desires will make them submit to his just Anger and will mock them in his turn 'T is true 't is a very hard thing that the possession of the Goods of the Body should be attended with Pleasure and that that of the Goods of the Soul should often be tied to Pain and Sorrow We may look upon it as a great irregularity because Pleasure being the character of Good as Pain is that of Evil we ought infinitely to take more delight in the love of God than in the use of sensible things since God is the true or rather the only Good of the Mind This will certainly happen one day and 't is very probable 't was so before the Fall at least 't is certain before Sin entered into the World we felt no pain in the exercise of our Duty But God has withdrawn himself from us ever since the Fall of Adam he is no longer our Good by Nature but only by Grace for now we naturally find no satisfaction in loving him and he rather diverts us from then enclines us to love him If we follow him he repulses us if we run after him he smites us if we are constant in our persuit he still treats us ill and makes us suffer very lively and sensible Griefs But when being weary with walking in the hard and painful Paths of Virtue without being incouraged by the relish of Good or assisted by any Nourishment we begin to feed upon sensible things to which he unites us by the taste of Pleasure as if he would reward us for turning aside from him to follow those perishing Goods In short since the first Sin it seems as if God were not pleased that we should love or think upon him or that we should look upon him as our only and chief Good It is only through the Grace of JESVS CHRIST that we are now sensible that God is our Good since 't is by his Grace that we take any pleasure and satisfaction in the love of God Thus the Soul neither discovering her own Good by a clear view or by sensation without the Grace of JESVS CHRIST she takes the Good of the Body for her own She loves it and is more strictly united to it by her Will than she was by the first Institution of Nature For the Good of the Body being the only one left that we are now sensible of it necessarily acts the more powerfully upon Man affects his Brain more livelily and consequently the Soul must feel and imagine it after a more sensible manner And the Animal Spirits being more violently agitated the Will must needs love it with more Ardour and Pleasure Before Sin the Soul was able to efface out of the Brain an over lively image of sensible good and cause the pleasure that attended this image to vanish The Body being thus submitted to the Mind the Soul could in an instant put a stop to the shaking of the Fibres of the Brain and emotion of the Spirits only by the consideration of its Duty But now it remains no longer in its power nor do these traces of the Imagination and motions of the Spirits any longer depend upon it and therefore by a necessary consequence Pleasure which by the order of Nature is affixed to these traces and motions is become the only Master of the Heart Man cannot long resist this Pleasure by his own strength 't is Grace only that can entirely overcome it because none but God as the Author of Grace can overcome himself as the Author of Nature or rather can appease himself as the Revenger of Adam's Disobedience See the Fifth Dialogue of the Christian
Conversations towards the end The Stoics who had but a confused knowledge of the disorders of original Sin could not confute the Epicureans their happiness being but barely Ideal since there is no felicity without Pleasure and they could not relish Pleasure in the meer persuit of vertuous actions 't is true they might find some satisfaction in following the Rules of their imaginary Virtue because it is a natural consequence of the knowledge our Soul has that she 's in the most eligible condition she can be in This joy of the Mind might maintain their Resolutions for some time but it was not strong enough to resist Pain and conquer Pleasure 'T was secret Pride and not Joy that made them keep their Countenance for when no one was present they soon lost all their Power and Wisdom like Kings upon the Theatre whose Grandeur vanishes in a moment It is very different with those Christians who exactly follow the Rules of the Gospel Their Joy is solid because they most certainly know they are in the happiest condition they can possibly be at present Their Joy is also great because the Good they taste through Faith and Hope is infinite For the Hope of a great Good is always attended with a sensible Joy and this Joy is so much the more vigorous as the Hope is stronger because a strong Hope representing the Good as present necessarily produces that Joy and sensible Pleasure which always accompanies the presence of Good Nor is their Joy uneasie because it is founded upon the promises of God by the Blood of whose Son it is confirmed and maintain'd by the inward Peace and inexpressible sweetness of Charity which the Holy Ghost diffuses in their Hearts Nothing can separate them from the true Good when they taste and are pleased with it through the Delectation of Grace The Pleasures of Corporeal Enjoyments are not so great as those they feel in the love of God rather than quit them they choose Contempt and Pain they are not affrighted at Reproaches and Disgrace and the Pleasures they find in their Sufferings or to speak more properly those they meet with in God when they contemn every thing to be united to him are so violent that they transport them and makes them speak a new Language and with the Apostles boast of the Miseries and Injuries they suffer The Scripture tells us That when the Apostles departed from the Council they were filled with Joy that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for the Name of JESUS And this is the disposition of Mind in true Christians when they have received the greatest Affronts for defending the Truth JESVS CHRIST being come to reestablish that Order that Sin had overthrown and Order requiring that the greatest Goods should be accompanied with the most solid Pleasures it is plain that things ought to happen after the manner we have related But besides Reason Experience confirms it for a Person no sooner takes a resolution of contemning every thing for God but he is commonly so affected with a Pleasure or inward Joy that he as sensibly feels God to be his Good as before he evidently knew him to be so True Christians assure us every day that the Joy they have in the Love and Service of God is inexpressible and 't is very reasonable to believe them concerning what passes in themselves The wicked on the contrary are perpetually tormented with mortal Disquiets and such as are divided betwixt God and the World partake also of the Joys of the Righteous and Dissatisfactions of the Wicked They complain of their Miseries and 't is likewise just to believe their Complaints are not groundless God strikes Men to the very quick when they make choice of any other object for their chief Good but himself and 't is this wound that makes them really miserable But fills the Mind of those with excessive Joy who only unite themselves to him and 't is this Joy which gives the true Felicity The abundance of Riches and possession of Honours and Dignities being external cannot cure the wound God makes And as Poverty and Contempt are also without us so they cannot hurt us when the Almighty protects us It is evident by what has been said that the objects of our Passions are not our Good and that we must only follow their Motions for the preservation of our Lives That sensible Pleasure in respect of our Good is what our Sensations are in relation to the Truth and even as we find our Senses deceive us in matters of Truth so our Passions deceive us concerning our Good That we must submit to the Delectation of Grace because it evidently enclines us to love the true Good nor is followed with the secret reproaches of Reason like the blind instinct and confused pleasure of the Passions but is always attended with a secret Joy agreeable to the condition we are in And last of all since God only can act upon our Mind we can find no Felicity out of God except we would suppose that God rewards none but the Disobedient or Commands us to love that most which least deserves our love CHAP. V. That the Perfection of the Mind consists in its Vnion with God by the knowledge of Truth and love of Virtue And that on the contrary its Imperfection proceeds only from its dependance on the Body because of the disorder of its Senses and Passions THE least reflexion is enough to discover to us that the good of the Mind must necessarily be something Spiritual for Bodies are much inferior to the Mind and cannot act upon it by their own strength They are not able immediately to unite themselves to it nor are they intelligible of themselves and therefore cannot be its good On the contrary Spiritual Things are intelligible from their own Nature and may unite themselves to the Mind consequently be its good if we suppose them superior to it for that a thing may be the good of the Mind it is not enough to be Spiritual like that it must be above it that it may be able to act upon it instruct and recompence it otherwise it cou'd neither make it more happy nor more perfect and therefore cou'd not be its good Of all things both Intelligible and Spiritual there is none but God that is thus superior to the Mind from whence it follows that nothing but he is or can be its true good nor can we therefore become more perfect or more happy but in the enjoyment of God Every one is convinced that the knowledge of the Truth and love of Virtue makes the Mind more perfect and that the blindness of the Mind and irregularity of the Inclinations renders it more imperfect The knowledge of Truth and love of Virtue then can be nothing else but the union of the Mind with God and even a kind of possessing of him And the blindness of the Mind and irregularity of the Heart can likewise be nothing else but the separation
to the carnal and most ignorant That he might instruct them by that which caused their blindness and encline them to love him and loose them from sensible Objects by the same things that had captivated them For when he had to do with Fools he made use of a kind of simplicity to make them wise so that the most Religious and Faithful have not always the greatest Understanding They may know God by Faith and love him through the assistance of his Grace without discerning him to be their All after the same manner as Philosophers do and without reflecting that the abstracted knowledge of Truth is a kind of union with him We must not therefore be surprized if there are but few Persons who endeavour to strengthen their Natural Union they have with God by seeking after the Truth since to this end it would be necessary constantly to oppose the impression of the Senses and Passions after a very different manner from that which is familiar to the most Virtuous Persons for most good Men are not always perswaded that the Senses and Passions deceive us after the manner we have explained in the precedent Books Those Sensations and Thoughts wherein the Body has any share are the true and immediate cause of our Passions because 't is only the shaking of the Fibres of the Brain that excites any particular emotion in the Animal Spirits so that only our Sensations can sensibly convince us that we depend on certain things which they excite us to love But we feel not the Natural Union we have with God when we discover the Truth nor so much as think upon him for he is within us and operates after such a secret and insensible manner that we perceive him not Our Natural Union with him therefore does not excite us to love him But our Union with Sensible Things is quite different All our Sensations declare this Union and Bodies present themselves to our Eyes when they act in us nor is any thing they do concealed Even our own Body is more present to us than our Mind and we consider it as the best part of our selves Thus the Union we have with our Body and through that with all sensible Objects excites a violent love in us which increases this Union and makes us depend upon things that are infinitely below us CHAP. VI. Of the most general Errors of the Passions Some particular Examples of them IT 's the part of Moral Philosophy to enquire into all the particular Errors wherein our Passions engage us concerning good to oppose the irregularities of Love to establish the sincerity of the Heart and regulate the Manners But our chief intent here is to give Rules for the Mind and to discover the causes of our Errors in respect of Truth so that we shall pursue no further those things already mentioned which relate only to the love of the true Good We will then proceed to the Mind but shall not pass by tne Heart because it has the greatest influence over the Mind We will enquire after the Truth in it self and without thinking on the relation it has to us only so far as this relation is the occasion that Self-love disguises and conceals it from us for we judging of all things according to our Passions deceive our selves in all things the Judgments of the Passions never agreeing with the Judgments of the Truth 'T is what we may learn from these admirable words of St. Bernard * Amor sicut nec odium veritatis judicium nescit Vis judicium veritatis audire Joan 5.30 Sicut audio sic judico Non sicut odi non sicut amo non sicut timeo Est judicium odii ut illud Nos legem habemus secundum legem Nostram debet mori Joan 19.7 Est timoris ut illud si dimittimus eum sic venient Romani tollent Nostrum locum gentem Joan 11.48 Judicium vero amoris ut David de filiô parricidâ Parcite inquit puero Absalom 2 Reg. 18.5 St. Bern. de grad humilitatis Neither love nor hatred says he know how to judge according to truth But if you will hear a true Judgment I judge according to what I hear not as I hate love or fear This is a Judgment of hatred We have a law and according to our law he ought to die This is a Judgment of fear If we let him alone the Romans will come and take away our Place and Nation This is a Judgment of love as David speaks of his parricide son Spare the young Man Absalom Our Love Hatred and Fear cause us to make false Judgments only and nothing but the pure Light of Truth can enlighten our Mind 'T is only the distinct Voice of our common Master that instructs us to make solid Judgments and he will infallibly do it provided we only judge of what he says and according to what he says Sicut audio sic judico As I hear I judge But let us see after what manner our Passions seduce us that we may the more easily resist them The Passions have so great a relation to the Senses that 't will not be difficult to discover after what manner they engage us in Error if we but remember what has been said in the First Book For the general Causes of the Errors of our Passions are entirely like those of the Errors of our Senses The most general cause of the Errors of our Senses is as we have shewn in the First Book our attributing to our Body or to External Objects those Sensations which belong to our Soul affixing Colours to the Surfaces of Bodies diffusing of Light Sounds Odours in the Air and assigning Pain and Pleasure to those parts of our Body which receive any change by the motion of other Bodies which meet them The same thing may be said of our Passions we imprudently attribute to those Objects which cause or seem to cause them all the dispositions of our Heart Goodness Meekness Malice Ill-nature and all the other Qualities of our Mind Whatever Object produces any Passion in us in some manner seems to include in it self what it stirs up in us when we think upon it Even as sensible Objects appear to us to include the Sensations their presence excites When we love any Person we are naturally inclined to believe they love us and 't would be difficult for us to imagine that they had either any design to hurt us or to oppose our desires But if hatred succeeds love we cannot believe that they design us any good we interpret all their actions in the worst sense and are always suspicious and upon our guard although perhaps they think not of us or else intend to do us some service In short we unjustly attribute all the dispositions of our Heart to those Persons who excite any Passion in us even as we imprudently ascribe all the qualities of our Mind to sensible Objects Moreover by the same
enough to confound the most evident things and in these Questions where 't is necessary to remove the Equivocation they see nothing to distinguish If we consider that the greatest Part of the Questions of Philosophers and Physicians include some equivocal Terms like those we have spoken of we cannot doubt but that these learned Men who have not been able to define them have delivered nothing Solid in all the great Volumes they have composed and what I have said may suffice to overthrow almost all the Opinions of the Ancients But for Descartes he perfectly knew how to distinguish these things He resolved no Question by Sensible Idea's and if we take the Pains to read him we shall see he explained every thing after a more clear and evident Manner and almost always demonstrated them only by the distinct Idea's of Extension Figure and Motion The other kind of equivocal Terms which Philosophers make use of comprehend all these general Terms of Logick by which it is easie to explain things without having any Knowledge of them Aristotle has made the most use of them all his Books are full of them and some are a mere Logick He proposes and resolves all things by these Specious Words Genus Species Power Nature Form Faculty Quality Causa per se Causa per accidens His Followers have had no small Trouble to apprehend the meaning of these Words which signifie nothing at all nor are they more learned than before when they have heard say that Fire dissolves Metals because it has a Faculty of dissolving them and that a Man digests not because he has a weak Stomach or that his Faculty of Concocting does not perform its Functions well It is true those who have made use of these Terms and general Idea's to explain all things by do not commonly fall into so great a Number of Errors as those who only make use of them to stir up the confused Ideas of the Senses The Philosophers of the Schools are not so subject to Error as certain Dogmatical decisive Physicians who form Systems upon some Experiments which they know not the reason of because they speak so generally that they run no great Hazzard The Fire warms dries hardens and softens because it has such Faculties as produce these Effects Senna purges by its Purgative Quality Bread nourishes by its Nutritive Quality These Proportions are not subject to Error for a Quality is that which denotes a thing by such a Name and we cannot deny it to Aristotle for indeed this Definition is indisputable Such or the like manner of speaking are not false but only in Effect they signifie nothing These indetermined Idea's ingage us not in Error but they are wholy useless in the Discovery of Truth For although we know there is a substantial Form in Fire accompanied with a thousand Faculties like to those of heating dilating melting Gold Silver and all Metals of clearing burning and baking If this Difficulty be proposed to me to be resolved viz. whether Fire can harden Dirt and soften Wax The Idea's of Substantial Form and of those Faculties that produce Heat Ratification Fluidity c. would be of no use to me in resolving the Question for there being no Connexion betwen the Idea's of the Hardness of Dirt and Softness of Wax and those of the Substantial Form of Fire and the Qualities of producing Rarification Fluidity c. It is the same with all general Idea's so they are wholly useless for the Ends designed But if we know that Fire is nothing else but the Parts of Wood put into continal Motion and that 't is only by this Agitation that it excites the Sensation of Heat in us If we knew at the same Time that the Softness of Dirt consists only in a Mixture of Earth and Water as these Idea's are not confused and general but distinct and particular It would not be difficult to see that the Heat of Fire must harden Dirt because one Body can move another being it self in Motion We likewise easily discover that since Heat which is felt near the Fire is caused by the Motion of the invisible Parts of the Wood which strike against the Hands if we expose Dirt to the Heat of the Fire the Watery Parts which are joyned to the Earth being more lose and consequently sooner agitated by the Shock of the little Bodies which go out from the Fire than the gross Particles of the Earth they must separate and leave it dry and hard It would also evidently apppear that Fire cannot harden Wax if we knew that the Particles which compose it are branched and very near of the same Bigness Thus particular Idea's are very useful in an Enquiry after Truth And indeterminate Idea's are hot only useless but on the contrary insensibly lead us into Error These Philosophers content not themselves with making use of general Terms and indetermined Idea's that answer nothing But they will have those Terms signifie certain particular Beings They pretend that there is some Substance distinct from Matter which is the Form of Matter and an infinite Company of little Beings really distinct from Matter and Form of which they suppose as many of them as they have different Sensations of Bodies and they think these Bodies produce different Effects Yet it is plain to any Man that is capable of Attention that all these little Beings distinct from Fire for instance and which we suppose to be contained therein for the Production of Heat Light Hardness Fluidity c are only Fictions of the Imagination which are contrary to Reason For Reason hath no particular Idea which represents these little Beings If we ask the Philosophers what Sort of Entity that Faculty in the Fire is which gives Light they will only answer that 't is a Being which is the Cause why Fire is capable of producing Light So that the Idea they have of the Faculty of Light is not different from the general Idea of the Cause and confused Idea of the Effect which we see They have therefore no clear Idea of what they say when they admit these particular Beings Thus they say what they conceive not and what indeed is impossible to be conceived CHAP. III. Of the most dangerous Error in Philosophy Of the Ancients PHilosophers have not only spoke what they did not conceive when they explained the Effects of Nature by certain Beings which they have no particular Idea of but even establish a Principle from whence may directly be drawn most false and dangerous Consequences For if according to their Opinion we suppose that in Bodies there are some Beings distinct from Matter and not having any distinct Idea of these Entities we might easily imagine that they are the true or principal Causes of the Effects which we see produced 'T is even the common Sentiment of most Philosophers For 't is chiefly to explain these Effects that they make use of Substantial Forms Real Qualities and other the like Entities
He soon would discover that the Heart begins to beat and on all sides to force out little Chanels of Blood which are Arteries that this Blood returns to the Heart by Veins that the Brain also soon appears and that the Bones are the last parts which are formed By this means he delivers himself from many Errors and from these Observations draws many Consequences of great use in discovering the Nature of Animals Who can say any thing against the Conduct of this Man Can it be said that he pretends that God made the first Chicken immediately from an Egg and by giving it a certain degree of Heat caused it to be hatch'd because he endeavours to discover the Nature of Chickens in their Formation Why then is Descartes accused of speaking contrary to the Scripture because intending to examine the Nature of visible things he examines the Formation of them by the Laws of Motion in all their Occurrences He never doubted * Art 45. of the third Part of his Principles But the World was in the Beginning created in its utmost Perfection so that the Sun the Moon and Stars were from the Beginning and that the Earth had not only in it self the Seeds of Plants but that even Plants themselves covered a part of it That Adam and Eve were not created in Infancy but at perfect Age. The Christian Religion says he will have us believe this and Natural Reason absolutely perswades us of this Truth because considering the Almighty Power of God we must judge that whatever he has made has its utmost Perfection in it But as we should much better discover the Nature of Adam and that of the Trees of Paradise if we examined how Children were by degrees formed in the Womb and how Plants sprung up from their Seeds then if we only considered them as they were after God had created them so we should better understand what is generally the Nature of all things in the World if we could imagine some Principles which are very Intelligible and Simple from which we might clearly see that the Stars the Earth and in short all the visible World might have been thus produced as from some Seeds although we know they were not produced in this manner than if we describe it only as it is or as we believe it was created And because I think I have found such Principles I will endeavour to explain them M. Descartes thought that God made the World in an instant but also believed he had created it in the same Order and Disposition of parts as it would have been in if he had formed it by little and little after the most simple way And this Thought is worthy the Power and Wisdom of God His Power since in a Moment he has created all his Works in their greatest Perfection Of his Wisdom since by that he has discovered he perfectly foresaw all that would necessarily happen in Matter if it was acted by the most simple ways And also because the Order of Nature could not subsist if the World had been made contrary to the Laws of Motion by which it is preserved It is Ridiculous to say M. Descartes believed the World was form'd of it self since he acknowledges as all those do who follow the Light of Reason that no Body can move it self and that all the immutable Laws of the Communication of Motion are only the Consequences of the unchangeable Will of God who continually acts after the same manner Having proved there is but one God who gives Motion to Matter and that Motion produces in all Bodies all the different Forms we see them cloathed with it was sufficient to take away from Libertines all their pretext of drawing any Advantage from his System On the contrary If the Atheists made any Reflection upon the Principles of this Philosophy they would soon find themselves constrained to acknowledge their Errors For if like the Heathens they would affirm that Matter was uncreated they could not also maintain that it would ever have been able to have moved of it self So that the Atheists would at least be obliged to confess the true Mover if they denied the true Creator But common Philosophy furnishes them with Methods to blind themselves and maintain their Errors for it tells them of certain impressed Vertues and moving Faculties In short of a certain Nature which is the Principle of Motion in every thing and although they have no distinct Idea of it they are very glad because of the Corruption of their Hearts to put it in the place of the true God by concluding it is that which produces all the Wonders we see CHAP. V. An Explanation of the Principles of the Aristotelian Philosophy wherein it appears he never observed the Second Part of the General Rule With an Examination of his Elementary Qualities THAT we may make some Comparison between the Philosophy of Descartes and Aristotle it will be proper to give a little Abridgment of what he thought of his Elements and of the Nature of Bodies in General which the most Learned believe he has shewn in his four Books de Caelo for his eight Books of Physicks belongs rather to Logick or if you will to Metaphysicks than to Physicks since they are only composed of rambling and general words which represent nothing distinct and particular to the Mind These four Books are entitled de Caelo because the Heavens are the chief amongst the simple Bodies he treats of This Philosopher begins his Work with proving the World is perfect and this is his Argument for it All Bodies have three Dimensions they cannot have more for according to the Pythagoreans the number Three comprehends every thing Now the World is a Collection of all Bodies therefore the World is perfect By this pleasant proof we might also demonstrate that the World cannot be more Imperfect than it is since it cannot be composed of parts which have less than three Dimensions In the second Chapter he immediately supposes certain Peripatetical Truths 1. That all Natural Bodies have the power of Motion in themselves which he neither proves here nor elsewhere On the contrary in the first Chapter of his second Book of Physicks he affirms That 't is Ridiculous to endeavour to prove it Because says he it is self-evident and 't is only such as cannot discern what is known of it self or what is not so who endeavour to prove that which is evident by that which is obscure But we have already shewn that 't is absolutely false that Natural Bodies have in themselves the power of moving and that it appears evident only to such Persons who with Aristotle follow the Impression of their Senses and make no use of their Reason He says in the second place That all Local Motion is made in a right or circular Line or composed of both But if he would not consider of what he so boldly advances he ought at least to open his Eyes and then he would
those which surround us which is of a Nature so much the more perfect as it is more distant from us Here is Aristotle's Reasons but I desie the most Intelligent of his Interpreters to joyn distinct Idea's to the Terms which he makes use of and to prove that this Philosopher began with the most Simple things before he spoke of the more compounded which is absolutely necessary to reason well as I have before proved If I was not afraid of being tiresome I would yet translate some Chapters of Aristotle But besides our taking little Pleasure to read them in our own Tongue when we clearly understand what he means I have sufficiently shewn by the little I have related that his Manner of Philosophizing is wholly useless for the Discovery of Truth For since he says himself in the Fifth Chapter of this Book that those that deceive themselves in any thing at first deceive themselves a Thousand times more if they advance far It is plain that if he knew not what he said in the two first Chapters of his Book we may reasonably believe that it is not safe to take things upon his Authority without examining his Reasons But to be better perswaded of it I will make it appear that there is not one Chapter in this Book wherein there is not some Absurdity In the third Chapter he says the Heavens are incorruptible and not subject to Alteration he brings many very foolish Arguments to prove this because for Example there is the Habitation of the Immortal Gods and because there was never any Change observed in them This last Reason might be admitted if Aristotle could have proved that any one had come from thence or had lived near enough to these celestial Bodies to make accurate Observations of them But however I don't know who would believe such an Authority since Telescopes do shew us the contrary He pretends in the Fourth Chapter to prove that there are no contrary Circular Motions Yet it is manifest that the Motion from East to West is contrary to that from West to East In the Fifth Chapter he improperly proves that Bodies are not infinite drawing his Proofs from the Motion of simple Bodies For What hinders but that there may be above his Primum Mobile some immoveable Extension In the Sixth he uselesly amuses himself to prove that the Elements are not infinite For who can doubt of it when we suppose with him that they are included in the Heavens which surrounds them But he makes himself ridiculous when he endeavours to prove it by their Weight and Lightness If the Elements were infinite says he they would have an infinite Weight and an infinite Lightness which cannot be Therefore c. those that would see his Arguments at large may read them in his Books I think it Loss of Time to relate them In the Seventh he continues to prove that Bodies are not infinite and his first Proof supposes it necessary for all Bodies to be in Motion which he does not prove nor indeed can it be proved He maintains in the Eighth that there are not many Worlds of the same Kind by this pleasant Argument If there was another Earth like this we inhabit the Earth being heavy by Nature it would fall upon ours because ours is the Center to which all heavy Bodies ought to tend From whence has he learned this but from his Senses In the Ninth he proves that 't is even impossible there should be a Plurality of Worlds because if there was any Body above the Heavens it would be simple or compound in a Natural or Violent State which cannot be from the Reasons he has drawn from his three Kinds of Motion which I have already spoken of He affirms in the Tenth that the World is Eternal because he cannot prove that it had a Beginning and that it will always endure since we see whatsoever is created corrupts in Time This he has likewise learnt from his Senses But who has taught him that the World shall always endure He imploys the Eleventh Chapter in explaining what we mean by incorruptible as if the Equivocation was much to be feared and that a great Use ought to be made of its Explanation Yet this Term Incorruptible is so clear of it self that Aristotle does not give himself the Trouble to explain neither in what Sense it ought to be taken nor how he understood it himself It would have been more to the Purpose if he had defined an infinite Number of Terms he makes use of which stir up only sensible Idea's For we might then it may be have learned something by reading his Works And in the last Chapter of the first Book of the Heavens he essays to prove that the World is incorruptible and will eternally endure because he cannot prove it had a Beginning All things says he subsist for a finite or infinite Time But what is infinite only in one Sense is neither finite nor infinite Therefore nothing can subsist after this manner This is the way of reasoning us'd by the Prince of Philosophers that Genius of Nature who in stead of discovering die true Cause of Natural Effects by clear and distinct Idea's has established a Heathen Philosophy upon the false and confused Idea's of the Senses or upon such as are too general to be of any Use in an Enquiry after Truth I do not here find Fault with Aristotle because he did not know that God created the World in Time to make known his Power and the Dependance of his Creatures and that he will never destroy it that we may know also that he is immutable and never repents of his Designs But I believe my self able to confute his weak Proofs of the Worlds Eternity Though he sometimes is excusable in the Opinions he maintains yet he is hardly ever so in the Reasons he brings when he treats on Subjects which include any Difficulty We are it may be already perswaded of it by what I have said although I have not related all the Errors I have met with in the Book I have extracted and I have endeavoured to make him speak more clearly than he was accustomed to do But that we may be fully convinced that the Genius of Nature hath never discovered either the Secrets or Springs of it It will be proper for me to shew that the Principles this Philosopher makes use of to explain Natural Effects have no Reason in them It is plain that we can discover nothing in Physicks if we begin not with the most simple Bodies the Elements For the Elements are the Bodies into which all others resolve because they are contained in them either actually or * I speak according to the Sentiments of the Peripateticks c. 3. l. 3. de Coelo Potentially so Aristotle defines them But we cannot find in the Works of Aristotle that he has by a distinct Idea explained these simple Bodies into which he pretends the others resolve And consequently his
Elements not being clearly known it is impossible to discover the Nature of the Bodies which are composed of them This Philosopher says true that there are four Elements Fire Air Water and Earth But he does not clearly know the Nature of them He gives no distinct Idea of them Nay he will not have his Elements to be composed of the Fire Air Water and Earth that we see for in short if it were so we should at least have some Knowledge of them by our Senses It is true in many Places of his Works he endeavours to explain them by the Qualities of Heat and Cold Humidity and Driness Weight and Lightness But this manner of Explication is so impertinent and ridiculous that I cannot conceive how so many learned Men should be satisfied with it 'T is what I am going to prove Aristotle in his Book of the Heavens pretends that the Earth is the Center of the World and that all Bodies which he pleases to call simple because he supposes them to move by their own Nature must be moved by simple Motions He affirms that besides the Circular Motion which he maintains to be simple and by which he proves that the Heavens he supposes to move Circularly are a simple Body that there is only two which are simple The one descending or from the Circumference to the Center the other ascending or from the Center to the Circumference That these simple Motions agree with simple Bodies consequently that the Earth and Fire are simple Bodies one of which is absolutely heavy and the other absolutely light But because Heaviness and Lightness may meet in one Body either absolutely or in part he concludes that there are also two Elements or simple Bodies one of which is heavy in part and the other light in part viz. Water and Air. This is the Method he takes to prove that there are four Elements and no more It is evident to such as examine Mens Opinions by their own Reason that all these Propositions are false or at least they can never pass for clear and indisputable Principles of which we have very clear and distinct Idea's and which may serve for the Foundations of Physicks It is certain that there is nothing more absurd than an Essay to establish the Number of Elements by Imaginary Qualities of Weight and Lightness In saying without any Proof that there are some Bodies which are heavy others light through a Principle in their own Nature For if we may speak without proving what we say we may affirm that all Bodies are naturally heavy and that all endeavour to approach to the Center of the World as the Place of their Rest And we may on the contrary maintain that all Bodies are Naturally light and have a Tendency to the Heavens as the Place of their greatest Perfection For if we object to him who says all Bodies are heavy that Air and Fire are light he can only answer that Fire and Air are not light but only less weighty than Earth and Water and that is the Reason they seem light It is so with these Elements as if a Piece of Wood which seems light in Water not because it is light of it self since it falls down when it is in the Air but because the Water which is more heavy makes it ascend and bears it up If on the contrary we should object to one who would maintain that all Bodies are Naturally light that Earth and Water are heavy he would likwise answer that these Bodies seem heavy because they are not so light as others which surround them That Wood for instance seems heavy in the Air not because it is heavy since it swims when it is in the Water but because it is not so light as Air. It is therefore ridiculous to suppose these Principles indisputable that Bodies are heavy or light in their own Nature On the contrary 't is plain that all Bodies have not the Power of Motion in themselves and that 't is indifferent to them whether they are moved upward or downward East or West North or South or any other Way we can conceive But if according to Aristotle there are four Elements such as he wishes them to be Two Naturally heavy and two Naturally light viz. Fire Air Earth and Water What Consequence can we draw from thence to discover the Knowledge of the Universe These Four Elements are not such Fire Air Water and Earth as we see they are quite different we know them not by our Senses and still less by Reason because we have no distinct Idea of them I mean we know all Natural Bodies are composed of them since Aristotle has said it But the Nature of these compounded Bodies is unknown to us and we cannot discover them but by knowing the Four Elements or simple Bodies which compose them for we know the compound only by the simple Fire Aristotle says is Naturally light the ascending Motion is simple Therefore Fire is a simple Body since Motion must be proportioned to what it moves Natural Bodies are compounded of simple Bodies Therefore there is Fire in all Natural Bodies But a Fire which is not like to that we see for Fire is often only in Power in Bodies which are compounded of it What is it these Periparetick Discourses teach us That there is Fire in all Bodies either Actual or Potential that all Bodies are composed of something which we do not see and whose Nature we are unacquainted with We see then that here is very much advanced But if Aristotle does not discover to us the Nature of Fire and the other Elements of which all Bodies are composed probably we may imagine he has discovered at least the chief Qualities and Properties of them We shall further examine what he says thereof He declares to us there are four principal Qualities which belong to the Sense of feeling l. 2. c. 2 3. de gen corrupu Heat Cold Moist and dry of which all others are composed In this manner he distributes these first Qualities to the Four Elements To the Fire he gives Heat and Dryness to the Air Heat and Moistness to the Water Coldness and Humidity and to the Earth Coldness and Dryness Chap. 2. He affirms Heat and Cold to be active Qualities and Dryness and Humidity to be passive ones He thus defines Heat That what collects things of the same kind Cold which assembles all things either of the same or of a different kind Moisture that which is not easily contained in its own Bounds but in Foreign Limits and Dryness that which is easily contained in its own Bounds and not easily in the Limits of the Bodies that are about it Thus according to Aristotle Fire is a hot and dry Element 'T is therefore an Element which collects things of the same Nature which is easily contained within its own Limits and difficultly in the Limits of Forreign Bodies The Air is an hot and moist Element and therefore assembles
things of the same kind and is not easily contained in its own Limits but in that of others Water is a cold and moist Element which gathers things together both of the same and of a different Nature which is hot easily contained within its own Bounds but in that of others And in fine the Earth cold and dry and therefore collects things of the same and of a different Nature which is not easily contained in its own Bounds and very difficultly in that of others Here the Elements are explained according to the Sentiment of Aristotle or according to the Definitions he has given of their chief Qualities and because if we will believe him the Elements are simple Bodies whereof all others are compounded the Knowledge of these Element and their Qualities must be most clear and distinct since all Physicks or the Knowledge of Sensible Bodies which are composed of them ought to be deduced from thence Let us see then what is defective in these Principles First Aristotle joyns no distinct Idea to the Word Quality We know not whether by Quality he means a real Being distinct from Matter or only the Modification of Matter It seems sometimes as if he meant it in one Sense and sometimes in another It is true in the Eighth Chapter of Categories he defines Quality to be that which causes a thing to have such or such a Name but that will not satisfie our Demands Secondly the Definitions he gives of his four first Qualities Heat Cold Moist and Dry are all false or useless This is his Definition of Heat Heat is that which assembles things of a like Nature First we do not see that this Definition perfectly explains the Nature of Heat although it should be true that Heat collects all things of the same Nature But secondly it is false for Heat does not collect all things of the same Nature Heat does not assemble the Parts of Water it rather dissipates them into a Vapour Nor does it assemble the Particles of Wine or those of all other Liquors or fluid Bodies whatever Nor even those of Quicksilver On the contrary it resolves and separates all solid Bodies and even Fluids although of a different Nature And if there are any whose Parts Fire cannot dissipate 't is not because they are of the same Nature but because some are too gross and too solid to be raised by the Motion of the Parts of Fire In the third place Heat indeed can neither assemble nor dissipate the Parts of any Body whether Homogeneous or Heterogeneous For to assemble to separate or dissipate the Parts of any Body it must move them Now Heat can move nothing or at least 't is not evident that Heat can move Bodies For although we consider Heat with all the Attention possible we can only discover that it may communicate to Bodies a Motion which it has not in it self Yet we see that Fire moves and separates the Parts of Bodies that are exposed to it It is true but it may be it is not from its Heat for even it is not evident that it has any at all 'T is rather by the Action of its Parts which are visibly in a continual Motion It is plain that the Parts of Fire which strike against any Body must communicate a Part of their Motion to it whether there is Heat in Fire or not If the Parts of this Body are but a little solid and gross the Fire cannot move them and make them slip one upon another In short if they are a Mixture of subtle and gross ones the Fire can only dissipate those that it can push strong enough to separate intirely from the rest Thus Fire can only separate them and if it assembles them 't is merely by Accident But Aristotle pretends quite the contrary Separation says he which some attribute to Fire is only a resembling of things of the same kind De gen corr l. 2. c. 2. for 't is only by Accident that Fire dissipates things of a different kind If Aristotle had at first distinguished the Sentiment of Heat from the Motion of the Particles whereof the Bodies we call Heat are composed and had afterwards defined Heat taken for the Motion of the Parts by saying Heat is that which agitates and separates the invisible Parts whereof visible Bodies are composed he would have given a tollerable Definition of Heat Nevertheless it would not perfectly have contented us because it would not precisely have discovered to us the Nature of the Motion of hot Bodies Aristotle defines Coldness to be that which assembles Bodies of the same or of a different Nature This Definition is good for nothing For 't is false that Cold assembles Bodies To assemble them it must move them but if we consult Reason 't is evident Cold can move nothing In Effect by Cold he means either what we feel when we are cold or that which causes the Sensation of Cold. Now it is plain that the Sensation of Cold can move nothing since it can push nothing What it is that causes Sensation we cannot doubt when we examine things by our Reason for 't is only Rest or a Cessation from Motion So Cold in Bodies being only a Cessation from this Sort of Motion which accompanies Heat it is evident that if Heat separates yet Cold does not Thus Cold assembles neither things that are of a like or different Nature for what can push nothing can assemble nothing In a Word as it does nothing it collects nothing Aristotle judging of things by the Senses imagines Cold is also positive as well as Heat because the Sensations of Heat and Cold are both real and positive And he also thinks that these two Qualities are active And indeed if we follow the Impression of our Senses we have Reason to believe that Cold is a very active Quality since cold Water congeals reassembles and in a Moment hardens melted Gold or Lead after a little is poured upon them although the Heat of these Metals is great enough to separate the Parts of any Body they touch It is evident by what we have said of the Errors of the Senses in the first Book that if we rely only upon the Senses to judge of the Qualities of Sensible Bodies it is impossible to discover any certain and undoubted Truth which can serve as a Principle to assist us in the Knowledge of Nature For by this Method only we cannot discover what things are hot and what cold For of many Persons who should touch Water that is luke-warm some of them would think it hot and others cold Those that are of a hot Constitution would think it cold and those that are of a cold would think it hot And if we supposed Fish capable of Sensation 't is very probable they would think it hot when all Men think it cold It is the same with the Air it seems hot or cold according to the different Dispositions of the Bodies that are exposed
Mutual Concurrence but rather suppose that there is none and attentively consider what Body can meet and move this Loadstone We discover at first sight that 't is not the Loadstone we hold in our Hands since it does not touch that which is moved But because it is only moved at the approach of that which we hold in our Hands and is not moved of it self we ought to conclude That although it is not the Loadstone in our Hands which moves it it must be some little Bodies which proceed from it and which are past by it towards the other Loadstone To discover these little Bodies we must not open our Eyes and look near the Loadstone for the Senses would impose upon Reason and it may be we should judge that nothing proceeds from the Loadstone because we cannot see any thing go out from thence 'T is very probable we should forget that we do not see the most impetuous Winds nor many other Bodies which produce as extraordinary Effects We must keep firm to this clear and most intelligible Mean and carefully examine all the Effects of the Loadstone that we may discover how it can continually emit these little Bodies without being diminished For the Experiments that have been made shew that these little Bodies that go out on one side immediately enter in again at the other and they will serve to explain all Difficulties that can be brought against the manner of resolving this Question But it must be well observed That we ought not to abandon this Mean although even we could not answer some Difficulties proceeding from our Ignorance in several things If we have not a Mind to examine from whence it is that Loadstones are repelled when we oppose the same Poles to each other but rather the Reason why they approach and joyn to each other when we present the North Pole of the one to the South Pole of the other the Question would be more difficult and one way alone would not be sufficient to resolve it It is not enough to know exactly the Relations that are between the Poles of these two Loadstones nor to have recourse to the Means we have taken for the precedent Question for on the contrary this Method seems to hinder the Effect whose Cause we would seek Neither must we have recourse to any thing that we do not clearly know to be the natural and common Causes of Corporeal Motions nor deliver our selves from the Difficulty of the Question by a rambling and undeterminate Idea of an Occult Quality in Loadstones by which they attract each other for the Mind can conceive but one Body as having a sufficient Power to attract another The Impenetrability of Bodies makes us clearly conceive that Motion may be communicated by Impulsion and Experience proves plainly that it is communicated by this means But there is neither Reason nor Experience which clearly demonstrates the Motion of Attraction for in the Experiments which seem most proper to prove this kind of Motion we visibly perceive when we find the true and certain Cause that what appears to be done by Attraction is only perform'd by Impulsion So that we must not keep to any other Communication of Motion but that which is made by Impulsion Since this way is certain and undoubted and there is at least some Obscurity in the others which we cannot imagine But although we could demonstrate that in things purely Corporeal there are other Principles of Motion than the meeting of Bodies we could not reasonably reject this we ought even to keep to it before all others since it is the most clear and evident and appears so undoubted that we are not afraid to affirm it has been received by all People in all Ages Experience shews us that a Loadstone that swims freely upon the Water draws near to one which we hold in our Hands when we present different Poles we must then conclude that it is pushed towards it But as it is not the Loadstone we hold that pushes that which swims since that which swims draws nigh to that which we hold and nevertheless that which swims would not be moved if we did not present that to it which we hold in our Hands It is evident that at least we must recur to both Methods to explain this Questoin if we will resolve it by the received Principle of the Communication of Motion The Loadstone c draws near to the Loadstone C Therefore the Air which encompasses it pushes it since there is no other Body which can push it and that is the first way The Loadstone c approaches only at the presence of the Loadstone C therefore 't is necessary that the Loadstone C should determine the Air to push the Loadstone c and that is the second way It is evident that both these ways are absolutely necessary so that the Difficulty is now reduced to joyn them together which may be done two ways either in beginning with something known in the Air which encompasses the Loadstone c or by beginning with something known in the Loadstone C. If we would know that the parts of Air like those of all fluid bodies are in continual Agitation we cannot doubt but they still strike against the Loadstone c which they surround but because they strike it equally on all sides they do not push it more on one side that another whilst there is an equal quantity of Air on both sides Things being thus it is easie to judge that the Loadstone C prevents there being so much of this Air as we speak of towards a as towards b but that can be done only by dispersing some other bodies in the space which is between C and c. There must then some little bodies go out from the Loadstones to fill this space So these little bodies chasing away the Air near a the Loadstone c is less pushed on that side than the other and consequently must approach to the Loadstone C since all bodies move to the side where they are least pushed But if the Loadstone c had not many Pores about the Pole a fit to receive the little bodies which go out from the Pole B of the other Loadstone and too small to receive those of Air It is plain that these little bodies being more agitated than Air since they are to chase it from between the Loadstones they would push the Loadstone c and remove it from C. Thus since the Loadstone c approaches to or deviates from C when we present its different Poles it is necessary to conclude that the Poles a and b of the Loadstone c are filled with different Pores Otherwise the little bodies which are emitted from the Loadstone C would not freely pass without pushing the Loadstone c by the side a and would not be repulsed by the side b What I say of one of the Loadstones must also be understood of the other It is evident that we always learn something by this way of reasoning upon clear Idea's
and undoubted Principles For we have discovered that the Air which encompasses the Loadstone c was driven from between the Loadstones by Bodies which are continually emitted from their Poles ' which find free passage on one side and are stopt on the other And if we would discover near what the Magnitude and Figure of the Pores of this Loadstone are through which these little bodies pass we must yet make other Experiments but they would lead us to subjects which we intend not to treat of Upon these Questions we may consult the Principles of M. Descartes I shall only answer an Objection which immediately offers it self from whence is it that these little bodies cannot re-enter by the same Pores they came out that besides a certain Figure representing the Spiral Chanels of a Screw which we may suppose to be in the Pores producing this Effect the Inflexion of the little Branches which compose these Pores may in one Sense obey the little Bodies which pass a-cross them and in another Sense make them rough and stop their passage So that we need not be too much surprised at the difference of the Poles of the Loadstone for this difference may be accounted for many ways and all the difficulty is amongst several Causes to discover the true one If we had endeavoured to resolve the Question we have just now examined in beginning with the Corpuscles which we suppose to be emitted from the Loadstone C we should have found the same thing And we should likewise have discovered that the Air is composed of an infinite Number of Particles which are in continual Agitation for without it 't would be impossible that the Loadstone c should approach to the Loadstone C. I shall not stay to explain this because 't is not difficult I will give you here a Question more compound than the foregoing in which many Rules must be made use of 't is demanded what can be the Natural and Mechanical Cause of the Motion of our Members The Idea of Natural Cause is clear and distinct if we understand it as I have explained it in the precedent Question but the Term of the Motion of our Members is equivocal and confused for there are many sorts of these Motions some of the Will Natural and Convulsive ones There are likewise different Members in Mans Body So that according to the first Rule I must ask of which of these Motions it is that they would know the Cause But if the Question is left indeterminate so that I may make use of any I shall chuse I would examine the Question after this manner And first consider the Properties of these Motions and because I immediately discover that Voluntary Motions are commonly more readily performed than the Convulsive ones I conclude from thence that their Cause is different Therefore I can and ought to examine the Question by Parts for it would appear to be of too long a Discussion I would oblige my self therefore first to consider Voluntary Motion and because we have many Parts which concur to this Motion I would first consider the Arm as composed of many Muscles which have generally some Action when we lift a Weight up or when we differently move Bodies but I keep only to one supposing the rest to be formed very near after the same manner I instruct my self of its Composition by the Help of some Book of Anatomy or rather by a Sensible Sight of its Fibres and Tendons which I get some able Anatomist to dissect for me to whom I make all the Demands which shall afterwards produce in my Mind some Method for me to find what I seek Considering therefore all things attentively I cannot doubt but the Principle of the Motion of my Arm depends upon the Contraction of the Muscles which compose it And if I have not a mind to perplex my self with too many things I may suppose according to the common Opinion that this Contraction is produced by the Animal Spirits which fill these Muscles and by this means shorten them the whole Question then which respects Voluntary Motion will be reduced to know how the few Animal Spirits which are contained in an Arm can suddenly swell the Muscles according to the Orders of the Will with a sufficient Force to lift a Burden of an Hundred Weight or more When we consider this with any Application the first means that presents it self to the Imagination is commonly that of some violent and quick Fermentation like to that of Gunpowder or certain Liquors filled with Volatile Salt when they are mixed with those that are Acid or full of fixt Salt A little Gunpowder when lighted is capable of raising not only an Hundred Pound Weight but a Tower and even a Mountain Earthquakes which overthrow Towns and shake whole Provinces are also produced by Spirits which are kindled under Ground much like Gunpowder Thus supposing in the Arm such a Cause of the Fermentation and Dilatation of Spirits we may say that it is the Principle of the Power that Men have to perform such quick and violent Motions However as we ought to distrust this means which enters into the Mind only by the Senses and whereof we have no clear and evident Knowledge we must not too easily admit of it For indeed it is not sufficient to give a Reason of the Force and Quickness of our Motions by a Comparison since this Reason is confused and imperfect For we must here explain a Voluntary Motion and Fermentation is not Voluntary The Blood excessively ferments in Feavers and we cannot prevent it The Spirits are inflamed and agitated in the Brain and their Agitation diminishes not according to our Desires When a Man moves his Arm after diverse Ways according to this Explanation he must make a Million of great and small quick and slow Fermentations that begin and which is still more difficult to explain according to this Supposition that end in the same Moment he wills it These Fermentations must not dissipate all their Matter and this Matter must be always ready to take Fire When a Man walks Ten Miles how many Thousand Times must the Muscles which he uses in walking be filled and emptied And what a vast Quantity of Spirits would be required if Fermentation should dissipate and destroy them at every Step. This Reason is therefore imperfect to explain the Motions of our Bodies which entirely depend upon our Will It is evident that the present Question consists in this Mechanical Problem By Pneumatick Machines to find the means of overcoming such or such Force suppose a Hundred Weight by another as small as we will suppose the Weight of an Ounce and that the Application of this little Force shall produce its desired Effect and depend upon the Will Now this Problem is easily resolved and the Demonstration of it is clear We may resolve it by a Vessel which has two Orifices one of which is a little more than 1600. Times greater than the other
Truth enquired after I make it speak positively like one who pretends to have resolved the Question he has examined CHAP. IX The last Example to shew the Vsefulness of this Work in which the Cause of the Vnion of the Parts of Bodies and also the Rules of the Communication of Motion are examined BOdies are united together after three different ways by Continuity Contiguity and a third way which has no particular name because it rarely happens and which I call by the general Term of Vnion By Continuity or the Cause of it I mean that I know not what which links together the Parts of a Body so strongly that they cannot easily be separated and which we look upon as making altogether but one whole By Contiguity I mean that I know not what which makes me suppose two Bodies touching after such a manner so that there is nothing between them but which I judge not strictly united because I can easily separate them By this third Term Vnion I mean that I know not what which is the cause that wo Glasses or two Marbles whose Surfaces having been polished by rubbing one against another are joyned together in such a manner that although we can very easily separate them by making them slip off one another we shall nevertheless have some trouble to do it by any other Method Now this is not Continuity since these two Glasses or Marbles being united after this manner are not conceived as making but one Body because in one Sense we can separate them so easily Nor is it simply Contiguity although it comes very near it because these two pieces of Glass or Marble are strictly enough united and even much more than the Parts of soft and liquid Bodies as those of Butter and Water These Terms thus explained we must afterwards enquire into the Cause which unites Bodies and the Differences between Continuity Contiguity and the Vnion of Bodies according to the Sense I have determined I first seek the Cause of Continuity or that I know not what which keeps the Parts of a Body so strictly united together that some Force must be used to separate them and which we look upon together as making one whole I hope this Cause being found we shall have no great Difficulty to discover the rest It seems now necessary to me that this I know not what that ties even the smallest Parts of a piece of Iron together which I hold in my Hand should be something very powerful since I must use a great Force to break off one little part of it But I deceive my self May not this Difficulty that I find in breaking the least piece of Iron proceed from my Weakness and not the resistance of the Iron For I remember that I have formerly used more Violence than I do now to break a piece of Iron like that I hold in my Hand and if I fall Sick perhaps I could not even do it by the utmost Power I could use I therefore see plainly I must not absolutely judge of Firmness whereby the parts of Iron are knit together by the Endeavours I make to dis-unite them I must only judge that they keep very strongly together in relation to my Weakness or that they keep more strongly together than the parts of my Flesh since the Sensations of Pain that I have whilst I make too great Efforts advertises me that I shall rather dis-unite the parts of my Body than those of Iron I discover then that as I am not absolutely Strong or Weak Iron or other Bodies are not absolutely hard or flexible but only in relation to the Cause which acts upon them and that the Efforts I make cannot serve me as a Rule to measure the greatness of the Force that must be imployed to overcome the Resistance and Hardness of Iron For Rules ought to be invariable and these Efforts change according to time the abundance of actual Spirits and hardness of my Flesh since I cannot always produce the same Effects by using the same Endeavours This Reflection delivers me from a Prejudice that I had which made me imagine the Links were strong which united the parts of Bodies which Links perhaps are nothing at all and I hope it will not be useless to me in the Consequence for I have a strange Inclination to judge of every thing in relation to my self and to follow the Impressions of my Senses which I would more industriously avoid But to proceed After having thought some time and with some application enquired the cause of this strict Union without having discovered any thing of it I find my self carried by my Negligence and Nature to judge with many others that 't is the Form of Bodies which preserves the Union between their Parts or the Amity and Inclination they have for their likeness for there is nothing more commodious than to suffer our selves sometimes to be seduced and so to become Learned at little Cost But since I will not believe any thing I do not know I must not suffer my self to be thus overcome by my own Idleness nor give my self up to bare Appearances Let us quit therefore these Forms and Inclinations whereof we have no distinct and particular Idea's but only confused and general ones that it may be we form only in relation to our Nature and even in the Existence of which many Persons and perhaps whole Nations agree not It seems to me that I see the Cause of this strict Union of Parts which compose hard Bodies without admitting of any other thing than what all the World grants to be in them or at least all that the World conceives distinctly to be there for every one distinctly conceives that all Bodies are or may be composed of little Particles Thus it may be there are some of them which are crooked and branched and like little Links capable of holding others strongly together or else that they intermix all their Branches so that we cannot easily dis-unite them I have a great Mind to permit my self to espouse this Thought and so much the more as that I see the visible Parts of great Bodies hold and unite themselves together after this manner But I cannot too much distrust my Prejudices and the Impression of my Senses I must therefore yet examine the Matter more closely and see the Reason why the smallest and utmost Parts of Solid Bodies in a word even the Parts of each of these Links hold together for they cannot be united by other Links yet smaller since I suppose them solid Or else If I say they are united after this manner they may reasonably demand what shall unite these others together and so on ad infinitum So that now the Difficulty of the Question is to know how the parts of these little Links or branched parts can be so strictly united together as they are A for instance with B which I suppose parts of a little Link Or else which is the same thing Bodies being so
upon their External and Convex Surface by the Air which environs them whilst there was no Counterpressure in their Internal and Concave Surface So that the Action of the Horses that drew the two Hemispheres on both sides could not overcome the Efforts of an infinite Number of little Particles of the Air that resisted them by pressing these two Hemispheres together But the least Force is capable of separating them when the Air being entred again within the Sphere pushes the Concave and Internal Surfaces as much as the Air without presses the External and Convex ones But if on the contrary we take a Carps Bladder and put it in a Vessel from whence all the Air has been exhausted this Bladder being full of Air will crack and break because then there is no Air without the Bladder to resist that which is within 'T is likewise the same Reason that I have given for the first Experiment that two Planes of Glass or Marble having been used to be joyned one upon another so that in one Sense we find some resistance in the separating of them because these two parts of Marble are pressed and constring'd by the External Air which encompasses them and are not so strongly pushed by it within I might bring an infinite Number of other Experiments to prove that the gross Air which environs Bodies strongly unites their Parts but what I have said may suffice clearly to explain my Thoughts upon the present Question I say then that which so strongly unites the Parts of hard Bodies and these little Links I have before spoke on is other little external Bodies infinitely more agitated than the Air we breath in and these push and compress them and that which gives us some Trouble to separate them is not their Rest but the Agitation of these little Bodies which surround them So that what resists Motion is not Rest which is only a Privation and has no Power of it self but some contrary Motion This bare Exposition of my Opinion perhaps seems reasonable yet I well foresaw that many Persons would have some Difficulty to receive it Hard Bodies make so great an Impression upon our Senses when they strike us or when we make any Effort to break them that we are inclined to believe their Parts are united much more strictly than indeed they are And on the contrary the little Bodies which I have said encompasses them and to which I have given the Power of causing this Union makes no Impression upon our Senses seeming to be too weak to produce so Sensible an Effect But to destroy this Prejudice which is founded only upon the Impressions of our Senses and the Difficulty we have to imagine Bodies smaller and more agitated than those we see every Day we must consider that the Hardness of Bodies must not be judged of in Relation to our Hands or to the Efforts we are capable of making which vary at different Times For indeed if the greatest Force of Man is almost nothing in Comparison of that of the Subtle Matter we should be very much in the wrong to believe that Diamonds and the hardest Stones might not have for the Cause of their Hardness the Compression of little rapid Bodies which encompass them Now we may plainly discover that the Force of Man is very small if we consider that the Power he has of moving his Body into many different Ways proceeds only from a little Fermentation of his Blood which by agitating some few little Parts so produces the Animal Spirits For 't is the Agitation of these Spirits which gives Force to our Bodies and gives it a Power to make these Efforts that we unreasonably look upon as something very great and powerful But it must be well observed that this Fermentation of our Blood is only a very little Communication of the Motion of this subtle Matter we speak of for all the Fermentations of Visible Bodies are only Communications of the Motion of Invisible Bodies since every Body receives its Agitation from some other We must not therefore wonder if our Power is not so great as that of this Subtle Matter which we receive it from But if our Blood fermented as much in our Hearts as Gunpowder does when we put Fire to it that is if our Blood received as great a Communication of the Motion of this Subtle Matter as that of Gunpowder receives We might do extraordinary things very easily as break Iron throw down a House c. provided we suppose there was an agreeable Proportion between our Members and the Blood thus agitated We ought then to destroy our Prejudices and not to imagine according to the Impression of our Senses that the Parts of hard Bodies are so strongly united together because we have so much Trouble to break them But if we should consider the Effects of Fire in Mines in heavy Bodies and in many other Effects of Nature which have no other Cause than the Agitation of these Invisible Bodies as Descartes has proved in many Places we should manifestly discover that 't is not above their Power to unite and compress togeâ—her the Parts of hard Bodies as strongly as we see they are united For in fine I am not afraid to affirm that a Cannon-Bullet whose Motion appears so extraordinary does not even receive the Thousandth Part of the Motin of the Subtle Matter that is about it We should not doubt of what I advance if we first considered that Gunpowder is not all enkindled in the same Instant Secondly that although it should all take Fire at the same Instant it swims but a very little while in the Subtle Matter and Bodies which swim but a little while in others cannot receive much Motion from them as we may see in Boats that we abandon to the Course of the Water which receive their Motion but by little and little In the third Place and chiefly because each Particle of Powder can receive only the Motion which the Subtle Matter impresses for the Water communicates to the Vessel only the direct Motion which is common to all the Parts thereof which is generally very small in Relation to other Motions I could further show the Greatness of the Motion of the Subtle Matter to those that receive Descartes's Principles by the Motion of the Earth and Gravity of Bodie and could even from thence bring Proofs that are certain and exact enough but it is not necessary to my Subiect It 's enough without having read the Works of Descartes or having a sufficient Proof of the Agitation of this Subtle Matter which I ascribe as the Cause of the Inflexibility of Bodies to read with some Application what I have said of it in the 2d Chap. of the 4th Book Being then now delivered from the Prejudices which incline us to believe that our Efforts were very powerful and that that of the Subtle Matter which environs and compresses hard Bodies is very weak and being otherwise perswaded of the violent
Good And when we Sin what do we Nothing for we love a false Good that God enclines us not to love by an invincible Impression We cease to seek the true Good and make useless the motion which God imprints on us Now when we love any particular Good only or against Order we receive from God as great an impression of Love as if we stopt not at this Good Moreover this particular determination which is neither necessitated nor invincible is also given us of God Therefore when we Sin we produce no new modification in our selves However I confess when we do not Sin but resist Temptation we may say in one Sense that we give our selves a new modification because we would think of other things than on the false Goods which tempt us But what we then do is produced by the action which God impresses on us that is by our motion towards Good in general or by our Will assisted by Grace or illuminated by a light or impelled by a preingaged Pleasure For in short if 't is pretended that to Will different things is to give our selves different Modifications I grant that in this Sense the Mind can diversly modifie it self by the action it receives from God But it must always be observed that that action that God performs in us depends upon us and is not invincible in respect to particular Goods For when a particular Good is presented to us we have an internal Sensation of our liberty in respect to it as we have of our Pleasure and Pain when we feel it We are even convinced of our Freedom by the same reason that we are convinced of our Existence for 't is the internal Sensation we have of our Thoughts which teaches us that we are And if in the time that we are conscious of our liberty in respect to a particular Good we ought to doubt whether or no we are free because we have no clear Idea of our liberty We must also doubt of our Pain and Existence at the time even when we are very unhappy since we have no clear Idea either of our Souls or of our Pain It is not the same with internal Sensation as with our external Senses These always deceive us in something when we follow their information but our internal Sensation never deceives us 'T is by my external Senses that I see Colours upon the surface of Bodies that I hear sounds in the Air and feel pain in my Hand c. and I am deceiv'd if I judge of these things upon the relation of my Senses But 't is by internal Sensation that I see Colours hear Sounds suffer Pain and I deceive not my self to think I see when I see hear when I hear or suffer when I suffer provided I stay there I explain not these things more at large because they are evident of ' emselves Thus having an internal Sensation of our liberty at the same time that a particular Good presents it self to our Mind we ought not to doubt whether we are free in respect to this Good Yet as we have not always this internal Sensation and sometimes only consult what remains of it in our memory after a very confused manner We may think of the abstracted Reasons which hinder us from feeling our selves persuaded that it is not possible for Man to be free Like a Stoic that wants nothing and who can Philosophise at his ease can imagine that Pain is not an Evil because the internal Sensation he has of it does not actually convince him of the contrary He may prove as Seneca has done by Reasons that in one Sense are true that 't is even a contradiction that a wise Man can be unhappy Yet when the internal Sensation we have of our selves will not suffice to convince us that we are free we may perswade our selves of it by Reason For being convinced by Reason that God only acts for himself and that he cannot give us any motion which tends not towards him the impression towards good in general may be invincible but it is plain the impression he gives us towards particular Goods must necessarily be free For if this impression was invincible we should not have any motion to go to God altho' he gives us motion only for himself and we should be necessitated to stop at particular Goods although God Order and Reason forbid it So that we should not Sin through our own default and God would be truly the cause of our Irregularities since they would not be free but purely natural and absolutely necessary Thus although we should not be convinced of our liberty by the internal Sensation we have of our selves we might by Reason discover that its necessary that Man should be created free supposing that he be capable of desiring particular Goods and that he can desire these Goods only by the impression or motion that God continually gives him for himself which may likewise be proved by Reason But 't is not the same of the capacity we have of suffering any Pain To discover that we have this capacity there is no other way but internal Sensation and yet no one doubts but Man is subject to Pain As we know not our Soul by a clear Idea as I have elsewhere explained 't would be in vain for us to try to discover what it is in us which terminates the action that God imprints on us or what it is in us which is overcome by a determination that is not invincible and that may be changed by our Will or impression towards whatever is good and by its union with him who includes the Ideas of all Beings For as we have no clear Idea of any modification of our Soul there is only an internal Sensation which teaches us that we exist and what we are 'T is this Sensation therefore that we must consult to convince our selves that we are free It answers us clearly enough when we actually propose any particular good to our selves For there is no Man who can doubt that he is not invincibly carried to Eat a Fruit or to shun some inconsiderable Pain But if instead of hearkning to our internal Sensation we give attention to abstracted Reasons which divert us from thinking of our selves it may be we might even lose the sight of our selves and forget what we are and that endeavouring to reconcile the knowledge of God and the absolute power he has over us with our liberty we should fall into an Error which would overthrow all the Principles of Religion and Morality Here is an Objection that is used to be made against what I have said and although it be very trivial it nevertheless is a difficulty to some Men. The hatred of God say they is an action wherein there is no Good Therefore it is perfectly the Sinners and God has no part in it Consequently Man acts and gives himself a new modification by an action which proceeds not from God I Answer That Sinners hate
his Companions answer to such Exclamations and what will they think of him That he is a Mad-man who has been distemper'd by the malignant Influences of the Planet which he admires and considers He is alone of that opinion and that is sufficient Thus to be mad in the opinion of others it is not necessary to be so effectively it is sufficient to think or to see things otherwise than they do For should all Men fancy themselves to be Cocks he that should think himself to be what he really is would certainly be lookt upon as a Mad-man But perhaps some will ask whether Men have a Bill at the end of their Nose and a Cock's-comb upon their head I suppose not But I know nothing of it when I only judge by my Senses and know not how to make that use of them which I ought to do let me feel my Face and my Head never so much I only feel my Body and those which surround me with hands of which I neither know the length nor figure I do not so much as know certainly that I have hands I only know it while I think I stir them There are certain Motions in a certain part of my Brain which according to the general opinion is the Seat of common Sense but perhaps I want that very part which people speak so much of and which is so little known at least I do not feel it in my self though I feel my hands So that I have yet more reason to believe I have hands than that little Glandula pinealis which Men still daily dispute about But in fine I neither know the figure not the motions of that little Gland and yet I am told That that only can instruct me in the figure and motion of my Body and of those which surround me What then are we oblig'd to think of all this That it is not the Body which instructs Reason That the part to which the Soul is immediately united is neither visible nor intelligible of it self That neither our Body nor those that are about it can be the immediate Object of our Mind That we cannot learn from our Brain whether it actually exists and much less whether there are Bodies that surround us That for that Reason we are oblig'd to acknowledge that there is some superiour Intelligence which alone is capable of acting in us and which may act after such a manner in us as truly to represent external Bodies to us without giving us the least Idea of our Brain though the Motions which are produced in our Brain are an occasion for it to discover those Bodies to us For in fine we see with eyes whose figure we know not how the Bodies which surround us are figured And though the Colours which appear upon Objects are not more lively than those which are painted upon the Optick Nerve we do not in the least see these even while we admire the beauty of the others But after all what obligation lyes on that Intelligence to shew us Bodies when our Brain has certain motions or what necessity is there of external Bodies to excite motions in our Brain Do not Sleep Passions and Folly produce those motions without the help of those external Bodies Is it evident that Bodies which cannot move each other n = * See the 3d Chap. of the 2d part of the 6 Book and the Explanation on the said Chapter should communicate to those they meet a moving force which they have not in themselves Yet allowing that Bodies move themselves and those they hit against shall not he who gives a Being to all things be able of him self to excite in our Brain those motions to which the Ideas of our Mind are affix'd In fine where is the Contradiction That our Brain being without new motions our Soul should nevertheless have new Ideas since it is certain that the motions of the Brain do not produce the Ideas of the Soul that we have not so much as a knowledge of those Motions and that God only can represent our Ideas to us n = †See the 6. Chap. of the 2. part of the 3. Book and the Explanation on the said Chapter as I have prov'd elsewhere Therefore it is absolutely necessary to be positively assured of the Existence of external Bodies to know God who gives us the Sensation of them and to know That as he is infinitely perfect he cannot deceive us For if the Intelligence which gives us the Ideas of all things would as it were divert it self in representing Bodies to us as actually existent though there were none it is evident that it would not be difficult for it so to do It is for those Reasons or the like that Descartes who was desirous to establish his Philosophy upon a true Foundation has not thought fit to suppose that there are Bodies nor to prove it by sensible Demonstrations though they appear very convincing to the common sort of Men. Apparently he knew as well as we do that it was enough to open our Eyes to see Bodies and that we might draw near unto them and feel them to be certain whether our Eyes did not deceive us in their Testimony He was sufficiently acquainted with the Genius of Men to be sensible that the like Proofs would not be rejected But he neither matter'd sensible Probabilities nor the vain Applauses of Men. He preferr'd Truth though despis'd to the Glory of a Reputation without Merit and chose rather to be thought ridiculous by Men of mean Parts and make such Doubts as seem'd extravagant to them rather than to assert things which he did not judge to be certain and undeniable But though Descartes has given the strongest Proofs that Reason alone can furnish for the Existence of Bodies though it is evident that God is no Deceiver and indeed we might say that he did actually deceive us if we deciev'd our selves by making a due use of our Sense and other Faculties whereof he is the Author Yet we may say that the Existence of Matter is not as yet perfectly demonstrated For in fine in point of Philosophy we must believe nothing but what Evidence obliges us to believe We must make as much use of Liberty as we can Our Judgments must have no farther Extent than our Perceptions Therefore let us only judge that we see Bodies when we see them really and that these visible or intelligible Bodies do actually exist But why should we judge positively that there is a material World without like unto the intelligible World which we see It may be urg'd perhaps That we see those Bodies without us and even at a great distance from that which we animate and therefore we may judge that they are without us without extending our Judgments beyond our Perceptions Bus what of that Do not we see the Light without us and in the Sun though it is not there Nevertheless I grant that those Bodies which we see without us are
really external for that is undeniable But is it not evident that there are external Places and Distances That there are intelligible Spaces in the intelligible World which is the immediate Object of our Mind The material Body which we animate let us observe this is not that which we see when we look upon it I mean when we turn our bodily Eyes towards it the Body which we see is an intelligible Body and there are intelligible Spaces between that intelligible Body and the intelligible Sun which we see as there are material Spaces between our Body and the Sun which we behold Certainly God sees that there are Spaces between the Bodies he has created but he does not see those Bodies or those Spaces by themselves he can only see them by intelligible Bodies and Spaces God draws his Light only from himself he only sees the material World in the intelligible World which he includes and in the knowledge he has of his own Will which actually gives Existence and Motion to all things Therefore there are intelligible Spaces between the intelligible Bodies which we see as there are material Spaces between the Bodies we behold Moreover we must observe That as there is none but God who of himself knows his own Will which produces all Beings it is impossible for us to know from any but himself whether there is really without us a material World like unto that which we see Because the material World is neither visible nor intelligible of it self Therefore to be fully convinc'd that there are Bodies we must not not only have Demonstrations that there is a God and that God is not deceiver but also that God has assur'd us that he has created such Which I do not find to be prov'd in Descartes's Works God only speaks to the Mind and obliges it to assent after two ways by Evidence and by Faith I own that Faith obliges us to believe that there are Bodies but as to the Evidence it seems to me not to be full nor are we invincibly induc'd to believe that there is any thing besides God and our Mind It is true we have a great Propension to believe that there are Bodies which surround us Sixth Meditation I grant it to Mr. Descartes But nevertheless as natural as it is it does not force us to it by Evidence it only inclines us to it by Impression Now we are only oblig'd in our free Judgments to follow Light and Evidence and if we suffer our selves to be guided by sensible Impression we shall for the most part be mistaken Why do we deceive our selves in the Judgments we form upon sensible Qualities upon the magnitude figure and motion of Bodies unless it be because we follow an Impression like unto that which induces us to believe that there are Bodies Do we not see that Fire is hot that Snow is white that the Sun is dazling with Light Do we not see that sensible Qualities as well as Bodies are external Nevertheless it is certain that these sensible Qualities which we see without us are not really out of us or rather there is no certainty in all this What reason have we to judge that beside the intelligible Bodies which we see there are others which we look upon What Evidence have we that an Impression which is deceitful not only in relation to sensible Qualities but also in relation to the magnitude figure and motion of Bodies should not be the same in relation to the actual Existence cf Bodies I ask what Evidence we have of it For as to Probabilities I grant that they are not wanting I know there is this difference between sensible Qualities and Bodies that Reason can much easier correct the Impression or Natural Judgments which have a relation to sensible Qualities than those which have a relation to the existence of Bodies And moreover that all the corrections of Reason in relation to sensible Qualities agree perfectly with Christian Religion and Morality and that the Existence of Bodies cannot be denied out of a principle of Religion It is easie to apprehend that Pleasure and Pain Heat and even Colours are no modifications of Bodies That sensible Qualities in general are not contain'd in the Idea we have of matter in a word that our Senses do not represent sensible objects to us as they are in themselves but as they relate to the preseruation of Health and Life This is not only Consonant to Reason but much more yet to the Christian Religion and Morality as have been shown in divers parts of this Work But it is not so easie to assure our selves positively that there are no Bodies without us as that Pain and Hear are not in Bodies which seem to cause them It is most certain at least that there may be external Bodies We have nothing to prove that there are none and on the contrary we have a strong inclination to believe that there are Therefore we have more reason to conclude that there are such than to believe that there are not For which Reason I am of Opinion that we ought to believe there are For we are naturally inclin'd to follow our natural Judgment when we cannot positively correct it by Knowledge and Evidence For all natural Judgment proceeding from God we may conform our free Judgments to it when we find no means to discover the falsity of them And should we deceive our selves on those occasions the Author of our Mind would seem in some measure to be the Author of our Errors and Faults This Argument perhaps is pretty just Nevertheless we must grant that it cannot pass for an evident demonstration of the existence of Bodies For in fine God does not force us invinsibly to submit to it If we consent to it 't is freely and we may chuse whether we will consent to it or not If my Argument is Just we ought to believe that it is altogether probable there are Bodies but we must not remain absolutely convinc'd of it by the said Argument Otherwise 't is we who act and not God in us 'T is by a free Act and consequently liable to Error we consent and not by an invinsible Impression For we believe because we will it freely and not because we see it evidently Certainly nothing but Faith can convince us that there are Bodies indeed We can receive no exact demonstration of the existence of any other Being but of that which is necessary And if we examine it strictly we shall find it is not even possible to know with an absolute evidence whether God is or is not really Creator of a material and sensible World for such an evidence is only met with in necessary relations and there is no necessary relation between God and such a World He might not have Created it and if he has done it 't is because it was his Will and his Free-Will too The Saints which are in Heaven are sensible by an evident Light that
God Wills it If God Will At every Objection see the Article against which it is made that Minds shall be subject to Bodies that they shall love and fear them this is no disorder If it were Gods pleasure that two times two should not be four we should not lye in saying that two times two was not not four for it would be a truth God is the Principle of all Truth and the Master of all Order He supposes nothing neither Truth nor Order but makes both Answer All is then overthrown There is no longer any Science nor Morality nor undeniable proofs of Religion This Consequence is clear to any one who apprehends this false Principle that God produces Order and Truth by a Will absolutely Free But that is no Answer I Answer then That God neither does nor wills any thing without knowledge that therefore his Will supposes something but what is supposes is nothing that is Created Order Truth Eternal Wisdom is the Pattern of all the Works of God and this Wisdom is not made God who makes all things never made it though he constantly begets it by the necessity of his Being Whatever God Wills is in Order from this only reason that God Wills it I own it But it is because God cannot Act against himself against his Wisdom and Light He may forbear to produce any External thing but if he will Act he can only do it according to the Immutable Order of that Wisdom which he necessarily loves for Religion and Reason teach me that he does nothing without his Son without his Word without his Wisdom Therefore I am bold to say that God cannot positively Will that the Mind should be subject to the Body because this Wisdom according to which God Wills whatever he Wills shews me clearly that this is contrary to Order And I see this clearly in that Wisdom because that is the soveraign and universal Reason of which all Spirits do participate for which all Intelligences are Created by which all Men are Reasonable For no Man is his own Reason Knowledge and Wisdom unless it be perhaps when his Reason is particular his Knowledge a false Light and his Wisdom Folly As most Men know not distinctly that nothing but Eternal Wisdom directs them and that Intelligible Ideas which are the immediate Object of their Mind are not Created they imagine that Eternal Laws and Immutable Truths have been establish'd such by a Free Will of God And 't is for that very reason Descartes says that God could have made two times four not to be eight and that the three Angles of a Triangle should not be equal two right ones An Answer to the 6th Objection against his Meditations Art 6. Art 8. and Lett. 68. of the 3d Vol. because there is no Order says he no Law no Reason of Goodness and Truth but what depends on God and that it is he who from all Eternity has ordained and establish'd Eternal Truths as Soveraign Law-giver This Learned Man did not mind that there is an Order a Law a soveraign Reason which God loves necessarily which is Coeternal with him and according to which it is necessary he should Act supposing he will Act. See the Explanation of the 6th Chapter of the 2d Part of the 3d Book How all things are seen in God For God is indifferent as to his External Works but he is not indifferent though perfectly free in the manner by which he does 'em he always Acts in the Wisest and most perfect manner possible he always follows the immutable and necessary Order Therefore God may chuse whether he will create Spirits and Bodies but if he creates those two kinds of Beings he must create them in the simplest way and place them in a perfect order He may for instance unite Spirits to Bodies but I affirm that he cannot subject them to 'em unless in pursuance of the Order which he always follows the Sin of Spirits obliges him to proceed thus as I have already explained in the 7th Article and first Remark towards the latter end To prevent some Instances which might be objected against me I think my self obliged to say that Men are in the wrong to Consult themselves when they have a mind to know what God can do or will They ought not to judge of his Will by the Internal Sensations they have of their own Inclinations for then they would often make an Injust Cruel and Sinful instead of a powerful God They ought to lay aside the general Principle of their Prejudices which makes them judge of all things according to themselves They must attribute nothing to God but what they conceive clearly to be included in the Idea of an infinitely perfect Being for they ought only to judge of things by clear Ideas Then the God they will adore will not be like unto those of Antiquity which were Cruel Adulterous Voluptuous like the Persons who had set them up Nor will he so much as resemble the God of some Christians who to make him as powerful as Sinners desire him ascribe to him an absolute power of Acting against all Order of leaving Sin unpunished and Condemning some Persons to Eternal Torments though never so Just and so Innocent The Second Objection against the First Article IF God Wills that Order which makes Monsters I do not say among Men for they have sinn'd but amongst Animals and Plants What is the Cause of the general Corruption of the Air which breeds so many Distempers By what Order are Seasons irregular and the Sun of Frosts burn up and destroy the Fruits of the Earth Does it argue Wisdom or Order to give an Animal parts altogether useless and to freeze Fruits after having form'd them Is it not rather because God does what he pleases and that his Power is above all Order and Rule For to speak of things of greater Consequence than some Fruits with which it is lawful to do what he pleases the Clay out of which God makes Vessels of Wrath is the same wherewith he makes Vessels of Mercy Answer These difficulties are only fit to obscure Truth because they proceed from the darkness of the Mind We know that God is Just We see that the Wicked Prosper Must we deny what we see must we doubt what we know because perhaps we may be so stupid as not to know or such Libertines as not to believe what Religion teaches us of future Punishments So likewise we know that God is Wise and that he does nothing but what is Good yet we see Monsters or defective Works What shall we believe that God was mistaken or that those Monsters are not from him Certainly those who have sense or steadiness of Mind will believe neither for it is evident that God does all and that he does nothing but what is as perfect as possible in respect to the simplicity and small number of means which he imploys in the formation of his Works We must keep
the condemning of secret Intentions we may perhaps judge that what I say is improbable But I do not think that any one can be offended at it since I endeavour thus to satisfie Mens minds even those who are the most troublesome in the difficulties they propose about Original Sin AN EXPLANATION OF THE Third Chapter of the Third Part of the Second Book In which I speak Of the Power of the Imagination of some Authors and particularly of Tertullian AS I am convinced that the most general and most exuberant Principle of the Errors we meet with in Sciences and particularly in Morality is the Impression which lively Imaginations make upon Mens Minds who are guided more by Mechanism than by Reason I thought my self obliged to make the World so sensible of this Truth as to awaken Men out of their Lethargy in relation to it And whereas Examples are most powerful over us especially when there is something great and extraordinary in them I have thought that the celebrated Names of Tertullian Seneca and of Montagne would be capable of exciting their Attention and convince them sensibly of the contagious power of the Imagination over Reason For in fine if dead Words which are not animated by the Air and sensible Behaviour of those famous Authors have still more force than the Reason of certain Persons If the turn of Expression which gives but a weak Idea of the sensible Action which the Imagination diffuses livelily upon the Face and the rest of their Body who are perswaded of what they say is capable of agitating penetrating and convincing many certainly it must be granted that nothing can be more dangerous than a respectful attention to Persons whose Imagination is strong and lively For their Air and manner of speaking is a Natural Language so strong and convincing they know how to draw things so much to the Life that they commonly make the Passions and the Senses rise against Reason that they infuse as it were conviction and certainty into all those who look upon them I was very sensible that in producing these great Examples I should not cure all those who had been struck with astonishment and admiration at the reading of these three famous Authors For there is no need to very well acquainted with the Nature of Man to know that the Wounds which the Brain has received are harder to be cured than those of the other parts of the Body and that it is easier to close a Wound which is not exposed to the Action of some Body that may renew it than perfectly to cure certain Prejudices which are justified every moment by very probable Reasons It is very difficult to close up the Traces of the Brain exactly because they are exposed to the course of the Spirits and may be continually renewed by a vast number of Traces which may be called accessories Those kind of Wounds cannot commonly be cured or closed up unless it be when the Brain having received others that are deeper and opposite to them a strong and continual revulsion is made in the Spirits For we must not imagine that a Prejudice is absolutely cured as soon as we fancy it is because we are not actually affected with it A Prejudice is only absolutely cured when the Trace is perfectly closed up and not so soon as the Spirits begin no longer to take their course that way for some particular Reason Therefore I was very sensible that those who had been overcome by the Force and Motions of Tertullian say'd and dazzled by the Greatness and Beauties of Seneca charm'd and corrupted by the free and natural Expressions of Montaigne would not change their Sentiments after the reading of a few Pages of my Book I judg'd on the contrary that they would be displeased at my Endeavours to dissipate the Spell which charms them But whereas I was in hopes that these Examples would prove of use to my Design for the Reasons I have alledged I thought my self obliged to have more regard to the Advantage many persons may derive by it who are unprejudiced than to the Uneasiness of some others whom I thought would criticize upon the Liberty I have taken I considered also that there are few Men so much prejudiced in favour of their Authors as to despair of prevailing with them to side with Reason again Lastly I thought that as there are perhaps no Men prejudiced in favour of all three of them by reason of the diversity of the Character of their Imaginations the most obstinate might think that I am in the right in many things I know the respect I owe to the Works of Tertullian as well upon the account of the Subjects he treat of as the approbation they have had from several persons who ought to be Judges of them And I have sufficiently discovered this disposition of my Mind by what I have said concerning them and by the quality of the Book de Pallio the only one I have freely spoken of though there are others which perhaps would have been fitter for my Design But after all I do not think that Time ought either to magnifie or alter the Ideas of things that all Antiquities are Venerable and that false Reasons and extravagant Expressions deserve Respect because they have been introduced into the World long before us I do not think we are obliged to receive Affected Obscurities like Sacred Mysteries Sallies of Imagination like evident Truths The Hearts of Africk which Labour in a Mind naturally full of Fire like the Motions of the Prophetical Spirit which can only teach Sublime Truths I am sensible that even those who have most respect for Tertullian's Works allow all this and that they are too Equitable to Justifie the irregularities of Imagination against Reason But perhaps they are like those Judicious Persons who are great Lovers of Truth and yet are taken with the Stile For I have often met with some of them who were so much inchanted by some strong lively great and magnificent Expressions of Tertullian that after having proved to them that the Author was neither Judicious not very Reasonable they did nothing but repeat them to me to surprize and perswade me I own that Tertullian has very bold and strong Expressions and that they produce very Lively and Sprightly Images in the Mind And 't is for that Reason I take him for an Example that strong Imaginations have much power to act and convince by Impression Therefore those who make those kind of Objections to me confirm my Opinion while they oppose it The Prepossession or Esteem they have for Tertullian justifies my Conduct The frequent Quotations and the Pompous Words they alledge from him prove what I say For men seldom quote in Discourse intire Arguments But they often quote strong and lively Expressions to dazzle and to convince by sensible Impression I suppose no body will imagine that I pretend to censure so many Great Men who daily quote Tertullian in their
Si ambo videmus verum esse quod dicis ambo videmns verum esse quod dico ubi quaeso id videmus Nec ego utique in te nec tu in me sed ambo in insa quae supra mentes nostras est incommutabili veritate and that we ought to value a Friend more than a Dog and I am very certain that there is no Man in the World but sees it as well as my self Now I see not these Truths in the mind of others neither do they see them in mine Therefore there must needs be an Universal Reason which informs me and all Intelligent Beings For if the Reason which I consult were not the same which answers the Chinese Conf. of St. Aug. B. 12. C. 25. it is evident that I could not be as certain as I am See St. Aug. de libero arbitrio B. 2. C. 8. and the following that the Chinese see the same Truths as I do So that the Reason we consult when we look within our selves is an universal Reason I say when we look within our selves for I speak not in this place of the Reason which is followed by a Passionate Man When a Man prefers his Horses Life before his Coachmans he has some Reasons for it but they are particular Reasons which a Rational Man abominates They are Reasons which at the bottom are not Reasonable because they are not consonant to the soveraign or universal Reason which all Men consult I am certain that the Ideas of things are immutable and that Eternal Truths and Laws are necessary It is impossible they should be otherwise than they are But I see nothing in my self that is immutable or necessary I might not be or not be what I am There may be Spirits who are not like me and yet I am certain there can be no Spirits who see other Truths and other Laws than I do For all Spirits see of necessity that two and two are four and that we ought to prefer our Friend before our Dog Therefore we must conclude that the Reason which all Spirits consult is an immutable and necessary Reason Moreover it is evident that this same Reason is infinite The Mind of Man conceives clearly that there are or may be an infinite number of intelligible Triangles Tetragones Pentagones and other the like Figures He does not only conceive that he shall never want the Ideas of Figures and that he shall alwayes discover new ones though he should only apply himself to those sort of Ideas to all Eternity but he also observes infinity in Extension The Mind sees clearly that the Number which multiplyed by it self produces 5 or any of the Numbers between 4 and and 9 between 9 and 16 between 16 and 25 c. is a Quantity a Relation a Fraction whose Terms contain more Figures than can reach between the two Poles of the World He sees clearly that it is a relation which none but God can apprehend and that it is impossible to express it exactly because to express it requires a Fraction whose two terms must be infinite I might give many Examples of this Nature from whence it may be concluded not only that the Mind of Man is bounded but also the Reason which he consults is infinite For the Mind clearly perceives infinity in this Reason though it does not comprehend it since it can compare incommensurable Numbers with one another and know their Relations though it cannot compare them with unity Or to stop only at that which is most sensible the Reason which Man consults is infinite since it cannot be exhausted and it has alwayes something to answer to whatever we demand But if it be true that the Reason whereof all Men participate is universal if it be true that it is infinite that it is immutable and necessary It is certain that it is not different from that of God himself For nothing but the Universal and Infinite Being includes in it self an Universal and Infinite Reason All Creatures are particular Beings therefore Universal Reason is not Created No Creatures are Infinite therefore Infinite Reason is not a Creature But the Reason which we consult is not only universal and infinite but also necessary and independant and in one sense we conceive it to be more independant than God himself For God can only act according to that Reason He has a dependance on it in one sense He must guide it and follow it God consults none but himself He has no dependance on any thing Therefore that Reason is not distinguished from himself It is Coeternal and Consubstantial with him We see clearly that he cannot punish an innocent Person that he cannot subject Spirits to Bodies that he is obliged to follow Order Therefore we see the Rule the Order the Reason of God For what Wisdom could we see besides the Wisdom of God when we presume to say that God is obliged to follow it But after all can we conceive a Wisdom that is not the Wisdom of God Does Solomon who speaks so well of Wisdom distinguish it into two kinds Does he not teach us that the Wisdom which is Coeternal with God himself and by which he has established the Order that we fee in his Works is the very same which presides over all Spirits and which Legislators consult to make Just and Reasonable Laws The Eighth Chapter of the Proverbs is sufficient to convince us of this Truth I am sensible the Holy Scripture speaks of a certain Wisdom which it calls the Wisdom of the Age Wisdom of Men. But it is because it speaks of things according to appearances or according to the common opinion For it teaches us elsewhere that that Wisdom is but Folly and Abomination not only before God but before all Men who consult Reason Certainly did Eternal Truths and Laws depend on God had they been established by the Creators Free Will in a word were not the Reason which we consult necessary and independent It appears evident to me that there would be no true Science and that we might very well be mistaken in affirming that the Arithmetick or Geometry of the Chinese is like ours For in fine if it were not absolutely necessary that 2 times 4 should make 8 or that the three Angles of a Triangle should be equal to two right ones what Proofs could we have that those kind of Truths were not like those which are received in some Universities or that only last a certain time Can we see clearly that God may not cease to Will what he has Will'd once with a Will absolutely free and indifferent Or rather do we see clearly that God might not have Will'd certain things for a certain time for a certain place for certain persons or for certain kinds of Beings supposing as the World will have it that he was absolutely free and indifferent in that Will For my part I can conceive no necessity in indifference nor reconcile two things
Men But was not that Reason present to those who look within themselves and had not the very Heathens naturally had some union with the Order we are speaking of What Sin or what Disobedience could they have been guilty of and according to what Justice could God punish them I say this the rather because a Prophet tells me That God himself is willing to make Men Judges of the Difference he has with his People provided they pass their Judgment according to the immutable and necessary Order of Justice Nunc ergo habit atores Jerusalem viri Juda Judicate inter me vidram meam Esa. 5.3 Nero kill'd his Mother 't is true But wherein has he done ill He followed the Natural motion of his Hatred God gave him no Precept to the contrary The Jewish Law was not made for him Perhaps it may be urged that the Law of Nature forbids the like Action and that the said Law was known to him But what proof have we of it For my part I grant it because that really and invincibly proves there is an immutable and necessary Order and that every Mind or Spirit has a knowledge of this Order which is the more clear in that it is more united to the universal Reason and because it is less sensible of the Impressions of Sense and of the Passions in a word because it is more reasonable But I must endeavour to explain my Sentiment concerning Order and the Divine or Natural Law as clearly as possible I can For the Reason why Men are so backward to subscribe to what I say is perhaps because they do not distinctly perceive what I think It is certain that God contains within himself after an intelligible manner the perfections of all Beings he has created or can create and that it is by these intelligible perfections he knows the Essence of all things as by his own Will he knows their Existence Those perfections are likewise the immediate Object of the Mind of Man for the Reasons above-said Therefore the intelligible Ideas or the perfections Which are in God and which represent unto us that which is out of God are absolutely necessary and immutable Now those Truths are only the relations of equality or inequality which are among those intelligible Beings since it is only true that 2 times 2 make 4 or that 2 times 2 are not 5 because there is a relation of equality between 2 times 2 and 4 and one of inequality between 2 times 2 and 5. Therefore Truths are immutable and necessary as well as their Ideas It has always been true that 2 and 2 make 4 and it is impossible it should become false This is evident without the least necessity of God's having Established those Truths as Supream Law-giver as Monsieur Des Cartes says in his Answer to the Sixth Objection It is easie enough to apprehend what Truth is but Men have much ado to conceive what the immutable and necessary Order is what Natural and Divine Law is what God necessarily Wills as also what the Righteous Will For that which makes a Man Just is that he loves Order and conforms his Will to it in all things As the Sinner is only so because he does not approve of Order in all things and that he would fain have it to be conformable to what he wishes Nevertheless there is not so great a Mystery in those things in my opinion as Men imagine And I fancy that the reason why they find so many difficulties in it proceeds from the difficulty the Mind finds to raise it self to Abstracted and Metaphisical Thoughts This is partly what I think of Order It is evident that the Perfections that are in God which represent created or possible Beings are not all alike That those for Instance which represent Bodies are not so Noble as those which represent Spirits And that even among those which only represent Bodies or Spirits some are more perfect than others ad Infinitum This is clearly and without difficulty conceived though it is not easie to reconcile the simplicity of the Divine Being with that variety of intelligible Ideas which it includes in its Wisdom For it is evident that if all the Ideas of God were alike he could see no difference among his Works since he can only see his Creatures by that which is in him which represents them and if the Idea of a Watch which besides the Hours shows all the different Motions of the Planets were not more perfect than that of a Watch which only points out the Hours or than that of a Circle or a Square a Watch would not be more perfect than a Circle For we can only judge of the perfection of Works by the perfection of the Ideas we have of them And if there were no more wisdom or sign of understanding in a Watch than in a Circle it would not be more difficult to conceive the most compounded Machines than to conceive a Square or a Circle If it be true then that God who is the Universal Being includes within himself all Beings after an intelligible manner and that all these intelligible Beings which have a necessary Existence in God are not equally perfect it is evident that there must be an immutable and necessary Order among them And that in the same manner as there are Eternal and necessary Truths because there are relations of Magnitude amongst intelligible Beings there must also be an immutable and necessary Order by reason of the relations of Perfection which are among the same Beings 'T is then an immutable Order that Spirits should be Nobler than Bodies as it is a necessary Truth that 2 times 2 are 4 or that 2 times 2 are not 5. Hitherto the immutable Order seems rather to be a speculative Truth than a necessary Law For if Order be only considered as we have now done it it is plain for Instance that 't is a Truth that Spirits are Nobler than Bodies But we do not see that this Truth is at the same time an Order bearing the force of a Law and that we are obliged to prefer Spirits before Bodies Therefore we must consider that God loves himself by a necessary Love and for that Reason loves that better in himself that includes and represents more Perfection than that which includes less So that if we would suppose that an intelligible Spirit was a thousand times more perfect than an intelligible Body the Love by Which God loves himself would of necessity be a thousand times greater for that Spirit than for this intelligible Body For the Love of God is necessarily proportioned to the Order which is between the intelligible Being he includes So that Order which is purely speculative has the force of a Law in relation to God himself supposing as it is certain that God necessarily loves himself and cannot love intelligible Bodies more than intelligible Spirits though he may love created Bodies more than created Spirits as I shall
act of God as I have already show'd but also because we know those things after a very perfect manner and also we should know them after an infinitely perfect manner were the capacity we have of thinking infinite since nothing is wanting in the Idea which represents them We ought also to conclude that it is in our selves we see whatever we know by Sensation Not that we can produce any new Modification in our selves or that the Sensations or Modifications of our Soul can represent objects by whose means God excites them in us but because our Sensations which are not distinct from us and consequently can never represent any thing that is distinct from us may nevertheless represent the existence of Beings or make us judge that they do exist For God exciting our Sensation in us at the presence of Objects by an action which is no wise sensible we fancy we receive from the Object not only the Idea which represents its Essence but also the Sensation which makes us judge of its Existence for there is alwayes a pure Idea and a confused Sensation in the knowledge we have of the Existence of Beings if we except that of God and our Soul I except the Existence of God for that is known by a pure Idea without Sensation his Existence not depending on a Cause and being included in the Idea of the necessary Being as the equality of Diameters is included in the Idea of the Circle I also except the Existence of our own Soul because we know by an Internal Sensation that we think will and feel and that we have no clear Idea of our Soul as I have sufficiently explained in the Seventh Chapter of the Second Part of the Third Book and elsewhere These are part of the Reasons that may be added to those I had already given to prove that God only inlightens us and that the immediate and direct object of our clear and evident Knowledge is an immutable and necessary Nature Men commonly make some Objections against this Opinion I shall now indeavour to resolve them Against what has been said That God only Inlightens us and that we see all things in Him FIRST OBJECTION Our Soul thinks because it is its Nature God in Creating it has given it the Faculty of Thinking there needs no more Or if there is any thing more required let us rely on what Experience teaches us about our Senses We find enough by Experience that they occasion our Ideas 'T is ill Philosophizing against Experience ANSWER I wonder that the Cartesians who have so much and yet so reasonable an aversion against the general Expressions of Nature and Faculty so freely use them on this occasion They will not allow Men to say that Fire burns by its Nature and that it turns certain Bodies into Glass by a Natural Faculty And yet some of them are not afraid of saying that the Mind of Man produces in it self the Ideas of all things by its Nature and because it has the Faculty of Thinking But yet they must give me liberty to say that these Expressions are no more significant in their Mouths than in those of the Peripatetics I am sensible the Soul is capable of Thinking but I know also that Extension is capable of Figures The Soul is capable of volition as well as Matter is of motion But as it is false that Matter though capable of Figure and Motion has in it self a Power a Faculty a Nature by which it can move it self or assume sometimes a round Figure and sometimes a square one so that the Soul is Naturally and Essentially capable of Knowledge and of Volition yet it is false that it has Faculties by which it can produce its Ideas in its self or its tendency towards good There is a great difference between being Movable and Moving Matter of its Nature is moveable and capable of Figures Besides it cannot subsist without Figure But it moves not it self it gives not it self a Figure it has no Faculty for all that The Mind by its Nature is capable of Motion and Ideas I grant it But it moves not it self it inlightens not it self God does all in Spirits as well as in Bodies Can we say that God makes all the alterations which happen in Matter See the first Illustration and that he makes not those which happen in the Mind Do we give that unto God which belongs to him in abandoning the last of all Beings to his Disposition Is he not equally the Master of all things Is he not the Creator the Preserver the only true Mover of Spirits as well as Bodies Certainly he makes all things Substances Accidents Beings manners of Beings We take away his Knowledge by putting bounds to his Action But if Men will needs have it that Creatures have such Faculties is are commonly conceived that we must say that Natural Bodies have a Nature which is the Author of their Motion and Rest as Aristotle and his followers say This overthrows all my Ideas But yet I would rather allow it than say that the Mind inlightens it self Let Men say the Soul has that power of differently moving the Members of their Body and to communicate Sensation and Life to them Let them say if they please that it gives Heat to the Blood Motion to the Spirits and to the rest of the Body its Magnitude Disposition and Figure But let them never say that the Mind gives it self its Motion and Light If God does not all at least let us allow him to do that which is greatest and most perfect in the World And if Creatures do something let them move their Bodies and let them order them as they please but let them not act upon Minds Let us say that Bodies move one another after having moved themselves Or rather let us not pretend to understand the different dispositions of Matter that little concerns us But we ought not to suffer our Minds to be ignorant from whom they receive the Light which lightens them Let them know from whom they receive that which can make them happier and more perfect Let them know their dependance according to its utmost extent and that whatever they have actually they receive it from God every moment For as a great Saint sayes upon another Subject It is a very criminal Pride to make use of those things which God gives us as if they were Naturally ours Above all things let us not imagine that the Senses instruct our Reason that the Body directs the Mind and that the Soul receives that from the Body which it has not it self It were better to fancy our selves independant than to think we have a real dependance on the Body It is better to be our own Master than to seek out a Master among the Creatures that is less valuable than we But it is much better yet to submit to the Eternal Truth which assures us in the Gospel that he is our only Master than to give
credit to the testimony of our Senses or of some Men who dare speak to us as our Masters Experience whatever Men may say does not countenance Prejudices For our Senses as well as our Masters according to the Flesh are only occasional causes of the instruction which the Eternal Wisdom gives us in the most secret part of our Reason But whereas that Wisdom teaches us by an operation which is no wise sensible we fancy that it is our Eyes or the Worlds of those who strike the Air at our Ears which produce that Light or pronounce that intelligible Voice which instructs us 'T is for that Reason as I have said elsewhere that Jesus Christ was not only satisfied with instructing us after an intelligible manner by his Divinity he thought fit also to instruct us after a sensible one by his Humanity He would show us that he was our Master in all things And because we cannot easily look within our selves to consult him as Eternal Truth Immutable Order and Intelligible Light he has made Truth sensible by his Words Order lovely by his Example Light visible by a Body which diminishes the splendour of it and yet we are still so ingrateful so injust so stupid and sensless as to look not only upon other Men as our Masters contrary to his express prohibition but perhaps even upon the most despicable and vile Bodies SECOND OBJECTION The Soul being more perfect than Bodies why should it not contain that in it self which represents them Why should not the Idea of Extension be one of its Modifications God only acts in it and modifies it We grant it But why should it see Bodies in God if it can see them in its own substance It is not material it is true But God though a pure Spirit sees Bodies in himself Why then should not the Soul see them in beholding it self though it be Spiritual ANSWER Do we not see that there is this difference between God and the Soul of Man that God is an Unlimited Universal and Infinite Being and that the Soul is a particular Species of Being 'T is one of the Properties of Infinity to be at once one and all things composed as it were of an Infinity of Perfections and so simple that every Perfection it possesses includes all others without any real distinction for as every Divine Perfection is Infinite it constitutes the whole Divine Being But the Soul being a Limited Being it cannot have Extension in it self without becoming Material Therefore God includes in himself all Bodies after an intelligible manner He sees their Essences or Ideas in his Wisdom and their Existence in his Love or in his Will It is necessary to say so since God made Bodies and knows what he has made even before any thing was made But the Soul cannot see that within it self which it does not include Moreover it cannot clearly see that which it does include it can only feel it confusedly But to explain this The Soul does not include intelligible Extension as one of its manners of Being because Extension is not a manner of Being it is really a Being We conceive Extension alone or without thinking on any thing else but we cannot conceive manners of Being without perceiving the Subject or Being whereof they are the manners We perceive that Extension without thinking on our Mind besides we cannot conceive Extension can be a Modification of ones Mind Extension being limited makes some figure and the limits of the Mind cannot be figured Extension having parts may be divided at least in some sense and we see nothing in the Soul that is divisible Therefore Extension which we see is not a manner pf the Minds Being and therefore cannot see it in it self How is it possible to see in one kind of Being all sorts of Beings and in one particular and finite Being a Triangle in general and an infinite number of Triangles For in fine the Soul perceives a Triangle or a Circle in general though it implyes a contradiction that the Soul could have a Modification in general The Sensations of Colour which the Soul ascribes to Figures make them particular because none of the Modifications of a particular Being can be general Certainly we may affirm what we conceive clearly We clearly conceive that Extension which we see is a thing distinct from us Therefore we may say that Extension is no Modification of our Being and it is really something that is distinct from us For we must observe that the Sun for instance which we see is not that which we behold The Sun and whatever is in the material World is not visible in it self I have proved it elsewhere The Soul cannot see the Sun to which it is immediately united Now we clearly see and plainly feel that the Sun is something distinct from us Therefore we speak against our Knowledge and our Conscience when we say that the Soul sees all Bodies which surround it in its own Modifications Pleasure Pain Taste Heat Colour all our Sensations and Passions are Modifications of our Soul But though they are so do we know them clearly Can we compare Heat with Taste Odour with Colour Can we distinguish the affinity there is between Red and Green and even between Green and Green It is not so with Figures we compare them one with another we exactly know their proportions we precisely perceive that the Square of the Diagonal of a Square is double to that Square What affinity can there be between those intelligible Figures which are very clear Ideas and the Modifications of our Soul which are only confused Sensations And why should we pretend that those intelligible Figures cannot be perceived by the Soul unless they are Modifications of it since the Soul knows nothing of what happens to it by clear Ideas but only by Conscience or Internal Sensation as I have proved elsewhere and shall prove it again in the following Explanation If we could only see the Figure of Bodies in our selves they would on the contrary be unintelligible to us for we know not our selves We are only darkness to our selves and must look out of our selves to see our selves and we shall never know what we are until we consider our selves in him who is our Light and in whom all things become Light For it is only in God that the most material Beings are perfectly intelligible but out of him the most Spiritual Substances become absolutely invisible The Idea of Extension which we see in God is very clear But as we do not see the Idea of our Soul in God we feel indeed that we are and what we actually have But it is impossible for us to discover what we are or any of the Modifications whereof we are capable THIRD OBJECTION There is nothing in God that is moveable there is nothing in him that is Figured if there be a Sun in the intelligible World that Sun is always equal to it self and the visible Sun appears
Jesus Christ or the Word of God of his Divinity does not yet so throughly darken the Mind as to hide from it this Truth that God Wills Order Thus whether the Wills of God make Order or suppose it we clearly see when we examine our selves that the God whom we worship cannot do that which evidently appears contrary to Order So that Order willing our Time or duration of Being should be for him who preserves us that all the Motion of our Heart should continually tend towards him who continually impresses it upon us that all the Powers of our Soul should only labour for him by vertue of whom they act God cannot dispense with the Commandment which he gave us by Moses in the Law and which he repeated by his Son in the Gospel Mark 12.30 Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart with all thy soul with all thy mind and with all thy strength But because Order wills that every righteous Person should be happy and every Sinner unhappy that every Action conformable to Order and every Motion of love towards God be recompenced and on the contrary it is evident that every one who will be happy must continually tend towards God and with horrour reject every thing that would stop his Course or diminish his Motion towards his True Good 'T is not necessary that for this he consult a Spiritual Guide for when God speaks Men should be silent and when we are absolutely certain that our Senses and Passions have no part in the Answers which we hear inwardly we must alwayes hearken respectively to these Answers and submit to them Would we know whether we should go to a Ball or a Play Whether we may in Conscience spend a great part of the day at Gaming or unprofitable Entertainments Whether certain Businesses Studies Employments are conformable to our Obligations Let us enter into our Selves let us silence our Passions and Senses and see the Light of God if we can for his sake do such an Action Let us interrogate him who is the Way the Truth and the Life to know if the Way we follow does not lead to Death and whether God being essentially Just and necessarily obliged to punish every Thing that is contrary to Order and to recompence every Thing that is conformable thereto we have reason to believe we go to encrease or assure our felicity by the Action we are about If it be our Love to God that carries us to the Ball let us go thither if we should play to gain Heaven let us play Day and Night if we have in sight the Glory of God in our Employ let us encrease it let us do all Things with Joy for our Recompence will be great in Heaven But if after having carefully examined our Essential Obligations we discover clearly That neither our Being nor duration are of us that we do an Injustice which God cannot but punish when we endeavour to spend our Time in vain If our Master and Lord Jesus Christ who has purchased us by his Blood reproaches our Infidelity and Ingratitude after a very clear and intelligible manner for living after the Flesh and the World for leading a Soft and Voluptuous Life and for following Opinion and Custom let us obey his voice and not harden our Hearts let us not seek for Guides that soften these Reproaches embolden us against these Menaces and who obscure this Light with agreeable Clouds which hurt and penetrate our very Soul When the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch sayes the Gospel but if the Blind Man who suffers himself to be lead fall with him that leads him if God does hot excuse him will he excuse him who sees clearly and yet suffers himself to be lead by the Blind because this Blind Person leads him agreeably and entertains him in the way according to his inclinations These voluntary Blind ought to know that God who never deceives does sometimes permit these Seducers to punish corrupted Hearts who seek Seducers that Blindness is a punishment of Sin although 't is often the Cause thereof and that 't is just that he who would not hearken to Eternal Wisdom which only speaks to him for his good should leave him at length to be corrupted by Men who deceive so much the more dangerously as they flatter him more agreeably It is true 't is difficult to enter into ones self to silence ones Senses and Passions and to discern whether 't is God or our Body who speaks to us for we often take the Proofs of Sensation for evident Reasons and then 't is necessary to consult Guides but 't is not alwayes necessary to consult them For we see our Duty on many occasions with the utmost evidence and certainty and then it is even dangerous to consult them if it be not done with an entire Sincerity and a Spirit of Humility and Obedience for these Dispositions oblige God not to permit us to be deceived or at least in no very dangerous manner When 't is necessary to consult a Guide we must choose one who understands Religion who reverences the Gospel and who knows Man We must take care that the Converse of the World has not corrupted him that Friendship has not made him too Complaisant so that he may either fear or hope any thing from us We must choose one among a thousand sayes St. Theresia who as she relates of her self had like to have been lost by the defect of an ignorant Guide The World is full of Deceivers I say Religious Deceivers as well as others Those who love us seduce us through Complaisance those who are below us flatter us through Respect or Fear those who are above us consider not our Necessities either through Contempt or Negligence Besides all Men counsel us according to the relation we give them of what passes in us and we are never wanting to flatter our selves for we insensibly cover our Sore when we are ashamed of it We often deceive those who direct us that we may deceive our selves for we suppose our selves safe when we follow them They guide us whither we have a mind to go and we endeavour to perswade our selves in spight of our Light and the secret reproaches of our Reason that 't is our Obedience which determines us We deceive our selves and God permits it but we never deceive him who examines our Hearts and though we shut our Ears as much as we can against the voice of inward Truth we sufficiently feel by the reproaches of this soveraign Truth which leaves us to our selves that it inlightens our darkness and discovers all the subtleties of self-love 'T is therefore evident that we must consult our Reason for the Health of our Soul as our Senses for that of our Body and when Reason answers not clearly we must necessarily have recourse to Guides as we would to Physicians when our Senses fail us but this must be done with discretion for Guides
advance what they do not clearly conceive For if the Heathen Philosophers had a clear conception that Second Causes have a true Power to act and produce their like being a Man as well as they and with them partaking of the soveraign Reason I might probably discover the Idea which represented the Power to them but what efforts soever I make I can find no Strength Efficacy or Power but in the Will of the infinitely perfect Being Moreover when I think of the different Opinions of Philosophers upon this Subject I cannot doubt of what I advance For if they clearly saw what this Power of the Creatures is or what there is in them that is really powerful they would not differ in their Opinion about it When persons cannot agree and having no interested Reason which hinders them from it 't is a certain mark they have no clear Idea of what they say and that they understand not one another chiefly if they dispute upon such Subjects as are not complext or difficult to be discust like this Question before us For we should find no hard matter to resolve it if persons had but a clear Idea of a Created Power These are therefore some of their Opinions whereby we may see how little they agree amongst themselves For the most extraordinary of these Opinions see Suarez Metaph Disp 18. Sect. 2. Assert 2 3. Scot. in 4. sent dist 12.1 D. 37.2 D. 17. Paludan in 4. sent D. 12. Q. 1. Art 1. Peter 8. Phys Ch. 3. Conimb upon Aristotles Phys and many others which Suarez cites Some Philosophers here affirmed that Second Causes act by their Matter Figure and Motion and these in one Sense are in the right Others by a substantial Form Many by Accidents or Qualities Some by Matter and Form Others by Form and Accidents And some again by certain Vertues or distinct Faculties from all this There are others amongst them who maintain that Substantial Forms produce Forms and Accidental Forms Accidents Others that Forms produce both Forms and Accidents And some again that Accidents alone are capable of producing Accidents and Forms too See the Metaph. of Fonseca qu. 13. sect 3. That of Socin and Javell upon the same Question But we must not imagine that those for instance who say that Accidents can produce Forms by vertue of what they have received from the Form they are joyn'd to mean the same thing Some of them will have it that these Accidents themselves are only the Power or Vertue of the Substantial Form Others that they receive into themselves the influence of the Form and so act only by vertue of it And in fine some of them will only have them to be Instrumental Causes But these last are not perfectly agreed amongst themselves either what must be understood by Instrumental Cause or what is the vertue they receive from the Principal Cause The Philosophers don't so much as agree upon the action whereby Second Causes produce their Effects Some amongst them pretend that Causality ought not to be produced since that produces it self Others will have it that they act truly by their own action but find great difficulties in explaining precisely what this action is and there are about this so many different Opinions that I shall omit the reciting them Here is a great variety of different Sentiments although I have not related those of the Antient Philosophers or of such as were born in very remote Countries But we have reason enough to judge that they are not perfectly agreed amongst themselves upon the Subject of Second Causes no more than those we have already mentioned Avicen for instance thought Corporeal Substances could produce nothing but Accidents And this is his Hypothesis as Ruvio relates it He supposed that God immediately produced a most perfect Spiritual Substance and that this produced another less perfect and that a third and so on to the last which produced all Corporeal Substances and these Corporeal Substances Accidents But Avicembrom who could not apprehend how Corporeal Substances Ruvio l. 2. ph tract 4. qu. 2. which cannot penetrate one another should be capable of Alteration would have it that there were Spirits which were capable of acting on Bodies because they only could penetrate them For these Gentlemen not admitting a Void nor the Atoms of Democritus and the Subtil Matter of D' Cartes was unknown to them they could not think with Gassendus and the Cartesians That there were Bodies small enough to enter into the Pores of those which appear'd the most Hard and Solid It seems to me that this diversity of Opinions gives us a Right to judge That Men often spoke such Things as they did not understand and that the Power of the Creatures being a pure Fiction of the Mind of which we have no Natural Idea each Person imagined it what he pleased It is true in all Ages this Power was acknowledged as Real and True by most Men But it is as certain it was without any Proof I do not say Demonstration but even without such a Proof as was able to make any impression upon an Attentive Mind For the Confused Arguments which are maintained only upon the deceitful Testimony of the Senses and Imagination ought not to be received by those who make use of their Reason Aristotle speaking of what they call Nature sayes It is ridiculous to endeavour to prove That Natural Bodies have an Inward Principle of their own Motion and Rest Because sayes he it is self-evident He doubts not also but a Bowl which hits another has power to put it in motion It appears so to the Eyes and that 's enough for him for he commonly follows the Testimony of the Senses and rarely that of Reason never troubling himself whether it be intelligible or not Those who oppose the Opinion of some Divines that have writ against Second Causes say with Aristotle That the Senses convince us of their Efficacy This is their First and Principal Proof It is evident say they See Fonseca Ruvio Suarez and the rest already cited that Fire burns the Sun shines Water cools and he must be a Fool that doubts it The Authours of the contrary Opinion says the Great Averrors had their Brains disturbed We must say almost all the Peripatetics use Sensible Proofs to convince those who deny this Efficacy and so oblige them to confess They may be moved and hurt by Second Causes It is the Judgment which Aristotle has already pronounced against them and it ought to be executed But this pretended Demonstration cannot but produce pitty L. of his Topi. ch 1. since it discovers the Weakness of the Humane Mind and that even Philosophers themselves are infinitely more Sensible than Rational It discovers that those who glory in the Enquiry after Truth do not themselves know who they ought to consult to learn any thing of it Whether 't is the Soveraign Reason which never deceives them but always speaks Things as they
are in themselves or the Body which speaks only out of interest and in relation either to the preservation or conveniency of Life For in fine What Prejudices will not be justified if we take the Senses for Judges to whom almost all Prejudices owe their birth As I have already shewn in the Search after Truth When I see one Bowle hit another my Eyes tell me or seem to tell me that it is truly the Cause of the Motion it impresses For the true Cause which moves Bodies does not appear to my Eyes Bur when I ask my Reason I see evidently that Bodies cannot move themselves and their Moving power depending only upon the Will of God which successively preserves them in different places they cannot communicate a power which they have not nor could communicate if they had it For 't is plain there is a Wisdom requisite and one that is infinite too to regulate the Communication of Motions with the exactness proportion and uniformity that we see A Body moved cannot know the infinite number of Bodies it meets at every moment It is farther clear That although we should even suppose knowledge in it it could not have enough to regulate in the instant of the Shock the distribution of the Moving power it self is carried with If I open but my Eyes it appears plain to me that the Sun is very gloriously bright and seems not only to be visible it self but makes all the World so too 'T is that which covers the Earth with Flowers and Fruits which gives Life to Animals and which by its Heat penetrates into the very Bowels of the Earth and produces Stones Marbles and Metals there But when I consult Reason I see nothing of all this and if I consult it faithfully I clearly discover that my Senses seduce me and that it is God who performs all in all Things For knowing that whatever changes happen in the Body they have no other principle but the different communication of Motion which occur in visible or invisible Bodies I see that it is God who does all Things since it is his Will which Causes and his Wisdom which Regulates all these Communications I suppose that Local Motion is the principle of Generations Corruptions Alterations and generally of all the Changes which happen in the Body which is an Opinion that is now sufficiently received amongst the Learned But whatever Opinion they have about it signifies little for it seems much more easie to conceive that a Body drives another when it meets it than to apprehend how Fire produces Heat and Light and draw from the power of Matter a Substance which was not there before And if it be necessary to acknowledge That God is the True Cause of the different Communications of Motions by a much stronger Reason we ought to conclude That none but he can Create and Annihilate Real Qualities and Substantial Forms I say Create and Annihilate because at least it seems as difficult to me to draw from Matter a Substance which was not in it or to cause it to re-enter again as to Create or Annihilate it But I shall not stand upon Terms I only make use of them because there is no other which I know of that clearly and without Equivocation express the Changes which the Philosophers suppose every Moment to happen through the power of Second Causes I had some difficulty here to relate the other Proofs which they commonly give for the Power and Efficacy of Natural Causes for they appear so weak to those who are able to resist Prejudices and prefer their Reason to their Senses that it does not seem likely that reasonable Men should be perswaded by them Yet I will produce and Answer them since there are many Philosophers who make use of them The first Proof If Second Causes do effect nothing we could not says Suarez In his Metaph. Disp 18. Sect. 1. Assert 1. In Metaph. Arist qu. 7. Sect. 2. Fonseca and some others distinguish Animate from Inanimate Things for neither of them would have an inward principle of their Actions ANSWER I Answer That Men would have the same Sensible Proofs that have convinced them of the distinction they put between Animate and Inanimate Things They would alwayes see Animals perform Certain Actions as Eating Growing Crying Running Leaping c. Nor would they observe any thing like this in Stones And it is this only which makes the common Philosophers believe that Beasts live and Stones do not for it must not be imagined that they know by a clear and distinct View of the Mind what the Life of a Dog is It is their Senses which regulate their Decisions upon this Question If it were necessary I could here prove That the Principal of a Dog's Life differs very little if at all from that of the Motion of a Watch. For the Life of Bodies whatever they be can only consist in the motion of their parts and it is not difficult to judge that the same Subtil Matter which in a Dog causes the Fermentation of the Blood and Animal Spirits and is the principle of his Life is not more perfect than that which gives Motion to the Springs of a Watch or causes Gravitation in the Weights of a Clock which is the principle of their Life or to speak as others do of their Motion The Peripatetics ought to give to those whom they stile Cartesians a clear Idea of what they call The Life of Beasts Corporeal Soul Body which perceives desires sees feels wills and afterwards we will clearly resolve their difficulties if they continue to propose them The Second Proof We could not discover the Differences nor Powers of the Elements So that Fire might cool as Water does and the Nature of nothing would be settled and fixed ANSWER I Answer That Nature continuing as it is that is whilst the Laws of the communication of Motions remain constantly the same it is a contradiction that Fire should not burn or not separate the parts of certain Bodies Fire cannot cool like Water except it becomes Water For Fire being only fewel whose parts have been agitated with a violent Motion by an invisible Matter which incompasses them as is easie to be demonstrated it is impossible these parts should not communicate some of their Motion to the Bodies which they meet Now as these Laws are constant the Nature of Fire its vertues and qualities cannot change But this Nature and these Vertues are only consequences of the general and efficacious Will of God who does all in all things as we learn from the Scripture So that the study of Nature is false and vain in every respect when we seek for any other true Causes than the Will of the ALMIGHTY I own we must not have recourse to God or the Universal Cause when we inquire into the reason of particular Effects For we should make our selves ridiculous if for instance we said that 't was God who dryes the wayes or
designed either to maintain the Efficacy of Second Causes or the Nature of Aristotle For although they often spoke after such a manner as favoured Prejudices and the Judgments of the Senses Omnia quippe portenta contra Naturam dicimus esse sed non sunt quomodo enim est contra Naturam quod Dei fit voluntate Cum volantes tanti utique conditorio conditae rei cujusque Natura sit Portentum ergo fit non contra Naturam sed contra quam est nota Natura St. Aug. de Civitate Dei l. 21. c. 8. they sometimes so explained themselves as sufficiently discovered the disposition of their Mind and Heart St. Austin for instance believed the Will of God to be the Power or Nature of every thing as he declares when he speaks thus We are wont to say that Prodigies are against Nature but 't is not true For the Will of the Creator being the Nature of all Creatures how can what is performed by the Will of God be contrary to Nature Miracles or Prodigies therefore are not against Nature but only against what we know of Nature 'T is true St. Austin speaks in many places according to Prejudices But I affirm that proves nothing since we ought to explain literally only such passages as are opposite to Prejudices for the Reasons I have already given If St. Austin in all his Works had never said any thing against the Efficacy of Second Causes but had alwayes favoured this Opinion we might perhaps make use of his Authority to establish it Yet if it does not appear that he ever seriously examined this Question we should alwayes have had Reason to think that his Judgment was not determined upon this Subject and that 't was not impossible but he might be drawn by the impression of his Senses without Reflection to have believed a thing which appeared undoubted until it was carefully examined It is certain for instance that St. Austin alwayes spoke of Beasts as if they had a Soul I don't say a Corporeal one for that Holy Father too well knew the distinction between the Soul and Body to believe there were Corporeal Souls I say a Spiritual Soul for Matter is incapable of Sensation Yet I believe it more reasonable to make use of his Authority to prove that Beasts have no Souls than to prove they have any For from the Principles he has carefully examined and strongly establish'd it manifestly follows they have none Some of St. Austins Principles are these That what has not sinned can never suffer evil Now according to him Pain is the greatest evil and Beasts suffer it That the most noble cannot have the least noble for its end But with him the Soul of Beasts is Spiritual and more noble than the Body and yet has no other end than the Body That what is Spiritual is Immortal and the Soul of Beasts that 's Spiritual is subject to Death There are many such like Principles in the Works of St. Austin from whence it may be concluded that Beasts have no such Spiritual Soul as he admits in them See c. 22 23. de Anima ejus origine as is shown by Ambrose Victor in his Sixth Volume of Christian Philosophy But the Sentiment that Beasts have a Soul or feel Pain when they are beaten being agreeable to Prejudices for there 's no Child who does not believe it we have alwayes reason to think that St. Austin speaks upon this matter according to the general Opinion and never seriously examined the Question and that if he had but begun to doubt and make any reflection upon it he would not have said a thing which is so contrary to his Principles Thus although the Fathers should alwayes have favoured the Efficacy of Second Causes perhaps we should not have been obliged to have had any regard to their Opinion if it had appeared that they had not carefully examined the matter And that what they should have said had been only a Consequence of the Language which is formed and established upon Prejudice But 't is certainly the contrary For the Fathers the most Pious Persons and those who have been best instructed in Religion have commonly snown by some places of their Works what was the disposition of theis Mind and Heart in respect to this matter The most Learned and also the greatest number of Divines seeing on one side that the Holy Scripture was contrary to the Efficacy of Second Causes and on the other that the impression of the Causes publick Laws and chiefly the Philosophy of Aristotle established it For Aristotle thought that God did not concern himself in Sublunary Affairs because it was unworthy his grandeur And that Nature which he supposed in all Bodies was sufficient to produce what happened here below The Divines I say have found this Medium to reconcile Faith with the Heathen Philosophy and Reason with the Senses that Second Causes do nothing except God concurs with them But because this immediate concourse whereby God acts with Second Causes includes great difficulties some Philosophers have rejected it pretending that in order to their acting 't was enough if God preserved them with the same vertue he at first created them And because this Opinion is absolutely conformable to Prejudice and because the operation of God in Second Causes is not sensible it is therefore commonly received by the Vulgar and by those who apply themselves more to the Physicks of the Antients than to Divinity and the Meditation of the Truth The generality of the World believe that God at first Created all things and gave them all the necessary qualities or faculties for their preservation That he has for instance given the first Motions to Matter and afterwards left it to it self to produce by the Communication of its Motions this variety of admirable forms We commonly suppose that Bodies can move one another and even attribute this Opinion to Des Cartes although he expresly speaks against it in the 36th and 37th Articles of the Second Part of his Philosophical Principles Though Man cannot hinder himself from acknowledging that the Creatures depend upon God yet he lessens this dependence as much as possible either through a secret aversion to God or a wretched stupidity and insensibility in respect to his operation But as this Sentiment is chiefly received by those who have not much studied Religion and who often rather follow their Senses and the Authority of Aristotle than their Reason and that of the Holy Scriptures we have not so much reason to fear its establishment in the Minds of those who have any love for Truth and Religion For a little Application in the Examination of this Opinion will easily discover its falsity But that Notion of the immediate concourse of God to each action of Second Causes seems to agree with those passages of Scripture which often attribute the same effect both to God and the Creatures We must consider then that there are
wrote about Idolatry In the Days of Enos Men fell into strange Delusions R. Moses Maimonides and the Wise Men of that Time perfectly lost their Sense and Reason Enos himself was in the Number of those deceived Persons These were their Errours Since God said they has created the Stars and the Heavens to govern the World has placed them on high surrounded them with brightness and glory and employes them to exexecute his Orders it is just that we should honour them and pay reverence and homage to them 'T is the Will of our God that we should honour those whom he has raised and exalted in Glory even as a Prince requires we should honour his Ministers in his presence because the Honour we give to them redounds to himself After they had once received this Notion they began to build Temples in honour of the Stars to offer Sacrifices and Praises to them and even prostrate themselves before them thinking thereby to gain the favour of him who created them And this was the original of Idolatry It is so Natural and Just to have Sentiments of Acknowledgment in proportion to the Benefits we receive See Vossius l. 2. de Idolatria that almost all the World have adored the Sun Ipsi qui irridentur Aegyptii nullam belluam nisi ob aliquam utilitatem quam ex ea caperent consecraverant Cic. l. 1. de Natura Deorum because they all thought he was the cause of the Happiness they injoyed And if the Egyptians have adored not only the Sun the Moon and the River Nilus because its overflowings caused the fruitfulness of their Country but also the vilest Animals 't was as Cicero relates because of some benefit they received from them So that as we cannot and indeed ought not to banish out of Mens Minds the inclination they Naturally have for the true Causes of their Happiness it is evident that there is at least some danger in maintaining the Efficacy of Second Causes although we joyn thereto the necessity of an immediate concourse which has I know not what of incomprehensible in it and which comes in as an after-game to justifie our Prejudices and Aristotles Philosophy But there is no danger in speaking only what we know and atributing Power and Efficacy to God alone since we see nothing but his Wills which have an absolute necessary and indispensable connection with Natural Effects I confess that Men are now knowing enough to avoid the gross Errors of the Heathens and Idolaters But I am not afraid to say that our Mind is disposed or rather that our Heart is often inclined like that of the Heathens and that there will alwayes be some kind of Idolatry in the World until the day that Jesus Christ shall again deliver up his Kingdom to God his Father having first destroyed all Empire Power and Dominion that God may be all in all Quorum Deus venter est Phil. 13.9 Omnis fornicator aut immundus aut avarus quod est idolorum servitus Eph. 5.5 In spiritu veritate oportet adorare John 4.24 For is it not a kind of Idolatry to make a God of our Belly as St. Paul speaks Is it not to idolize the God of Riches continually to labour after Worldly Possessions Is this to render to God the Worship due to him to adore him in Spirit and Truth to have our Hearts filled with some sensible Beauty and our Minds dazled with the brightness of some imaginary Grandeur Men believing they receive from the Bodies which are about them the Pleasures they injoy by their use they unite themselves to them with all the Powers of their Soul And thus the principal of their disorder proceeds from the sensible conviction they have of the Efficacy of Second Causes 'T is Reason only that tells them there is none but God acts in them But besides that Reason speaks so low that they can scarcely hear it and the Senses which oppose it cry so loud that it stupifies them they are still confirmed in their Prejudices by Arguments which are so much the more dangerous as they bear external Characters and sensible Marks of Truth The Philosophers and chiefly the Christian Philophers ought continually to oppose Prejudices or the Judgments of the Senses and especially such dangerous ones as that of the Efficacy of Second Causes And yet I know not from what Principle there are some Persons whom I extreamly honour and that with reason who endeavour to confirm this Prejudice and even to make this Doctrine pass for superstitious and extravagant which is so holy pure and solid and maintains that God alone is the true cause of every thing They will not have us love and fear God in all things but love and fear all things in relation to God We ought say they to love the Creatures because they are good to love and respect our Father render honour to our Prince and Superiour since God commands it I don't deny it but I deny that we must love the Creatures as our goods although they be good or perfect in themselves I deny that we are to pay service and respect to Men as to our Masters For we must neither serve our Master obey our Father or Prince with any other design but to serve God and obey him This is what St. Paul sayes who became all things to all Men and complyed in all things for the Salvation of those to whom he Preached Servi obedite Dominis carnalibus cum timore tremore in simplicitate cordis vestri SICVT CHRISTO Non ad oculum servientes quasi omnibus placentes sed ut servi Christi facientes voluntatem Dei ex animo cum bona voluntate servientes SICVT DOMINI ET NON HOMINIBVS And in another Epistle Non ad oculum servientes quasi hominibus placentes sed in simplicitate cordis DEVM TIMENTES Quodcumque facitis ex animo operamini SICVT DOMINO ET NON HOMINIBVS We must therefore obey our Father serve our Prince and render honour to our Superiours AS VNTO GOD AND NOT VNTO MAN Sicut Domini non Hominibus This is clear and can never have any bad consequences Superiours would alwayes be more honoured and better served But I believe I may say that a Master who would be honoured and served as having in himself another Power than that of God must be a Devil and that those who served him under that Notion would be Idolaters for I can't but believe that all Honour and Love that tend not towards God are kinds of Idolatry SOLI DEO HONOR ET GLORIA AN EXPLANATION Of what I have said in the Fourth Chapter of the Second Part Of Method and elsewhere That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most Simple Wayes IT seems to some Persons to be too rash a Conjecture or an abusing of indeterminate and general Terms to say That God acts alwayes with Order and by the most simple wayes in
disadvantageous Sentiments against their Neighbour This is against all Rules of Charity and Justice But the Cartesians say they receive Principles whose Consequences are dangerous I grant it since they will have it so but they own not these Consequences They are perhaps so gross and stupid that they see them not included in their Principles yet they imagine they can separate them and think other Philosophers ought not to be believed upon their word They are not uncharitable to those who maintain Principles full of dangerous Consequences and also contrary to Religion and good Sense For in fine we may easily judge by the mischievous Consequences which I have drawn from these very Principles upon which Peripatetics pretend to triumph over their Adversaries how many I might draw from others and even the most mischievous if I would give my self the trouble of choosing out of their Body of Philosophy the most exceptionable But what advantage soever there is in Theological Contestations as also in publick Disputations I had rather defend my self weakly than overcome and triumph as an Agressor For in fine I do not comprehend how these who submit to all the Decisions of the Church can be pleased in making any Men impious and heretical upon Consequences they disavow Victory seems to me to be fatal which spills the Blood of our own Country-men But I believe I have not advanced in the Search after Truth any Principle of Philosophy whose Consequences are dangerous But on the contrary if I forsake Monsieur Des Cartes in some places and Aristotle almost every where 't is because I cannot reconcile that with Truth or this either with Truth or Religion This I leave to Men of more Judgment and Invention than my self I have said the Essence of Matter consists in Extension because I believe its evident that I have demonstrated it and thereby given clear and incontestable Proofs that the Soul is immortal and distinct from the Body A Truth which is essential to Religion and which Philosophers are obliged to prove by the last Lateran * Sess 8. Council But I never thought this Principle which is so fruitful in Truths that are serviceable to Religion was contrary to the Council of Trent Monsieur de la Ville ought not to assert it This can do no good This is the Conduct of the Religionaries in Holland Vitichius * Theo. pac ch 4. Poiret †L. 3. ch 13. cog nat and many others I say not this to call his Faith in question but I am much afraid that his Conduct will give them occasion to assert that we own in France that to be a good Catholick it 's necessary to believe that the parts of Bodies may exist without any actual Extension because a Book dedicated to the Bishops Published in Form with Approbation and Priviledge treats the Cartesians as Hereticks upon this Point I fear lest by his Probabilities he may shake the Faith of many who know not precisely what is necessary to make an Article of Faith but I am yet more apprehensive lest Libertines should be fortified in their Sentiments That the Soul is Corporeal and consequently Immortal That the Subject which he thinks is the same with that which is extended because according to them and Monsieur de la Ville Extension being only a Manner of Being whose Essence is unknown to us we have no Argument from Reason that this Being is incapable of striking and we have many Arguments from Sense Arguments however false they are yet very convincing and even demonstrative to all persons that will not be at the pains of Reasoning Hence I believe I am obliged to assert with all the Confidence which a sight of Truth affords me that I have demonstrated Extension is not a * Search after Truth p. 2. ch Manner of Being but a Being a Thing a Substance in a word a Body And there are many Answers in the Search after Truth to these Proofs of Sense by which Libertines confound the two Substances whereof Man is composed I maintain moreover that Monsieur de la Ville has not shown that this Opinion of the Essence of Matter is contrary to Transubstantiation that he has objected only such Answers as are easie to be resolved that he might more easily triumph over his Adversaries that he has only impugned mine and probably not so much as understood them and that in the humour I now find him I don't think my self obliged to inform him Lastly That he has added to the * It is forbidden by this Bull under Pain of Excommunication to give any Explanation of the Decrees of the Council Ullum omnino interpretationis genus super ipsius Consilii decretis quocunque modo edere c. This Power is reserv'd to the Pope Council of Trent more Articles of Faith or more Explications than any private person has a right to do after the express prohibitions contained in the Bull which confirms the same Council As for what respects me I desire the Readers not to believe Monsieur de la Ville upon his word but examine him cautiously Even where he asserts with the greatest Confidence he boasts himself upon his Sincerity and Ingenuity and I don't desire to dispute those qualities with him which are indispensable to every honest Man but I cannot forbear saying in defence of Truth and for my own Justification that he has often forgot himself in his Book of which I will give one notorious Instance In the Frontispiece of his Work he has inserted an Advertisement which has an Air of Sincerity for 't is composed only to make me a kind of a Reparation 'T is in these terms That there came to his Hands a Copy of the Search after Truth of the Strasbourg Edition Anno 1677 which obliges him to advertise his dear Reader that I had retracted an Error in this Edition which I had advanced in the first But it 's so true that I either know little in Divinity or am so very presumptuous that I could not retract one Error without advancing two others His whole Advertisement is only to make me a Charitable Reparation However 't is false 1. That I retracted that pretended Error about Original Sin the same Proposition being in the same words in the Edition he cites * In the Edition of Strasbourgh p. 190. In the 1st Edition at Paris p. 172. In the 3d p. 107. In the 4th p. 95. and in all those made at Paris 2. This Proposition is not my particular Opinion since 't is commonly taught in the Schools But though it were not taught at present yet 't is certainly no Error much less †p. 90. a very pernicious one as he elsewhere calls it 3. The two Errors which he supposes me to substitute in the room of that pretended one are two things which I never said and which he puts upon me Those that read what he has written in relation to the Question
in the same Men at different Times They change according to the different Motions of the Spirits so that there is nothing more uncertain As for what respects Astronomy there is no perfect Regularity in the Course of the Planets Moving in these great Spaces they are disorderly hurried by the fluid Matter which encompasses them So that the Errors we are subject to in Astronomy Mechanicks Musick and in all the Sciences to which we apply Geometry Proceeds not from Geometry which is an indisputable Science but from the false Application we make of it We suppose for instance that the Planets by their Motions describe Circles and Elipses perfectly regular which though it is not true yet 't is necessary to reason from it for the Error misses but very little of truth but we ought always to remember that the Principle upon which we reason is but a Supposition So in Mechanicks we suppose that Wheels and Levers are perfectly hard and like Mathematical Lines and Circles without Gravity and Attrition or rather we do not sufficiently consider their Gravity Attrition Matter or the Relation that these things have amongst themselves that Hardness or Magnitude increases Gravity that Gravity increases Attrition and Attrition diminishes the Machine Thus what is often accomplished in a small Portion of Matter is seldom ever affected in a greater It is no Wonder then if we deceive our selves when we wou'd reason upon Principles that are not exactly known Nor can we conclude Geometry to be unuseful because it delivers us not from all our Errors Suppositions established make us argue consequently rendring our selves attentive to what we consider make us know it evidently We even by that means discover when our Suppositions are false for being always certain that our Reasonings are true and Experience agreeing not with them we discover that our Principles are false But without Geometry and Arithmetick we can discover nothing exactly if there is never so little Difficulty in it although we have certain and indisputable Principles Therefore we ought to look upon Geometry as a kind of universal Science which inlarges the Mind makes it attentive and gives it the Art of regulating the Imagination and from whence may be drawn all the Helps that it can receive For by the Assistance of Geometry the Mind regulates the Motion of the Imagination and the Imagination thus regulated maintains the Presence and Application of the Mind But that we may make a good use of Geometry we must observe that all things which fall under the Imagination cannot be imagined with an equal Facility for all Images do not equally fill the Capacity of the Mind It is more difficult to imagine a solid than a plane and a plane than a simple Line for there is more Thought in the clear View of a solid than in that of a Plane or Line It is so likewise with different Lines more Thought is requisite that is a greater Capacity of Mind to represent a Parabolick Eliptical or some other Line more compounded than to represent the Circumference of a Circle and more for the Circumference of a Circle than for a right Line because 't is more difficult to imagine Lines which are described by very compounded Motions and which have many Relations than those which are described by the most simple Motions or which have fewer Relations For Relations cannot be clearly perceived without the Attention of the Mind to many things and so much the more Thought is required to perceive them as they are in greater Number There are some Figures so compounded that the Mind has not Extension enought to imagine them distinctly but there is also some others that the Mind very easily imagins Of the three kinds of right lined Angles the acute the right and obtuse it is only the right that raises a very distinct and fixed Idea in the Mind There is an infinite Number of acute Angles which differ amonst themselves it is the same also with the obtuse So that when we imagine an acute or an obtuse Angle we imagine nothing exact or distinct but when we imagine a right Angle we cannot deceive our selves the Idea is very distinct and even the Image that we form of it in the Brain is commonly exact enough It is true we may also determine the general Idea of an acute Angle by a particular Idea of an Angle of thirty Degrees and the Idea of an Angle of thirty Degrees is as exact as that of an Angle of Ninety or of a right Angle But the Image that we form of it in the Brain would not be near so Just as that of a right Angle We are not accustomed to represent this Image to our selves and we can trace it only by thinking upon a Circle or such a determined Portion of a Circle divided into equal parts But to imagine a right Angle it is not necessary to think on this Division of the Circle the Idea only of a Perpendicular is sufficient for the Imagination to trace the Image of this Angle and we find no difficulty to represent Perpendiculars because we are accustomed to see all things stand upright It is therefore very easie to judge that to have a simple distinct and well-determined Object proper to be easily conceived and consequently to make the Mind attentive and preserve evidence in the Truths it enquires after we must compare all Magnitudes as we consider them to simple Surfaces determined by Lines and right Angles as perfect Squares and other right-lined Figures or else to simple right Lines for these are the Figures whose Nature we know We do not pretend that all Subjects whose Knowledge we may enquire into can be expressed by Lines and Geometrical Figures There are many that cannot nay that ought not to be subjected to this Rule For instance The Knowledge we have of a God infinitely Powerful infinitely Just upon whom all things depend in all respects who wills that all his Creatures should execute his orders to make themselves capable of Happiness This Knowledge I say is the Principle of all Morality and from hence may be drawn an infinite number of certain and indisputable Consequences and yet neither this Principle nor its Consequences can be expressed by Geometrical Figures neither is it possible to determine or represent by Lines an infinite number of Physical Notions which may nevertheless evidently discover several Truths to us Yet is it certain that there are a great many things which may be examined and learned by this Geometrical Method and that it is always advantageous to use it because it accustoms the Mind to Attention by causing it to make a regular use of the Imagination and that things which are learned by this way appear more clearly demonstrated and are more easily remembred than others I might have attributed to the Senses the Assistance which is drawn from Geometry but I thought that Geometry did rather belong to the Imagination than to the Senses although Lines are something
sensible It would be unnecessary here to give he Reasons that I had for it Since they would only serve to justifie the order that I have kept in what I have said which is not essential I have neither spoke of Arithmetick nor Algebra since the Numeral Figures and Letters of the Alphabet which are used in these Sciences are not so useful to increase the Attention as the Capacity of the Mind as shall be explained in the following Chapter These are the General Helps which may make the Mind more attentive I know no other except it be the will of being so which I do not treat of because it is supposed that all those who Study are willing to give Attention to what they Study Nevertheless there are many others which are peculiar to certain persons as some sort of Drinks certain Meats certain Places and certain Dispositions of Body with some other helps of which every one ought to be instructnd by his own Experience The Condition of our Imagination ought to be observed after Eating and we must consider what things they are that maintain or dissipate the Attention of the Mind What more general might be said is That the moderate use of such Food as creates many Animal Spirits is very fit to increase the Attention of th Mind and Strength of the Imagination in those who have them Weak and Languishing CHAP. V. Of the Means to increase the Extension and Capacity of the Mind That Arithmetick and Algebra are absolutely necessary to this end IT ought not immediately to be imagined that we can truly increase the Extension and Capacity of the Mind The Soul of Man is if we may so say a determined Quantity or Portion of Thought which hath limits that cannot be exceeded The Soul cannot become more Extensive or Capacious than it is It is not swelled nor enlarged after the same manner as we see Liquors and Metals are In fine It never Perceives more in one time than in another It is true this seems contrary to Experience for often we think upon many Objects and as oft but upon one only and we often say likewise that we think upon nothing at all Yet if we consider that Thought is to the Soul what Extension is to the Body we shall plainly discover that as a Body cannot be truly more extended at one time than another so if we conceive aright neither can the Soul think more at one time than another Whether it perceives many Objects or but one or even in the time that we say we think on nothing at all But the reason why we imagine we think more at one time than another is because we do not sufficiently distinguish between confused and distinct Perceptions without doubt there is more Thought required or the Capacity of Thinking is more fitted to perceive many things distinctly at once than to perceive but one only But there is not more Thought requisite to perceive many things confusedly than to perceive one distinctly So there is no more Thought in the Soul when it thinks of many things than when it thinks of but one since when it thinks of but one only it always perceives it much more clearly than when it applies it self to many For it must be observed that a pure simple Perception sometimes includes as much Thought or fills as much the Capacity that the Mind hath of Thinking as a Judgment nay even a compounded reasoning Since Experience teaches us That a lively clear and evident Perception but of one thing only imploys and takes up the Mind as much as a compounded Reasoning or an obscure and confused Perception of several Relations between many things For even as there is as much or more Sensation in the sensible view of an Object that I hold near my Eyes and carefully examine as in the prospect of a whole Field that I look upon negligently and without Attention so that the clearness o the Sensation that I have of the Object which is near my Eyes recompences the Extension of the confused Sensation I have of many things that I see without Attention in a Field Thus the Prospect the Mind has of one Object only is sometimes so lively and distinct that it includes as much or even more Thought than a Prospect of the Relations which are between many things It is true at certain times it seems to us that we think of but one thing and nevertheless we have some difficulty to comprehend it well and at other times we comprehend both this thing and many others with great Facility From thence we imagine that the Soul hath more Extension or a greater Capability of Thinking at one time than another but it is plain we deceive our selves The Reason why at certain times we have some Difficulty to conceive the most easie things is not because the Thought of the Soul or its Capacity of Thinking is diminished but because this Capacity is filled either by some lively Sensation of Pain or Pleasure or by a great number of weak and obscure Sensations which cause a kind of Vapor and which for the most part proceeds from a confused Sensation of a great number of Things A piece of Wax is capable of a very distinct Figure yet it cannot receive two but then one will confound the other for it cannot be entirely round and square at the same time indeed if it received a Million none of them would be distinct Now if this piece of Wax was capable of knowing its Figures it could not know by what Figure it must be determined if the number of them were too great It is the same with our Soul when a great number of Modifications fill its Capacity it cannot perceive them distinctly because it sees them not separately this makes it think it perceives nothing at all It cannot say that it is sensible Pain Pleasure Light Sound Taste it is none of all these and yet it is all these that it perceives But although we should suppose the Soul not to be subjected to the confused and irregular Motions of the Animal Spirits or so disingaged from the Body that its Thoughts should not depend upon whatsoever passed in it it might then happen that we should more easily comprehend certain things in one time than in another and yet the Capacity of the Soul be neither diminished nor increased The general Idea of Infinity is inseparable from the Mind and it wholly takes up its Capacity when it thinks not of some particular thing For when we say we think of nothing it does not follow that we do not think of this general Idea but simply that we do not think of any thing in particular Certainly if our Mind was not filled with this Idea we could not think of all sorts of things as we do for indeed we cannot think of those things that we have no knowledge of And if this Idea was no more present to the Mind when it seems to us that we think