which only serves to acquire good and that which is the subject and matter of good For vertue which we have declared to be the true Good is of such a nature that she serves her self indifferently with contrary things doth good with Poverty as well as with Riches with Sickness as well as with health We commend him that suffers his wants with patience his sickness with constancy as we do him that liberally distributes his substance and lives virtuously in his health So that if you will call Riches good because they are assistant to vertue call poverty so too for even she attends her more But because we have no pretence for the calling two things so contrary in themselves by one and the same name let all such things rest indifferent as are rendred good or ill by the disposition of man and without which he may arrive at his End which is to be composed according to perfect Reason to make good use of things presented to him and consequently to possess the fruition of his Good If we would rightly know in what consists our good we must discover what in our selves adheres to it for it must be a good of that side since nothing seeks another good then is annext to its own Now without all doubt the Beginners and movers of our actions in us are the Understanding and the Will the Good then that we aim at should be their perfection Peace and Satisfaction But if we there place Health and Wealth and esteem them our Goods and consequently what are their Contraries Ills why do we not presently declare that we can have no Felicity in this world and that our lives are here no other then a perpetual Hell For ye shall alwayes have the Images of Death and affliction before your Eyes which you esteem ills and of which the one is often present and the other ever threatning by his nearer approach If these be ills Fear is just and how happy is that man who is alwayes in fear Let us then either conclude that man hath no good decreed him in this world to which he can possibly arrive or that That Good wholly depends upon Virtue The end that any one proposes to himself of things must be proportioned to his power if otherwise it be impossible for him to obtain instead of his good it becomes his affliction It were the work of Danaids to fill perforated Vessels if among all the Sciences there were none that designs her self an End to which she may arrive by her own Precepts Can we imagine that Nature who is the Mother of all Arts and Sciences hath ordained for Man Her chiefest work an End beyond his Power The Will we say is that which seeks our good and a will well governed will nothing but what it can nor busie it self with things beyond our reach as with Health Riches and Honour If in these consisted our good it were in vain to employ our Reason and Will we should attempt it by wishes and vows as a thing depending upon a thousands accidents not to be foreseen or withstood and of which Fortune is the only Mistress How likely is it I beseech you that Nature having created Man the most perfect of all her works should ordain Him so miserable as that his Good which should be his perfection not only should depend upon another but upon so many things which he must never hope can be all favourable to him and that He should like another Tantalus be there perpetually gaping for his long'd for waters Nature commands you for good to have the understanding disposed for the use of what is presented to you and to pass by things you cannot have Had you rather rely on Fortune and expect from her falacious hand your good than to work it your selves It is a Law divine and inviolable from the beginning of the world that the good we would have we must give to our selves Nature hath bestowed a Magazine in our minds let us there stretch forth the hand of the will and take what Arms we please if that will be reasonable and moderate it turns all things to good as Midas turned all things to gold by his touch We can meet no accident in our Persons or Estates so malicious whence we should not extract Peace and satisfaction of mind if we can satisfie that we have obtained our End For though we were content so much to slacken the severity of this Sect as to confess that Body and Goods which are but the instruments of life make a part in Man and have power by their quality to disturb that of the Soul we ought notwithstanding never to acknowledge that any loss which may happen either to Body or Goods should take away the felicity of Man when his mind enjoyes its Good and its delight Of things composed of many parts the most noble gives the name and law to the rest who then shall doubt the felicity of the whole Man when the soul is happy So we pronounce a Republick happy after a famous victory notwithstanding the loss of some Citizens because her happiness proportions it self in the Person of the Prince or State to whose good and service all the rest ought to apply themselves in so much as that every private Souldier shall glorifie himself in his wounds love them and boast they were received for preservation of King and Commonwealth shall we then allow the Body another sence or desire than what relates to the satisfaction of the Soul shall we so chain the Soul to the Body as that her good shall be slave to the members and depend upon them that the mind shall suffer as they are well or ill disposed If Nature would that the perfection of Man should depend in Body and Goods she had given to all the same Body and the same Goods for they making a part in their Nature ought to be alike in all and to pass from the Genus into the Individual but having on the contrary conferred them both in a very different condition both for body and goods she hath given to all an indifferent power to make good use of such Bodyes and goods as they have that so the Action of the Soul may render it self as conspicuous and honourable by one means as another And indeed her Excellence shines more bright and merits more praise by how much when destitute of such instruments she of her self arrives at her proper End as in my opinion we ought better to esteem the Pilot who through the rage of waves and tempest can bring a leaky Vessel unfurnished of Sail and Tackle safe to the Port than he who with a new tight Ship well rigg'd for service with a savourable Sea and right gale a-poop Let us then make this determination that since the felicity of man depends upon his Good that his good is to live according to his Nature and that to live according to his Nature is not to be disturbed with
Passions and to behave himself upon all occasions with moderate Reason We must as necessary to our happiness purge the Mind from Passions and learn how to animate our selves against whatever may happen to us Now that which can best instruct us in this way and teach us the inclinations of a right spirit and a will governed by reason is Prudence which is the beginning and end of all Vertue For that making us exactly and truly to know the condition and quality of things objected to us renders us sit to distinguish what is according to Nature what is not what we ought to pursue and what we ought to fly She removes the erroneous opinions that afflict us restores our natural affections and in her Train follow all other Vertues of which she is at once the Mother Nurse and Guardian Oh! the life of Man were happy if alwaies conducted by this excellent guide But alas by how much this Vertue is excellent by so much is it rare and is in our minds like the veins of Gold in the earth found in few places It is in my judgement that great magnificent and impenetrable Buckler sorged by Vulcan for Achilles in which he carried the Heavens the Earth the Ocean Clouds Stars Thunder Cities Armies Assemblies and Battels and to be short what in this world is to be seen thereby intimating to us that knowledge renders the Soul of Man more invulnerable than a large seven-sold sheild can do the body But as Achilles went to the School of Chiron to make himself sit to bear this massy sheild so must you come to that of Philosophy to learn the use of Prudence which will teach you that Prudence is to be exercised two waies one to advance us to good the other to repell evil But as we bring not our minds pure to Philosophy our Physitian but rather prepossessed and contaminated with froward popular humours we must like a skilful Chirurgion who before he make any application to the wounded part draws forth malignant humours begin by purging our mind of all such rebellious Passions as by their smoak obnubilate the eye of Reason otherwise the Precept of good manners and sound affections is of no more advantage to the Soul than abundance of of food to a corrupt body which the more you endeavour to nourish you offend We call that Passion which is a violent motion of the Soul in her sensitive part and makes her either apply her self to what she thinks is good or recede from what she takes to be ill For though we have but one Soul cause of life and action which is all in all and all in every part yet hath that one Soul very different agitations even contrary to one another according to the diversity of Vessels where she is retained and the variety of objects presented to her In one she hath her Encrease in another her Motion in a third her Sence in a fourth her Memory in a sift her Discourse as the Sun who from one essence distributing his raies in diverse places warms one and illuminates another melts wax and dries the earth dissipates clouds and exhausts lakes and marshes When the Parts where she is inclosed only keep and imploy her to the proportion of their capacity and the necessity of their right use her effects are sweet benigne and well governed but on the contrary when they usurp more motion and heat than they should they change and become more dangerous like the raies of the Sun that wandering at their natural liberty warm gently and faintly but contracted and united in the Concave of a glass burn and consume what they were wont to give life to and nourish Now Nature hath given this force and power borrowed from the Soul to the Senses to apply themselves to things to extract their forms and as they are fit or unfit harmonious or dissonant to Nature to embrace or reject them and that for these two Reasons One that they should be as Centinels to the Body for its preservation the other and the chiefest to the end they should be as Messengers and Carriers of the understanding and soveraign part of the Soul and to serve as Ministers and Instruments of discourse and Reason But in giving them this power she hath also prescribed her Law and Command which is to be satisfied with a careful observation and intelligence of what shall pass without attempting to usurp the more high and eminent power and so to put all things into alarm and confusion For as in an Army the Centinels oftentimes not knowing the design of their Commander may be deceived and take an enemy disguised for a friend or for enemies such as come to their relief so the Sences not comprehending the whole sum of Reason are oft abused by apparence and take for advantageous what is wholly against us When upon this judgement and without expecting the command of Reason they come to disturb the Irascible and Concupiscible powers they raise a sedition and tumult in the Soul during which Reason is no more heard nor the understanding obeyed than is the Law or Magistrate in a troubled estate of civil discord Now in this Commotion the Passions which disturb the peace of the mind and mutiny against the Soul make their first insurrection in the Concupiscible part that is to say in the place where the Soul exerciseth this faculty of desiring or rejecting things offered to her as they are proper or contrary to her delight or conservation They move then according to the apparence of a Good or Ill. If it be a present good and of which they enter into a present fruition we call that Motion Pleasure or Delight If it be of a good to come from which we are far distant we call it desire if of a present Ill of which we already resent the incommodity and distast and which we lament in other men we call it Hate or Horrour if of any Ill we bewail in our selves vexation if this vexation be occasioned by what concerns us nearly we call it Grief if by mischance in another Pitty if occasioned by an apparent Good in which we pretend to share Jealousie if by good we have no part in Envy if occasioned by an Ill to come we call it Fear This is the first body of Mutineers that disturb the peace of the Soul whose effects though very dangerous are nevertheless much inferiour in violence to them that sollow For those first motions formed in that part by the presented object immediately shift thence into the irascible part that is to say into that part where the Soul seeks the means she hath to obtain or shun what appears good or evil to her and there as a wheel already moving by a new access of force falls into a prompter speed so the Soul already stirred with the first apprehension and adding a second effort to the first is hurried with more violence than before and raises up Passions more powerful and more
you think of him as of your offender and not as of him conceived in the same womb nourished with the same milk brought up under the same roof and that ought to be the half of you Take then things by the right handle and we shall find something to love in every thing we hate For there is nothing in the world that may not be for the good of man If there be any thing of vice in the person we hate 't is that vitious Persons ill and none of ours and if Peradventure he ossend us we have more reason to lament than hate him for he is the first offended and receives the first and greatest disadvantage because in this he loses the use of Reason and what greater loss can a man sustain Let us then in such accidents convert Hatred into Pitty and endeavour to render such as would hate us worthy to be beloved themselves So Lycurgus when they had abandoned to his revenge him who had put out his eye took him home and the punishment he inflicted was sedulous instructions to vertue after which the Offender being restored to his People was by them from a rash and injurious found become a good honest and modest Citizen As we fly Hatred so we ought to avoid Envy Sisters of the same complexion and shape and whose effects are equally pernitious For Envy stirs up in us a pining at the good another doth possess that gnaws the heart to our continual torment Certainly a miserable Passion and such a one whose cruelty all the Racks of the most ingenious and inventive Tyrants have never out-done for since she turns the good of another to her own Ill what end can she have of her affliction when her ills and the good of others are together chained to her torture Let us fly it like a Savage beast that would gore our hearts and rob us of the enjoyment of what Good soever may happen to us for whilst the Envious pining look awry at the good of another they neglect and lose the pleasure of their own But to lessen this Envy if we well consider what we esteem Good and what we envy in others we shall find that taken all together there is nothing we would wish our own For I perceive that for the most part we envy men their Wealth Honours and Favour when we should refuse any man that would offer us the same at the same rate to purchase which you must flatter submit to affronts and injuries and lose your liberty for a man hath nothing for nothing in this world You pretend to Honour and Vertue which are not to be purchased but by the loss of such other things as are acquired by a shameful patience Riches Dignities and Favour are only conferred upon such as comply and conform themselves to anothers Passion This is the law at least the custom of the world and was so before you were born why then should it trouble you to see it observed Such a one sells his liberty for an Estate or Office why do you envy him you that would not make sale of yours could be content to have the cloth and the money and receive the exchange he makes of his liberty preserving your own which is against common equity either choose the merchandize or the price and let us take heed if we desire any peace in this life of repining at what we esteem anothers Good If it be a true Good befaln him we should rejoyce for we ought to desire the good of one another To be pleased with anothers good is to increase our own The same Rule we ought to observe in Jealousie for that hath a resemblance to Envy both in Nature and effect only Envy seems but to consider Good in what befalls another and Jealousie in what we our selves possess and in which we doubt another hath a share This is a fond and foolish passion the Gall that corrupts the honey of this life which usually crowds her self into the sweetest and most delightful actions rendring them so sowre and bitter as nothing more she turns Love into Hatred respect into disdain and assurance into mistrust Therefore make accompt that whosoever shall live jealous shall live miserable The only way to avoid it is to render a mans self worthy of the thing he desires for Jealousie is nothing but a mans diffidence of himself and a testimony of little merit It was in my opinion a generous answer of the Emperor Aurelius to Faustinus who asked him what he would do if Cassius who fought against him should win the battail I serve not the Gods sayes he so ill that they should reward me with so great a misfortune Let him that fears to lose an interest in another say the same I honour not his friendship so little that he should withdraw it from me The confidence of a mans own desert is a great engagement to anothers will for who pursues any thing vertuously is glad of a Companion in his adventure that may serve to the relief and renown of his merit Imbecillity only fears the encounter because she thinks that contending with another her own imperfection may be sooner seen Who would run alone to the Olympick games take away Emulation and you take away glory and the Spur of vertue 'T is of great consequence that all things that are in others even serve us to Good or Ill according as we are disposed to receive and use them Anothers good gives us jealousie and anothers ill affects us with pitty and sometimes to such a proportion as puts us beside our selves and deprives us of judgement whether it be by a secret consent that we share one anothers ills or that we fear our selves what is already happened to our Neighbour whatsoever it is we sigh and suffer with him and it is good to do so upon every occasion the better to awake us to their succour and assistance For the Law of Humanity commands it but not to adopt their griefs nor with their clouds to overcast the serenity of our own minds Now the necessary remedies for this offence that we take at anothers mishap and call Pitty are the same for the other vexation we call Grief which is the sence of a pretended ill in our selves For those we call ills being arrived immediately if we take not present heed flag the Soul to a strange drooping negligence and discouragement which take from us the use of discourse and render us unfit for the provision of our private affairs 'T is in this condition that we especially ought to remember our selves of what is in our power and esteem nothing ill which is not absolutely contrary to the disposition of the will for by this means we shall find that Pleasure and Grief are drawn from the same source and that it is nothing but the manner of turning the bucket that fills it with the one or the other We render then all things good or ill by the use we render