who were of that temper walked after that manner this proposition would be somewhat probable But besides that all those who are robustious walk not so There are those which are not so to whom this gate is natural or at least who in some occasions use it as in Boldness in Pride and the like We must then refer this effect to a more general cause which must not be constant and unchangeable as the temperature is but changeth according to its encounters And truly if it be a Character proper to Boldness it must proceed from the agitation of the Soul whether it serve its design or be done out of necessity Now he that will consider that the Soul which will board the enemy stiffens herself to fortifie herself and begins to raise herself as to make trial of the assault she is going about will judge for the reasons which we have so often alleadged that she ought to inspire the same motions into the organs and consequently that she stiffens them and drives them vigorously So that the march and the other actions of the Body must suffer some change and must be performed after another manner then they were wont to be by reason of that new and extraordinary impression which they receive A man then which is animated with Boldness marcheth with a stiffer and more vigorous pace having a greater number of Muscles which stiffen it and that all his body weighs and rests it self on that foot which upholds it So that he the more strongly treads the ground when he walks wherein the stediness of the things supported consists and because he cannot so readily displace that foot which stands strong under so great a burthen of necessity his pace must be slow and he must go the more heavily But this slowness is recompenced by the greatness and largeness of his steps his strength seconding the desire he had to get to his Enemy mixing if we may so say haste with gravity In pursuit of those motions the Shoulders are moved and stirred as we have said Because all the Body stiffening it self and laying all the weight on the foot it must needs be that changing place and carrying the same burthen to the other the Shoulder must advance and weigh down it self on the same side and this being done with vigor the impetuosity of the motion causeth it to turn somewhat inwardly and passing so from the one to the other it ballanceth all the body in marching Thus then Boldness useth this kinde of gate so that if it be natural and ordinary in some it 's a sign of greatness of Courage because the Soul which hath a secret knowledge of the motions it ought to make by instinct bears it self to this kinde of pace which is proper to Boldness and to Generosity and marching without minding it as if she ought alwayes to affront the Enemy Furthermore Why he stoops his Head when he assaults when a Bold man is near danger and upon the point of assaulting his adversary he stooping his Head throws himself on him whether he thinks he should therewith knock against him or that his desire of fighting makes him advance that part as it doth the rest of them Or that stiffening the Arms to strike the Neck must stiffen it self to support the endeavor of that motion and in pursuit the Muscles shorten themselves and so cause the Head to stoop or in fine because it would cover it self and not give aim to the enemies blows for this reason it is that he bows all his Body that he gathers himself up that he contracts himself and puts himself on his guard to use the terms of Art In the heat of the Combate His Face is inflamed his Eyes become ardent and his sweat runs from all parts Forasmuch as the spirits and the humors cast themselves impetuously to the outward parts and that the heat which the Soul stirs up in this encounter expands it self every way dissolves the humors and causeth them to run through the pores which she keeps open It 's thus That in great endeavors we have often seen blood startle out of the Eyes Lips and other parts and sometimes even from all the Body in form of sweat But when this last happens the transport of the Soul must be excessive For she must be much urged and constrained to do a very extraordinary endeavor after this manner to drive out of the veins this treasure of life He beats the earth with his feet to make his Force and vigor appear and to astonish the enemy by the noise and tempest which at once his Foot his Voice and his blows make He darts himself forth and leaps lightly his forces being augmented by heat and by the motion of the spirits which render him lighter and better disposed His respiration is strong and impetuous because heat is encreased which augments the force of the vital parts and requires a greater refreshment for which cause the Breast and the Lungs extend and enlarge themselves the more to attract the greater quantity of fresh air and they fall with precipitation the more readily to drive away the fumes which the boiling of the spirits and the humor excite The Pulse is great high quick frequent and vehement for the same reasons for the Arteries open and extend themselves very much that they may receive the more air for the refreshing of the spirits and as this opening satisfies not yet the need which presseth the Heart the Soul adds to the greatness of its motion swiftness and frequency the more readily to attract refreshment and the oftner to discharge those fumes which heat raiseth up To conclude Because she gathers together her forces to assault and combate ill we need not doubt but the vital Faculty grows stronger but that she more powerfully moves her organs and that consequently she makes the Pulse more strong and vehement It 's true that all these divers beatings of it are also in Anger but when we speak of that Passion we will shew the difference she makes therein Let 's go to more pleasing subjects which hither to have been observed by no man or at least which our ordinary Philosophy hath not yet examined PART II. CHAP. I. The Characters of Constancy or of the strength of Courage IF it be true that Boldness hath no other function but to assault and combate Constancy is different from Boldness yet is the Soul often obliged to labour in its own defence and simply to resist those ills without daring to assault them there must necessarily therefore be a Passion which must serve it in this encounter and must be different from Boldness And truly fince Passions are motions there must be several Passions where there is a diversity of motion Now the motion which the Soul makes in resisting is altogether different from that which she makes in assaulting whether it be in the manner wherewith it 's agitated or in the end which she hath proposed to
was to be added But as they are actions common to the Minde and to the Body and Physick and Moral Philosophy must help one the other to discourse exactly of them it happened that those who have undertaken it could never employ them both and that those who could have done it have had other designes which have hindered them from discovering to us the nature of these things whose good or ill use causeth all the felicity or mischief of our lives In effect if they are well regulated they form the Vertues and preserve Health but if they grow to excess they are the source whence the disorders of the Soul and of the Body deduce their origine And whoever would consider the great number of Sicknesses which momentanily assault the life of Man and the several ways whereby she customarily loseth her self will finde but few whose first cause was not some one of the Passions of the Minde So that we may say that the most profitable parts of Wisdom and Physick have not hitherto been discovered and that if I have endeavoured to give them any part of my cares and of my small labour I have not so much strayed from my Duty and my Profession as some may imagine To conclude what success soever my Undertaking have it in my opinion deserves some approbation or at least excuse and indeed Reader I must have both to oblige me to pursue it In a word if thy judgement be favourable it will afford me both very much glory and very much pains ERRATA In the Epistle dedicatory page ult line 6. for leave read learn l. 8. for love read have In the Book p. 7. l. 14. for ever read even P. 13. l. 25. for Maintica read Maintion P. 32. l. 4. for other read others P. 48. l. 22. for enlights read enlightens P. 99. l. ult for diffent read different P. 103. an accent upon Catoché P. 133. It would be c. P. 149. l. 24. for thicks read thickens P. 192. l. 14. for ardors read orders P. 226. l. 27. for graceful read grateful P. 260. l. 25. for venters read re-enters P. 272. l. 2 for general read generous P. 282. l. 21. for Theorictus read Theocritus THE CHARACTERS OF THE PASSIONS CHAP. I. What the Characters of the PASSIONS are in generall NATURE having destin'd Man for a civil life thought it not sufficient to have given him a tongue to discover his intentions but she would also imprint on his forehead and in his eyes the images of his thoughts that if his speech happened to belye his heart his face should give the lye to his speech In effect how secret soever the motions of his soul are what care soever he takes to hide them they are no sooner formed but they appear in his face and the disquiet they cause is sometimes so great that they may be truely called tempests which are more violent at Shore then out at Sea And that he who advised a man to consult his glass in his anger had reason to beleeve that the Passions are better known in the eyes then in the soul it self But that which is more wonderful those actions which spring from vertue and vice discover themselves in the same manner And although the goodness or malignity they have seem to have nothing to doe with the body yet they leave with it I know not what kind of images And even the soul not perceiving what it doth disposeth the parts in such a manner that by the plight and posture which they take we may judge whether its actions are good or ill Neither can the understanding work so secretly but the senses must perceive it If it elevate its thoughts if it recollect it self the looks grow fixed the car hears not in fine there is a general suspension of sense and motion And whether it be that at the same time the soul cannot intend such different functions or that the inferiour part respects and wil not divert its Mistris we know that this is imployed when the other operates not It s a most certain thing that the body changeth and varies it self when the soul is moved and that this performs almost no actions but it imprints the marks thereof which we may call Characters since they are the effects of them and that they bear their image and figure Now because the first Rule of Physionomy is grounded on these Characters and that it maketh use of them to discover inclinations assuring us that those who naturally have the same air and the same countenance which accompanies their moral actions are inclined to the same actions The designe which we have undertaken makes us here propose the particular Characters of all the Passions and after them of Vertues and Vices But first we must know wherein these Characters consist and what are the causes of them The Characters of Passions and of habits being the markes of the motions and designs of the soul are also its effects as is already said but because there are also two sorts of effects those which are performed in the soul and those which are effected in the body there are also two kinds of Characters the one Moral the other Corporal For if you consider a man in anger Violence appears in all his actions his words are full of threats and injuries he crys out he runs he strikes reason and remonstrances offend him and he knows no friends but those who favour his passion On the other side his countenance is inflam'd his eyes sparkle he wrinckles his forehead his words are fierce his voice is terrible his lookes are frightful and his whole behaviour is furious These then are two kinds of effects and two sorts of Characters the one whereof consists in moral actions and the other in the change and alteration of the body Now we must see what these actions are and what this change is for all moral actions cannot be used for Characters otherwise some would be Characters of themselves since Passions and Vertues are moral actions To take away this difficulty you must observe that the essence of human actions consists in the inward emotion which the object forms in the appetite and that all those things which are done in pursuance thereof are but as rivolets running from the same spring So anger is nothing but a desire of Vengeance and in the pursuit of that emotion the soul produceth exterior actions which may serve to this purpose as threatnings blows and other violences which we call Characters because they express and discover the alteration and interior motion of the appetite But there is also another thing to be here considered and it is that when we speak of Passions of Vertues and of Vices we are not to conceive them as qualities or simple actions but as compleat qualities and actions which are accompanyed by many others and yet which all tend to one principal end which the soul proposeth For although love to speake properly is but a simple
case the window of Momus were very necessary for it How ever it be the soul is not content after this manner only to agitate the spirits and the humors in the passions she also causeth those parts to move which are capable of a voluntary motion as being those which are the most powerful to seek and imbrace good and to repel or flye evil and to speak truth this motion of the spirits is often a succour very useless to the soul and which serves rather to shew her precipitation and blindness then to obtain what she proposed to her self for when they cast themselves into the face she fancies to her self that it is she her self that runs thither and when they retire themselves to the heart it s she also who hides her self there although she be already at the place where she would arrive and that she abandons not that wheene she thinks to estrang herself and what benefit is it to a Creature for the spirits and the blood to goe to the encounter of an agreeable object since neither the soul nor the body come nearer to it nor are any more united to it and that the sences only are they which ought to make this union we may say the same of the resistance she would make to those ills which present themselves for what relation is there betwixt the spirits and an injury and what effect can they make to drive back an ill which most commonly is only in opinion which sometimes is no more or which even is not yet made But it is not thus with voluntary motion for indeed here the hands draw and take what 's useful the body is carryed towards what is lovely it truly keeps a distance from what 's ill and flyes or drives away what incommodates it It s true that there are some of these motions where the soul deceives it self aswel as in that of the spirits how many lost steps ridiculous postures and idle words are there in Passions to what use are these several motions of the head those different figures which the forehead the eyes the nose and the mouth form There may be some relation with the design which the soul proposed since its certain that in shame she casts down the eyes as if she would hide herself that she lifts them up in Anger as if that served to repel an injury and that in scorn she lifts up the nose as if she would drive away what she disdains But it s easie to perceive that herein also she deceives her self and that the blindness and trouble in which she is causeth her to use means which benefit her nothing to the obtaining of what she desires 'T is not that she is therefore to be condemned in all these motions there are many which happen without any design of hers which although they are not against her intention yet she is not the cause of them 't is but by a certain necessity that they follow those motions which the soul inwardly excites for we cannot with reason say that she proposeth in anger the hinderance of respiration and of speech the inflammation of the face and the sparkling of the eyes But these are effects which follow the agitation of the spirits which impetuously cast themselves on the exterior parts as we shall say hereafter By this discourse we may not only perceive what the causes of those motions which the Passions excite are but also which those are which make moral Characters and which make the corporal For those which the soul imploys by a clear and distinct knowledge to obtain the end she pretends in every Passion make the moral Characters and those which she useth by a pure instinct or which happen without any intention of hers form the corporal Characters For these latter are of two sorts the one are by the command of the soul the other are by necessity as you will see more particularly in the following discourses CHAP. II. The Characters of Love LOVE is not only the Spring of all the Passions but even of all the good and of all the ill which happens to men without it there would be no Sciences in the world Vertue would be without followers and Civill society would be but an imaginary good it is that which breeds in us the desire of fair things and makes us possesse them and by a wonderful incantation changeth and transformeth us into them to it we owe all the good things we possesse it may give us those which we want and if it drive not from us the ills which necessarily accompany this life at least it sweetens them nay and even renders them pleasing makes them the instruments of our felicity But this is it also that corrupts vertue ruins society and renders art despicable And if it hath truely brought into the world these excellent things it seems it is only to drive them out again That noble vigor which incites the minde to fair actions that divine fire wherewith they say the soul is clothed and which naturally raiseth it towards Heaven languisheth and dys under the weight of base and terrestrial things upon which this Passion fixeth it In short its this that forms all the tempests which agitate our life there would be no grief no fear nor no despair were there no love and who ever will neerly consider all the passions will easily beleeve that they are but several motions which it causeth and different figures which it assumes Now as there are but few objects which can reach the soul which are not able to move this passion And whereas Riches Honor Pleasure and in a word all Goods whether false or true may raise it we will not here disimbroile this Chaos and our design gives us not leave to speak of any other kind of love but that which beauty begets in the appetite Neither is it a slight enterprize notwith standing the helps those great men of the times past have given us and what endeavour soever we have already made to discover its origine yet are we constrained to confesse that there is somewhat in it which is divine whereto our spirit cannot attain and the same poverty which we finde as they say at its birth happens also in our thoughts when we would speak of it so that were it necessary to observe all the effects thereof we might sooner count the waves of the sea then the motions it causeth in the soul neither doth heat produce or corrupt more things in the world then love causeth both good and evil actions In effect its the instrument of that divine Art which Nature hath provided to preserve her most exellent works without it long since we had no more spoken of Families of Peoples or of Common-wealths and those which were esteem'd the most flourishing had been but the Assemblys of a sort of wild savage beasts had not love sweetned and civilz'd them for it s it that forms us to a civil life which is the true
is great and large because the heart opens to receive the good which presents it self as was before said it is unequal and irregular by reason of the several Passions with which this is continually traversed for as we do not here speak of that simple and imperfect Love which is yet but in the soul but of that which is compleat and finished and which hath already made impressions on the body it is impossible but Desire and Fear Joy and Grief should at every moment confound themselves with it whence consequently happens the unequal motion of the heart and of the arteries and this is chiefly to be observed at the remembrance or unexpected arrival of the beloved person For after this first elevation which is made at this encounter it changeth a hundred wayes it appears little and languishing and immediately returns to its first vehemency from swift and light it becomes slow and heavy and all at once it reassumes its first quickness which it loseth again in an instant and passeth thus from one difference to another without order and without proportion There are but very few Characters which remain to be examined whose causes are not very evident For the disquiet comes from the divers agitations which the soul feels the shiverings and the ardors follow the flowing and ebbing of the Spirits forasmuch as Fear and Grief which retire them within take away from the exterior parts the heat they had even as Joy and Hope restore and augment it and as Boldness and Anger gather the spirits together strength also encreaseth as it diminisheth when Joy dissipates or Grief stiffles them There remaines no more difficulties to be found but in the Syncopes and Extasies which sometimes happen to Lovers but we have already shewed that Love could not alone cause Syncopes nor faintings but that it must be Grief Despair or Joy For the Extasie its true it may proceed from Love yet we must observe that the word hath divers significations the Physitians often take it for an extreme alienation of the spirit such as those have who are frantick or mad sometimes for that strange disease which they call Catoche which all at once takes away the use of sence and motion and keeps the body stiffe in the same posture in which it surprised it there are some who beleeve that the true Extasie is made when the soul doth no action in the body whether it dwell there or that indeed it issue forth for a time as it happens in those which are possest and in those who are ravished by the spirit of God but that whereof we speak is nothing else but a certain ravishment of the soul which takes from the body the use of exterior sence and motion the imagination and the understanding not forbearing to operate which happens by a strong attention which binds the soul to the beloved object which makes it lose the care of all animal functions and which imploying all the spirits in that thought hinders them from flowing to the organs of sence and motion and this ravishment may sometimes Pass to such an excess that the vital faculties may receive no more influence from the soul so that respiration will cease and that there will be onley natural vertue to sustain life PART 5. Of the nature of Beauty in general and why it begets LOVE ALthough the Senses were given to the Minde to help it to know things yet it seems that those things which are the most sensible are the least known And I know not whether it be a grace or an artifice of Nature to bring those things neerest our Senses which ought to be furthest from our Mindes and by that exteriour knowledge to recompense the little progress we might make in that which was true and essential However it be it s most evident that we are sensible of nothing in the world more then of Beauty nor nothing is more difficult to be known the greatest men who have been most sensible of its effects were ignorant of the Causes thereof and we may say that it hath made them lose their Reason when they were but touched with it and would have discoursed of it For some have said that it was a just proportion of the parts others that it was the form of things in fine that it was the splendor and glittering of Goodness it self But this last definition is equivocal and metaphorical and the other cannot be applied but to the Divine beauty which is the source and model of all Beauties forasmuch as in the Unity and infinite Simplicity of God there can be no proportion or form That we may therefore steer a more certain course then what hitherto hath been followed and that we may not wander in so vast and difficult a matter we must consider that things are not esteemed fair but as they fall under a very distinct and exact knowledge So that there are only the objects of the Understanding and of Seeing and of Hearing to which we allow Beauty because that all the Knowing faculties are those which most perfectly judge of their objects and are the least mistaken in them And these same objects which we judge Fair are also esteemed Good for we do not onely say A fair minde a fair speech or a fair colour but they may be also called good But the objects of the other Senses and all the other powers may onely be stiled Good and can never deserve the title of Fair for it were a ridiculous thing to say that heat or humidity sweetness or bitterness were fair Whence we must necessarily conclude that all what is Good is not Fair but all that is Fair is good and therefore that Fair is a species of Good Now as Good is not good but as it is agreeable the Fair since it is good must be agreeable to something and therefore if what is fair serve but for an object onely to the knowing faculties we must necessarily conclude that Fair is that which is agreeable to the intelligent faculties as good is agreeable to what ever it be Now because Knowledge hath no other object but the essence and the truth of things Beauty must needs be of that kinde and the objects must be the fairer where the essence and the truth are best exprest for which cause Souls are fairer then Bodies and the Understanding which knows interiour things is more capable to judge of Beauty then the Senses which know onely the exteriour Whence it also happens that Beasts are seldom moved by Beauty because Sense onely works in them in stead that in Man the Understanding concurs to his action and penetrates further into the Nature and Essence of its objects And we experiment in our selves that those things which we do not greatly heed and whose nature we do not well know seem less fair unto us and that its onely for Masters in an Art to judge of the beauty of a work because they alone have the true knowledge thereof
confusion our life it would indeed rather be a continual flood of ills then of yeers the Senses would rather serve for gates of grief then of knowledge knowledge it self would pass for an affliction of spirit and vertue for a grievous servitude It s pleasure onely which sets a price on all things and which renders them delightful at least they appear not good but by so much as it is found mingled with them and did not the soul hope to encounter it in all it acts it would remain languishing and immoveable it would be without action and without vigor and we must speak no more of life of happiness or of felicity Certainly to see the effect it causeth as mistris and despencer of all good things calling back those which are past making us sensible of those which are not yet rendring even melancholy tears and dangers pleasing we must confess that with reason Nature is called the great Magician and that pleasure is the most powerful charme she useth to produce her miracles In effect it s a charm which makes all the ills which assault us vanish which lifts us up beyond our selves which changeth us into other men and from men transforms us into Demy-Gods but we often use it as a poyson which quencheth all that is Divine in our Souls which renders our mindes brutish and makes us like even inferiour to beasts For although the pleasures of the body are of themselves innocent and that they were given us for inticements to the most necessary and most noble actions of life yet when we pervert their use and when we do not render them obedient to reason they rebel against it pull it out of its throne precipitate it in dirt and mire and stifle all the seeds of vertue and understanding which are born with it Neither is there any thing wherein wisedom hath more been imployed then to seek the means whereby to shun so dangerous an enemy who flatters at its admittance and afterwards causeth every where trouble and confusion which fills the Soul with blood and flames the Body with grief and infirmity and leaves nothing behind it but repentance We will not propose the counsels and advice she hath given on this subject we should bring hither all those lawes which Physick Morality and Religion have prescribed at least there are but few which were not made either to prevent or correct the disorders which sensuality may cause yet we think to second its design by shewing the deformity which the excess of this Passion produceth in the Soul and in the Body The Picture of voluptuousness cannot be made without representing many figures besides that there are joys which have no commerce with the body and which are to be found in the highest part of the soul those of the Sense are so different amongst themselves that as many pleasing objects as there are which may move them we may say that there are also as many several sorts of Pleasures And truely whoever would designe the portraicture we undertake according to the order of the Senses and describe the pleasure which every of them may be sensible of the invention and the composure could not be ill but we may not use it without prejudice to other designes wherein we are to imploy the same touches and the same colours which this requires for if we stayed to express the Characters of Pleasure which is in tasting and touching we must necessarily also describe those of Gluttony Drunkenness Impudency and so of the rest whereof we should make particular Tables wherefore without parcelling these things we will chuse what is common to all Pleasures dividing this discourse into two parts the one of which shall treat of a serious Joy where laughter is not to be found and the other of a laughing puft up Joy which is nothing but the Passion of Laughter Joy is not amongst those Passions whose beginning is weak and whose progress is vehement it hath all its force and greatness from its birth and time serves for nothing but to weaken or diminish it as soon as it enters the Soul it transports it and carries it out of it self and the ravishment it causeth is sometimes so violent that it takes away the use of the Senses makes it forsake the cares of life and often lose it but although it come not to this excess yet it is alwayes known by that puft up impatience which appears in all its actions that it hardly can contain it self within its bounds that it makes escapes and endeavours to goe out For the thoughts and words of a contented man are not to be stopt he dreams onely of his good fortune he speaks continually of it and if he be not interrupted he hath nothing in his heart which he carries not on his tongue he discovers his most secret designes and so makes his joy an enemy to his rest and to his contentment If he is silent you must entertain him with discourses onely which favour his Passion how divertising soever others are to him they are importunate he breaks them at every moment and it brings in alwayes somewhat of his transport 〈◊〉 or at least his little minding of them seems a signe of his scorning them or a reproaching that they interrupt his Pleasure But if you speak of the subject which begot them if you admire his happiness if you witness a fellow-feeling with him then how angry or severe soever he be he becometh complacent he caresseth embraceth and often by ridiculous civilities and favours he forgeteth the respect he owes or loseth that which is due to him The first that comes to him is made his friend and his confident he takes counsel of him he follows his advice and it often happens to be a childe a servant or an enemy whom he trusts with his secret and with its conduct In this blindness he approves all what is proposed to him to the advantage of his Passion Whatever vanities he nourisheth whatever successes he flatters himself withal there is nothing in his opinion which he ought not to believe and may not hope as if all things were to respect his pleasures He believes that there are none which dare traverse them he sees the dangers which every way inviron them without startling at it and with a blinde confidence he believes himself secure when his loss is often most assured So that we may say that there is no man so credulous with so little appearance so bold with so much weakness nor so unhappie with so much good hap He would make us believe he were content he perswades it himself and in the mean time his desires betray his designe and his contentment for they are irritated by the enjoyment and carrying themselves onely towards those goods which he hath not they render those useless which he possesseth and even of his joy cause the subject of his disquiet Pleasure hath that property that although we enjoy it it forbears not to make
which is extended and made smoothe by their contraction All Caresses are not properly effects of Joy Take but away the serenity of the countenance the smile and the sweetness of the eyes the rest proceed from the Passion of Love which subjects the soul to the good which it conceives and fills it with a desire to possess it For the offers of service respectful complements and civilities are so many marks of submission which it renders to the perfection and excellency of the person it loves and the embraces kisses and amorous looks are witnesses of its desire and of the care it takes to unite it self thereunto For Laughter although it seem to be a particular effect of Joy yet it is not always to be found with it And when it accompanies it it ows not its birth to it alone there are other causes which contribute thereunto and which excite an emotion in the Soul quite different from that of Pleasure So that we were not afraid to call it a Passion not considering the outward motion onely which appears on the face but that which the soul inwardly suffers the nature and effects whereof we will examine in the following Chapter There remains now the Disquiet and Impatience onely whose causes we are to enquire But we must first observe that they are not in all kinde of Joy there are calm Pleasures wherein the soul feels nothing of Impatience wherein we may say she rests in her motion Such are those which accompany the exercise of Vertue the knowledge of the Sciences and the possession of Supernatural good In a word pure and true Delights do never disquiet the soul they always leave a calm and a pleasing serenity And although they often moves desires which agitate it we may say they are little windes which purifie it without causing any storms or that they are like those sweet smoaks which the flame raiseth which nourish it in stead of dissipating it and which rather entertain the equality of its motion then disturb it But it is not so with false delights As by little and little they make themselves felt and seen as a remedy for grief there must until they are wholly possest always remain somewhat which is displeasing in the Minde And then you cannot wonder if Impatience accompany the desires it hath to be delivered from it and to see it self enjoying that perfect pleasure wherein the end of its grief consists But it foresees not that its contentment is to finish there also and that assoon as it hath an entire possession of the Good it seeks it will be disgusted So that being not to be satisfied it cannot but suffer perpetual disquiets seeking what it cannot finde and meeting what it never sought Besides all these vain hopes which Joy inspires breed divers designes and as it runs from one to another without stopping at any it is impossible in this agitation but that all its actions must appear uuquiet its discourse without order its looks inconstant all the body in a continual motion whereunto also the sparkling of the spirits contributes which tickles the nerves and sollicities the parts to move themselves considering also that those Pleasures cannot be had but by the action of the corporal powers which at last tire themselves disquiet must accompany them since its an effect of wearisomeness These are the Characters which Joy imprints in the body by the souls command Now let us see those which are caused without her ardors and which by a necessary consequence proceed from the agitation which is made in the humors and in the spirits The vivacity of the eyes comes from their splendor and motion which are the undoubted signes of life and vigour since death renders them obscure and fixt as the Spirits then disperse themselves in Joy and as they are luminous and active the eyes which abundantly receive them and which are transparent and easie to move become agile and resplendent besides that the humidity which is spred over them being agitated by the motion they make the light becomes more trembling and causeth a certain moving luster which strikes the sight with several rays and presents to the imagination the motion and noise which the sparkes of fire cause at their birth whence they are said to crackle Now this humidity may come from two causes either because the lids in shutting themselves crush the humors they contain and render the eyes moist as we will more particularly shew in the discourse of Laughter Or because that heat and the spirits open their passages and dissolve those humors which afterward runs on the parts and make them moist nay even if the brain be very moist thence they draw rivulets of tears which are as they say quite different from those which Grief useth to move not only in their cause but even in their quality for they are cold in Joy and hot in grief although it seems as if the contrary should happen since Joy heats and Grief cooles and that hath even obliged some to say that the teares of Joy were warm but it is easie to agree and give a reason for the difference by saying that the tears which Joy sheds are truely cold in comparison of others but that they seem colder because they run down a face which that Passion hath heated by the effusion of spirits On the contrary those of Grief are colder in effect but as they fall on the cheekes which the flight of spirits hath deprived of heat they seem to be hotter in the same manner as hot water affoords divers sentiments of hot and cold according as the hand is hotter or colder But of this more exactly hereafter in the discourse you have of Tears For that redness that good case and that vaporous heat which appears through the outward parts they also proceed from that effusion of spirits which draw along with them the blood and the sweetest vapours which raise themselves in the veins and swell the parts they arrive at colouring them vermillion and inspiring them with a sweet and moist heat The trembling of the lips comes also from the Spirits which abundantly flowing into those parts which are soft and suspended agitate them with the motion they have and make them appear trembling as it happens to leaves which are shaken with the winde or with rain The voice grows fuller because the muscles which serve to form it are loosned by heat and give it a greater and larger passage it is true that it sometimes becomes sharp and shrill but that is the effect of a vehement laughter which contracts the muscles streightens the conduit of the voice or else of impatience or some other impetuous Passions which mingle themselves with it and oblige the soul to drive it out with violence it often stops it self all at once by the souls ravishment which causeth it to forget the most part of its ordinary functions and leaves the organs of the voice without motion and without action
that Reason which is sometimes at liberty in these encounters sees nothing which contents it that she even confesseth this Laughter to be forced and yet that she cannot hide it it is nevertheless very true that there is still a secret pleasure either in the superiour part of the soul or in the sensitive For the alienation of the Minde takes away from frantick persons the sense of ill and giveth liking to the Ridiculous Chimera's which are there formed to move Laughter So that if Reason be not hurt the Pleasure must be hid in the Senses and unwittingly to the Understanding it causeth that commotion there The Imagination discerns not always exactly the Pleasure which the objects form in the particular Senses either because it is distracted or surprised or because the impression they make is secret although still the spirits the humours and the bodies agitate themselves powerfully So the first motions of Passions happen in the Minde unawares and there are divers things which move us which we can hardly say whether they are troublesome or graceful we must not then wonder if we sometimes laugh without knowing the cause thereof it is sufficient if the Senses have a confused and secret knowledge to stir up afterwards that motion in the Appetite for there is so strong a connexion between these powers that the one is no sooner touched by the object but the other resents it In this precipitation the Soul hath not time to discern what it doth and the parts are sooner touched then she is advised of it and she is not then able to stop the shake which she hath given her self the spirits and the humours having received the impression thereof whose impetuosity cannot be so suddenly stayed And hence the difficulty comes to hinder Laughter when it is vehement although it be a voluntary action in the same manner as it happens in other Passions wherein the Soul suffers the same violence as he who runs into a precipice for although he gave himself that motion it is no more in his power to stop it he must abandon himself to the swinge he hath taken and to that steepness whence he hath precipitated himself What remains of most importance is to know why of all creatures Man onely laughs since it appears that other beasts also may be surprised with Novelty and it is not impossible but that they may have a designe to shew how sensible they are thereof since they make other things known by their voice and by their actions But as there are but two motives which oblige Man to witness the surprise which ridiculous objects cause to wit his own excellency and civil society it is certain that the first is useless to beasts who are never touched with glory or with vanity And for Society it is so imperfect amongst them that it respects but the necessities of the body to which indeed they work in common but yet it is but for their particular interest so that there is no communication of the pleasure which every one resents considering that the novelty of agreeable things surpriseth them not to speak properly no more then they do men who are quite stupid because they do not discern whether things are new or no considering them but as if they had always been present although for to know them new we must imagine they were not always so And it is for that reason that children laugh not before the fourtieth day for the Soul which is as it were wholly buried and as it were drown'd in the great quantity of the humors they have is capable of no knowledge but acording as humidity diminisheth these lights encrease and so by degrees she gets the power of laughing beginning by a smile and after being capable of vehement Laughter Perhaps some will say that the excellency wherewith man flatters himself and the love of society can no more reach a childe at forty days old then other creatures being not of a condition to minde either of them therefore that they then are not more capable of laughing then beasts are if there be no other motions but those for laugher But it is not necessary exactly to know those things for which we have a natural inclination for desires being born with us carry us also by the pure instinct of nature to the enquiry of those goods and from the time that our soul hath the liberty to act she produceth actions which shew the secret fence she hath of her own excellency and of her being destined to a civil life Now as beasts are capable of neither of them they have also no share in this instinct whose sourse is hidden in the intellectual parts of the Soul and can come from no inferior power for although there are some kinds of Laughter which seem wholly to depend from the sensitive as that which comes from tickling it is certain that without the influence of the Reasonable Faculty the Senses cannot produce that effect its light insensibly disperseth it self on all its actions and the neighbourhood they have therewith alwayes communicates somewhat of its perfection which still serves to shew that beasts are not capable of laughter because their Senses are deprived of that brightness and of that influence which Reason causeth to flow in ours Before I finish this discourse I must tell you by the way who those are who are most given to laughter it is certain that young folkes laugh more willingly then old ones women then men fools then wise men sanguine then cholerick flegmatick then melancholy And this comes from that laughter being made by a pleasing surprise which we would make known those are more easily surprised are naturally merrier then these For the spirits which move quick and which consider not things are most easie to be deceived and those who are the most merry are the most easily touched with pleasant objects and are more fit for conversation then others who are severe and serious Yet as there are divers sorts of ridiculous objects that some respect our proper excellency and others society that there are some which require a great knowledge as quaint jeers and others wherein a mean one is onely requisite So there are also some persons which are more easily touched then others the young and cholerick laugh rather at the defects of others then the old and the wise being naturally insolent and proud fools ignorants observe not jests or witty encounters women and those of a sanguine complexion are more fit for the laughter which caresses occasion because they have a natural inclination to flattery After having thus discovered the nature of laughter and of ridiculous things we shall easily give a reason for all the effects which this Passion produceth on the body for there are none which proceed not from the surprise and Joy which the Soul resents the splendor of the eyes the redness of the face and tears come chiefly from Joy all the rest come from surprise
emotion of the soul by which it unites it self to that which is lovely Yet we doe not therein form its whole Idea we consider it as a Passion that hath beauty for its object and which to possesse it employs desire hope delight c. In the same manner Justice is a stedfast will to render to every one what belongs to him But to effect it she makes use of Prudence which makes her consider the quality of persons the time the place and all other circumstances She makes use of Temperance and of strength to moderate those passions which often traverse her design and although they are actions which precisely concern her not yet she forbears not to appropriate them because they conduce to her principal end Now all these borrowed and posterior actions are also a part of moral Characters because they design the passion or principal habit which is the spring and first cause whence they are derived It s far more difficult to say wherein the Corporal Characters consist and what intention nature hath in forming them We see that every passion carries I know not what air on the face that vertue sheds into its actions a certain grace and an agreeable aspect which is not to be found amongst the vitious but as we have always called it The I know not what it seems that we are thereby taught that it could not be said what it was For I suppose as it is true that the Characters we seek are nothing but the air of which we have but now spoken Now this is found in so many different things that it s almost impossible to observe what of common they have whereupon we may establish its essence for it most commonly happens in the motion of the parts and some have beleev'd that this air was nothing but that motion But it s certain there is a sixt and natural air wherein the parts move not and which is no effect of the souls emotions So that it would be more likely that this air were nothing but a certain relation of the parts amongst themselves which happens from the situation they take when they move or when they rest But nether is this sufficient since the colour which that relation compriseth not partly gives the air to the face and that ruddiness is one of the principal Characters of shame as paleness is of fear this ever encreaseth the difficulty since that in defining beauty we say that its a just proportion of the parts accompanied with a pleasing colour and with a grace and that colour and grace are esteem'd as two different things For grace is nothing but a pleasing air nay even custome often applyes it to what it is not when we say a man hath an ill grace and in this case grace is the same with air That we may know then what this marvelous air is where the serenity and the storms of the minde appear we are first to observe that the air of persons is discovered in their pictures that the grace of a fair face is exprest by colours and that consequently there must be somewhat of fixt and which flyes not away since there are none but stable and permanent things which painting hath power over and that of all visible objects there is only motion which subjects not it self to the pencil Now it is impossible to finde any thing stable common to living things and their pictures besides the figure and colour of the parts So that it seems this air is to be there placed But because there is yet another thing in the grace which the art of painting cannot attain to and that there is a certain vivacity which can never be fixt on the cloth we must with reason beleeve that motion serves also to this grace it s that which renders the beauty lively and piercing without which its sad dead and without attraction We cannot in effect doubt but that the motion of the parts gives something to this vivacity since 't is a part of its perfection But because that after it hath ceased there is yet I know not what which remains on the face and that we see a certain splendor shine in the eyes which depends neither upon their figure motion nor colour we must necessarily add to all this a certain secret influence which being sent into the eyes disperseth it self over the parts of the face and without doubt after having well enquired what it may be we shall finde it to be the spirits which the soul continually sends into those parts which leave there the brightness of the natural light they have and indeed there are faces which neer seem well and afar off appear very ill coloured because the spirits animate it not and that the splendor they give is so weak that the species of it cannot reach far and so they leave those of the colour more withered This grace then is in the colour in the figure in the motion of the parts and of the spirits And yet this doth not say that all these things are this grace For were they in other subjects then man they would not please and green which is the most perfect of all colours would cause a frightful deformity were it on a face It must then be that as sounds are not pleasing of themselves but as they are in a certain proportion so all these things are pleasing to the sight but only because they have a certain relation and a certain agreement which pleaseth the eyes and contents the minde To know this concordance you are to understand that there are two sorts of beauties in man The Intelligible and the Sensible The first is but the interiour perfection the just connexion of all faculties necessary for a man to perform the functions whereto he is designd and the sensible beauty consists in the disposition which the Organs ought to have to serve these faculties So that what renders the figure the colour and the motion agreeable is the fitness which those things have with the nature of man For how fair soever the colour be how perfect soever the figure of the parts are how regular soever the motions are if they are not conformable to his nature they produce neither a beauty nor a grace on the contrary they cause a deformity and render the body unseemly Now although there be but God alone who knows the principle of this conformity and why the forms have more inclination for one figure colour or some other accident then for another yet there are in our soul secret seeds of this knowledge which is the cause she pleaseth herself in these objects without knowing the reason in the same manner as she findes them displeasing when that conformity and proportion which they ought to have is wanting Some will perhaps say that I here confound grace with beauty placing grace in the proportion of the parts and in the colour which in the ordinary definition of beauty are separated from grace But I beleeve
life of men since thereby we become liberal courteous and generous it teacheth us to be discreet obedient and faithful it renders us abundant eloquent and ingenious and for that same cause the wisest man among the ancients formerly said that he was ignorant in all things but in the art of love forasmuch as he esteem'd that love is the school of honor and vertue and that wheresoever it reigns it brings peace abundance and Felicity And indeed had it not been altered by men it had never produced any othereffects but those and we had not been obliged to have added to its Elogies the crimes of which it is accused and the ills which at all times it hath done through the whole world but as the fire how pure soever it be raiseth stinking and dangerous fumes if it take in a corrupted matter you are not to wonder if this divine flame being bred amongst those vices wherewith the nature of man is infected produceth only filthy desires forms only evil designs and if instead of the good things it ought to bring mankinde it cause only troubles anxiety and misfortunes We have not undertaken here to give an account of all its disorders neither will we stain this discourse with the blood and the infamy it hath brought into Families and States nor with the sacriledges wherewith it hath violated the most sacred things it will be sufficient to say that its the most dangerous enemie wisedom can have For as much as of all those passions which may disturb her there is only love against whom she hath no defence those which enter nimbly and impetuously into the minde are but almost of a moments continuance and reason finds its excuse in their precipitation those others which move slowly by little and little she perceives them coming and can either stop their passage or in that weak condition drive them away But love slides in so secretly that its impossible to observe its entry or its progresse like a maskt enemy it advanceth and seazeth on all the principal parts of the soul before it is discovered when there is no means to be found to get him out then he triumphs and wisedom and reason must become his slaves and 't is what in my opinion the ancients would have said when they fained Love sometimes to be the Father of the gods and sometimes that he was a Demon which causeth them to descend from Heaven to Earth Because its certain that this passion hath mastered the wisest men in the world and that it was not without cause that Lais once vaunted to have seen more Philosophers with her then of any other kinde of men But let us leave these subjects for lovers to entertain their complaints withall and without interessing our selves either in the praise or dispraise of love le ts consider from the Port where we are the stormes it raiseth in the soul and in the body The first wound that beauty gives the soul is almost insensible and although the poyson of love be already in her and that it s even disperst through all her parts yet doth she not beleeve herself sick or at least thinks not her mischief so great For as we doe not give to Bees the name they bear but only when they have a sting and wings so neither is love called love but when he hath his arrows and can flye that 's to say when he is pungent and unquiet At first we take it for a simple likeing or a complacency we bear to so lovely a Person with whose presence we are pleased of whom we delight to discourse whose remembrance is sweet and the desires we have to see and entertain her are so calm that wisedom with all its severity cannot condemn them even she approves them and passeth them for civilities and necessary duties but they are not long at a stand they by little and little encrease and at last by the frequent agitatiou of the Soul they kindle that fire which was there hid and cause that flame to encrease which burns and devours it then this pleasing image which never presented it self to the minde but with sweetness and respect becomes insolent and imperious it enters every moment or more fully to express it it never leaves it it mixeth with its most serious thoughts it troubles the most pleasing and profanes the most sacred it even slides into our dreams and by an insufferable perfidiousness it shews it self in them severe and cruel when there is nothing to be fear'd or abuseth us with a vain hope when we ought truly to dispair then love who before was but a child becomes the Father of all the passions but a cruel Father who hath no sooner produced one but he stiffles it to make room for an other which he spares no less then the former at once he causeth a hundred kinds of desires and designes to live and dye and to see Hope and Dispair Boldness and Fear joy and grief which he causeth continually to succeed one another Despight and Anger which he makes to flash out every moment the mixture of all these passions its impossible but you must fancie some great tempest where the fury of the wind raiseth throws down and confounds the waves where lightning and thunder breaks the clouds where light and darkness heaven and earth seem to return to their first confusion But as there are times when storms are more violent and more common there are also encounters wherein this tempest of Love is stronger and more frequent The chief in my opinion are the presence and the absence of the beloved person her love and her hate and the concurrence of a rival and we may say that these are the five acts wherein all the accidents and all the intricacies of this Passion are represented at least if there are others they pass behind the curtain and out of the spectators sight If it happen then that a lover be absent from his beloved object disquiet and fretting pursue him everywhere he hath no friends but are importunate the divertisements which were most pleasing to him are troublesome in short there is nothing in his life which displeaseth him not but silence and solitude as if he were possest with those strange diseases which makes us hate the light and men he loves nothing but darkness and deserts there he entertaines the woods the brooks the winds and the stars they have nothing as he fancies but what is conformable to the humour of her he loves and to the pains he suffers he calls them insensible as she is and finds them like him in perpetual agitation and after having a long time tormented his spirit with such like Chimeras he begins to think of those happy moments when he shall again see that desirable object that he may speak to her and give her an account of his sighs and of the tears he shed in her absence sometimes he meditates the complaints wherewith he must soften her rigor the
thanks with which he will receive her favours and the vows wherewith he will confirm his servitude sometimes he puts pen to paper he writes blots out tears and if he have any thoughts which may securely stay on the paper they are those only which witness the excess of his love and fidelity and then what artifices doth he not imploy to procure the delivery of his letters what extravagances doth he not commit when he receives any or even when any thing that hath but touched the person he loves comes to his hands he keeps them always joyned to his eyes or to his lips he makes them his idols and would not change them for Scepters and Diadems to conclude we may say that absence is the true night of lovers not onely because their Sun as they say illuminates them no more but also because that all their pleasures are but as in a dream and at that time all their ills are irritated and augmented But le ts consider the day which followes this night 't is infallibly the presence of the person beloved indeed a lover calls it no other who beleeves that when he comes neer it all the beauty in the world is discovered to his eyes he finds a new heat disperst through his soul and a certain mixture of joy astonishment causeth him so pleasant a trouble that he is ravisht therewith and as it were out of himself then how proud bold or eloquent soever he be he must humble himself be afraid and lose his speech it avails him nothing to have prepared his courage and his discourse they prove but so many dreams and fantasies which vanish at the sight of this light nothing but his eyes can speak for him which witness by their looks what an excess of pleasure and respect this meeting affords him but what ever is said that this is the particular language of Love there is yet another which is much more proper and which is also far stranger then this for although there are passions as violent as this yet is there none which inspires like this such extravagant and such ridiculous words for a lover scarce utters one probable word what care and what interest soever he employs to make himself beleeved all his discourses and writings are perpetual hyperboles he burns he languisheth he dyes he speaks of nothing but of prisons of chains and of torments he calls her he loves his sun his heart his soul and his life he swears that he alone hath more love then all men besides that his passion is infinite and shall be eternal In breif all his words are beyond the truth his designes and his promises beyond his power and all his actions beneath his courage for there is no so base submission which he will not make there is no service so low or vile which he will not render there is no subjection amongst slaves so diligent so careful and so express as his he often adores a person that disdains him courts a confident that betrays him cherisheth servants that mock him he must use his enemies with respect his friends with indifferency and all the rest of the world with scorn he must suffer without complaining he must fear all desire much hope for little in a word he must love his ill and hate himself I omitt the profuse expence he makes the dangers he runs through to gain only a word or a favourable look the transports of joy which a good reception yeelds him the excess of grief and despair which a disdain causeth and the furies which jealousie inspires when a rival traverseth his pursuit When we shall speak of those passions in particular then also will we shew the rest of the extravagancies which love causeth although indeed they cannot be all discovered For besides that there are no disorders in the other passions which are not to be found in this that its capable of all the follies which can possesse a distracted mind it hath so many faces and several countenances that its impossible to take their picture sometimes it s violent and impetuous sometimes sweet and peaceable in some pleasant and toying in others peevish and severe in other bold and insolent in other timerous and modest it appears ingenious and stupid fantastical light furious and in a hundred other fashions which in my opinion was the cause that some fained Love to be the son of the wind and of Iris to shew the wonder and the variety which there was in this passion and to teach us that his original is as much hid as that of those two kinds of Meteors But before we undertake to discover it le ts see what change it causeth in the face I do not beleeve that he who first painted Love with a vail before his eyes intended thereby to shew the blindness which is in that passion but either through the debility or by the priviledge of his art he was obliged to hide what he could not express In effect what colour nay even what words can express all the changes which Love causeth in our eyes how can that resplendent humidity be represented which we see shine in them that modest disquiet that laughing grief and that amorous anger which is to be perceived in them now you shall see them turn this way and now that now sweetly lift themselves up by little and little fall down again and pittifully turn towards the beloved object Sometimes they dwel on it as if they were fix'd sometimes they turn from it as if they dazled sometimes their looks are quick sometimes sweet and languishing now they fly out with liberty and now they steal and escape from between the lids which seem as if they would shut upon them In a word all the motions wherewith the eyes in other passions are agitated are to be observ'd in this you shall always finde laughter or tears which somtimes agree mingle together although they are sunk and hollow they do not therefore drie up or lessen on the contrary they seem bigger and more humid then they were before unless it be after a tedious grief or an extream despair for then they become dry dimm cast down and set The forehead in this passion seldom gathers it self on the contrary it seems as if it were extended and if sorrow sometimes casts it down the wrinkels do scarce so much as break its evenness 't is there where the redness begins to appear which Love often raiseth in the face and even then when the other parts are pale this always retains something of its first colour sometimes the lips are red and moist sometimes pale and dry and they never almost move without forming a pleasing smile sometimes the undermost is seen to tremble and to whiten with a subtil froth sometimes the tongue passeth over them and by a light touch and trembling which it gives it flatters and tickles them when it would form words it lispes and the humidity which the desire raiseth in the
which seems good unto it It s true that at first this will not seem true because that most commonly in Love the beloved object is absent with whom it is not likely the soul should unite it self but if you consider that objects may be united to the powers by their species and by their images or by their true beings and that consequently there is a real union and another that is not which the schools call intentional and which we may name Ideal you may observe that the union which the appetite makes with the object which the imagination proposeth is of the latter rank because the true being of things enters not into the imagination it s their Idea and their image only and this union is that alone which naturally belongs to the appetite for that it can no otherwise for its part unite it self to the good which is presented unto it if it move towards any other union 't is not for it self that it seeks it but for other powers which may really unite themselves to their objects for the the appetite is a politick faculty which works not only for it self but for all others which are beneath it and as the imagination is the Center of all the sences the appetite is it also of all the inclinations which are in the parts so that the imagination or the understanding proposing to it what is fit it seeks it for them and endevors to procure them the enjoyment thereof and then if they are capable really to unite themselves with their objects it covets their union but this hinders not but that it unites it self before with them by a union proper to it and which is as the principle and spring of all other unions belonging to the soul Perhaps you will say that the understanding and the imagination in the same manner unite themselves to what is fit for them and that therefore Love may be aswel formed there as in the appetite but the difference is great because that the objects come and go in the understanding and in the imagination and the knowledge they have of them is rather gained by rest then by motion as Avistotle says quite contrary to the appetite which moves it self towards its object and goes out as it were of it self to unite it self thereto so that the union which is made in the understanding and in the imagination is purely passive without any motion of its faculties but that of the appetite is active and performed with agitation considering also that the union made by the appetite is more perfect then that which is made by knowledge for as much as the minde may have an aversion from some thing which it hath conceived which is a kind of separation and therefore the union thereof is not so perfect as that of the appetite which cannot endure this division and which consequently is the most accomplished which can be found in the actions of life But if Love be a motion of the Soul to unite it self to what is lovely it seems as if when it is united thereunto there then should be no more motion and consequently no more Love and as this union may be made in a moment for that there is nothing can hinder it it seems as if this motion also were made in an instant and that therefore Love should not last any longer which would be a very strange proposition and contrary to the truth To answer this objection you must observe that there are things which move themselves to attain to some end separate from their motion and that there are others which finde in the motion it self the end they seek the first cease to move when they have attain'd their end But those who have no other end but motion or at least none that is separated from their motion never pretend to rest and as rest is a perfection in those so 't is an imperfection in these now the appetite is of this latter kinde which truly moves to unite it self to what is good but the union it seeks cannot be effected but in motion and when that ceaseth it vanisheth so that whilest the beloved object is present it must incessantly agitate it self to obtain the end it desires which is to unite it self thereunto and if it chance to rest it proceeds from that the object is no longer present with it or at least that it is no more offered unto it as good Love then is a motion and a union of the appetite to what is lovely whether absent or present because its absence hinders not the imagination from proposing the Idea thereof to the appetite which is the only one with which it naturally can unite its true that working for other powers as we have said it stops not at this simple union it seeks what is fit also for them it desires for the seeing and hearing that their objects may be at a reasonable distance for touching and tasting that theirs may be immediatly united to their organs In fine as many ways as things can be united the appetite and the will wish a fit union for them and you must confess that the concourse of all those motions makes the Passion of Love compleat and entire and the first of which we have spoken although it contains all its essence and its form yet hath it not all its extent we may say it is the source and that the others are the brooks which encrease it Le ts now see what this particular agitation is which the appetite causeth to make this union and in what its different from that which is to be found in Joy in Desire and in Hope by which as wel as by love it seems that the soul would unite it self to the good which is presented to it For t is not sufficient for the perfect knowledge of the Passions to say that they are motions unless you observe the differences of these motions and unless you make known the different impressions and the diverss progress which the diversity of these objects cause in the appetite You must then suppose there is some relation between the motions of the Soul and those of the body and that the differences which are found in these in some manner happen in the others For since the effects are like their causes the motions of the body which are the effects of the Soul ought to be the images of that agitation which it gives it self In effect they say that the understanding moves directly towards its object that it reflects and redoubles it self on it that it reenters it self that it wanders and confounds it self which are all phrases drawn from sensible motions and which ought to make us beleeve that somewhat like it is done in the soul and chiefly in its appetitive part because it is by it that in effect it moves and agitates it self neither is it to any purpose to say that they are not true motions but that they only are Metaphorical for besides that
you must confess that all definitions of the Passions where the word Motion is always used are Metaphorical it s nevertheless certain that there may be a resemblance between both although they are of several kinds But I shall say farther that to consider exactly the corporal motions we may say they are not such perfect and true motions as those of the soul and that they are but gross and imperfect images of them since its true that in the order of things those which are inferiours are more noble and more perfectly in the superiors and that all of them are but copyes drawn the one from the other whose original is in the Soveraign Idea of all beings How ever it be since that in defining Passion in general the word Motion is used we must necessarily observe the differences of the Passions and therein employ the differences of Motion and finde in every of them some particular agitation which hath an agreement and relation to some of the sensible Motions To discover then that which is most fit for Love we must first know where the image of good is and whether it dwels in the imagination or whether it insinuates it self into the appetite it being certain that if the appetite go abroad to seek it it ought to agitate it self in another manner then if it comes home to it its true it is not easie to be decided and take which side you will you will finde inconveniences which seem inevitable For if the image of good issues not out of the imagination the appetite which is a blind power can never know it and therefore ought not to move to unite it self to it not knowing it to be there To say also that it comes forth of the imagination and slides into the appetite it will be useless there by the same reason since it only serves to represent things and give netice of them which the appetite is not capable of besides its hard to conceive how this image can run from the imagination into another power because besides that the accidents cannot pass from one subject to another it s the term and formal effect of an immanent action which hath this property never to go out of that faculty wherein it was produced To avoid these entanglings and that we may no farther engage our selves in the doubts of the schools we must say that the image which is in the imagination in effect goes not out of it for the reasons we have discoursed but as in the presence of luminous bodies light is shed through the air which environs them so when this image is formed in the imagination it multiplies in all the parts of the Soul it enlights them and excites after them those which are capable to be moved It s even very likely that 't is in effect a refined and purified light since the images of corporal things which strike our eyes are nothing else but lights as we have showen in its place and that there is nothing more conformable to the mind then this quality which is as the middle or horizon of spiritual and corporal things however it be we ought not to doubt but these images are as well multiplyed as those of the body since they are more excellent and that we have assured proofs of them in the effects of the memory and the forming faculty which ought necessarily to be imbued with these images to form parts conformable to the designe which the imagination often proposeth contrary to its ordinary conduct But if it be true that these Ideas are only fit to represent things and give you the knowledge of them how can they be useful to those faculties which know nothing as those are of which we have spoken We must answer that there are two kinds of knowledge the one clear and distinct which belongs to the sences to the imagination and to the understanding the other obscure and confused which is in the appetite and in all the other powers which have a natural knowledge of their objects and of what they are to do It s then true that the image of good is in the imagination as a light which sheds its rays into the appetite which inlightens and afterwards excites it to move to unite it self thereunto For although it be multiplyed and that the appetite be full of the splendor it casts it contents not it self with this influence it seeks to unite it self at the Center and at the spring whence it comes as we may see it happens to iron which having received the magnetick vertue moves towards the Loadstone which is the principle and source thereof that it may the more strictly unite it self thereunto So that its very likely that to form the Passion of Love the appetite carries it self strait towards the Idea of good which is in the imagination and that this motion is like to that of all other natural things which move thus toward what is conformable to them But this breeds great difficulties for though you may conceive this kinde of motion in the sensitive appetite by reason that it is placed in an organ different from that of the imagination and that there is a space between both where we may fancy that this motion is made this cannot take place in Love which is formed in the superior part of the Soul where the will is not separate from the understanding and towards which consequently it moves not it self since it 's always naturally united to it moreover I say were the sensitive appetite only in question it 's hard to comprehend how it could move thus for there is no likelyhood that it should go out of its place and from its organ to joyn with that of the imagination since all its motions are immanent actions if likewise it doe not go out how should it unite it self to this Idea which is in the imagination To resolve these difficulties and answer these seeming urgent reasons we are to remember that the motions of the Soul although they have conformity with those of the body yet are they not altogether like them and if they participate somewhat of their nature yet have they none of their defects For they require not that succession of time nor that change of place which is alwayes found in those and which are necessary followers of the imperfections of the matter they are made in one moment and in one place at least they do not goe out of that power where they are formed for you must not think that the appetite in drawing toward good or from evil quits its natural bounds and that it passeth from one place to another like animated bodies All these agitations are made in it self and as water which is shut up in a gulf may move in several manners without issuing out so this power which is as an abysse in the soul may be several ways agitated within its own bounds and by the different transport of its parts sometimes dash against its bounds
the eyes because they are the channels through which the Passions issue out and the hands because they are the principal organs of its actions But amongst all the means which nature hath taught us to attain to this perfect union there is none more considerable then reciprocal Love because union supposing two things the Lover and the Object to render it accomplished both the one and the other must really unite Now if the beloved object is capable of loving it can no otherways unite it self but by Love forasmuch as the soul unites it self with things which are without it only by that Passion wherefore the first care of a Lover is to make himself beloved and to that end to render himself grateful whence it happens consequently that he accommodates himself to the inclinations of the person beloved that he changeth his humor his manner of living that he growes liberal curteous neat and in a word that he doth all what he thinks may make him be beloved We are now to enquire the cause of that extravagant manner of speaking which is so particular to Lovers In general we may say that the soul in that Passion carrying it self out of its self carries also other things beyond what they are and forms thoughts of them beyond the natural expression they should have whence it is that the good and ill it conceives is alwayes in excess and if the nature of the thing cannot suffer it it burthens it with some strange Idea to encrease the meaning thereof and so builds those bold Metaphors which give to the beloved object the title of the fairest and the noblest things in the world which of a gentle heat cause a burning fire of a mean disquiet a torment and a punishment of a little submission which beauty requires a captivity prisons and chains and so of the rest whereunto the error of the imagination contributes very much which being wholly fill'd with that violent instinct which it hath from beauty beleeves that there is no greater good nor heavier ill then it expects from Love so that it alwayes represents them in extremes and consequently useth more extravagant termes then in any other Passion considering also that Lovers who commonly employ in their entertainments but very few thoughts and who are never weary to repeat them are oblig'd to diversify the termes that they may be the less tedious which they cannot do but by many Metaphors which at last become extravagant being to seek to finde out reasonable ones enough for the variety they endeavor Besides these general reasons there are yet particular ones for some words which are always in the mouths of those that love and when they call the beloved person Their Heart Their Soul and Their Life when they call them Ungrateful Homicides and Cruel and when they so often say They dye for Love for although all these kinds of expressions seem extravagant yet they come from a principle which in some sort renders them true forasumch as Love keeping the Soul always stretched towards the beloved object and transporting it out of it self to unite it thereto separates it also morally from the subject it animates and in effect takes away from it the remembrance and the cause of all that belongs to it So that in that respect we may say that it lives no more in him nor for him being wholly in the beloved person that a Lover hath reason to call her his Heart and his Soul since his desires and thoughts which are the noblest parts of his life are alone in her and that its true that he dyes nay even that he is dead since that he no longer lives in himself Now as there is but reciprocal Love only which can make them live again forasmuch as then the beloved person transforms herself in him and communicates to him both soul and life if he be unhappy to so high a degree that he cannot be loved it seems that he hath cause to call her Ungrateful Cruel and Murtheress since giving himself wholly to her alone she is oblig'd to acknowledge so high a liberality and in separating his soul from him she kills him and it is a cruelty to let him dye whose life she may save It s true that to speak really we may say that there is but a very light shadow of truth in all these words that the soul operates here as in a dream and that Platonick Philosophy which approv'd these visions kept intelligence with this Passion or would consolate Lovers in the miseries they suffered let 's leave her employed on so fair a designe and seek the causes of the corporal Characters which we have described But we will not here examine whence that great diversity comes which appears in this Passion which makes it in some either sportful or pensive in others peaceable or turbulent in a word perhaps two persons have never been found in whom it hath bin altogether alike for its evident that it comes from the divers inclinations which the temperature or custome hath introduced into the soul which draw the Passions to the bend they take and makes them follow the same course which they are accustomed to the mixture of other Passions also contribute thereunto it being impossible that Love should be frolick when it s accompanied with Grief or Anger or that it should be severe when Hope or Joy are of the party But all these diversities are easie to be comprehended let 's now to our principal designe To follow the Method we have established we are here to place two kinds of these Characters some of which are done for some certain end others which happen by a pure necessity the first are made by the souls command who judgeth them fit to execute her passion although they are often unprofitable as we have said the other are purely natural and are made without design being only effects which by a necessary consequence come from the trouble and the agitation which is inwardly made Those of the first rank are the motions of the eyes and forehead the faultring of the tongue the sweetning and several falls of the voice laughter and the behaviour of the body All the rest are purely natural as for the Motion of the eyes there are so many several kinds of it that it s almost impossible to observe them For as all the Passions may spring from Love and suffer also with it and every of them causing the eyes to move diversly It also happens that all their motions meet there So that pleasure makes them sparkle Desire advanceth them forward Grief casts them down Fear renders them unquiet Respect inclines them Despight kindles them and so of the rest whose causes we will deduce in the discourse of every Passion all what we can herein do is to enquire which are the Amorous eyes and looks and what obligeth the Soul to use them by reason of the great difficulty there is both in the one and the other For the
moves it self and that infirmity looseth the speech or if we do speak it is with pain and stammering whereto the quantity of humors also contributes which through Desire fill the mouth for it hinders that the tongue cannot so easily turn it self and that it strikes not the voice clearly Besides the distraction we now speak of is also a cause that Lovers hear not half what others say and that their discourse is commonly confused extravagant Even the sighs wh ch every moment cut one another owe their first original to that great attention of spirit which diverts the soul and makes it lose the remembrance of the most necessary actions of life for sending not spirits enough to cause respiration the lungs beat but slowly and the heart draws not that help which is expected from their service forasmuch as they furnish not it sufficiently with air to temper that fire which this Passion kindles and that they discharge it not often enough of those fumes and vapors which the agitation of the humors raiseth there Now after this disorder hath continued some time and that at last it might ruine all the natural ceonomy the soul being urged by necessity awakes again and seeks to supply its defect by these great and extraordinary respirations and indeed sighs are principally begot at the issue out of some thought which hath forcibly detained the minde and not whilst it was employed therein The face grows pale whether it be that the spirits retire within the brain as we have already said or because that in the progress of this Passion the stomack grows weak and the blood changeth for since that the diversion of the spirits diverts also the heat vertue which ought to pass into the stomack to cause digestion you must not wonder if it become languishing if the aliments change into crudities and if the blood it makes be impure since that the last concoction corrects not the defects of the former But what helps forward this disorder is the continual ardor which this Passion kindles in the blood and the several agitations which Fear Grief and Anger at every moment excite for that dissipates the spirits and makes the faculties become languishing and the humors enflame and corrupt themselves which at last grows to that Erotick sickness which the Physitians place in the ranck of folly and fury The blood being then in this condition retains no more nether its vertue nor its natural colour It becomes useless to the nourishment of the parts and no longer communicates that pleasing vermillion which formerly it bestowed upon them and so they must needs become pale lean and withered By the same reason the appetite is lost because that the beloved object occupying all the thoughts of the Soul takes away its care of all the functions of Life the spirits being also diverted no longer bear into the stomack that sentiment which causeth the appetite In fine the disorder which is in the humors and in all the natural parts hinders this from performing its function Sleep being the rest of common sence of the spirits seldom happens in violent Passions detaining the Soul and the body in a continual agitation but Love endures it less then the rest because that besides the tempest it raiseth it at last corrupts the blood whose vapours are sharp and which consequently want that sweet humidity which Iulleth the Senses It s true that langour and weariness sometimes procure it because the soul knows that life cannot subsist without it and that after so great a dissipation of spirits its necessary to repair them to which end it gathers them together and stays them For although this moist vapor which commonly provokes sleep happen not here as we said but now yet must we not beleeve that sleep can come by no other means it hath two ordinary and natural causes the vapor which stops the passage of the spirits and the soul which binds and stays them now here being no vapor to produce this effect necessity obligeth the soul to labour it alone of her self But this sleep is interrupted with dreams which continually agitate the minde forasmuch as the imagination which in that condition loseth not the liberty of working and being full of those images which Passion suggests turns over continually confounds and augments them so that they always present to it things greater then in effect they are and afterwards form in the appetite more powerful motions then the true objects would do The remembrance or the unexpected arrival of the beloved party swels the heart and the pulse because the soul dilates the organs to receive the good and to send forth spirits to its encounter a great difficulty upon this occasion is proposed to wit whether Love have a kind of pulse proper to it alone for that some have vaunted the discovery of this Passion by the beating of the arteries But without stopping at the contests which are formed hereupon we will boldly say that there is no more reason to give one which is proper to Anger and to Grief then to Love That the heart can no less resent the motion which this Passion causeth in the appetite then it can that which the others excite and that the organs moving conformably to the intention of the minde this part must be otherwise agitated in Love then in other passions since it hath a diffent designe from what the others have It s true its hard exactly to discover this difference because men have made no just observation thereof and perhaps it is impossible to make it for that the heart is shut up in the Center of the Body and that it suffers motions which it communicates not with the arteries yet amongst such kinds of pulses as have been observed we may yet find some one which particularly belongs to Love To understand this you must know that the heart hath many motions which are common to several Passions for it dilates it self in Joy in Hope and in Anger and contracts it self in Grief and in Fear and in Despair in some it goes quick and with violence in others slow and languishing and its certain these general differences cannot all alone mark those which are proper to every Passion but as Physick teacheth us that there are twenty kinds of simple pulses and that they may diversly mix the one with the other every Passion may finde in this great variety that kind which is proper to it thus the pulse of Anger is not only great and lifted up or quick or frequent or vehement but it is composed of all these differences That of Fear is quick hard unequal and irregular That of Joy is great rare and slow That of Grief is weak little slow and rare and as they say these are the kindes of pulses which are proper to these Passions we may also observe in the same manner one proper to Love and indeed therein the beating of the arteries is great large unequal and irregular it
We do not therefore say that Beauty consists in Knowledge onely for it would then follow that things would not be fair until they are known although it be most true that God would not cease to be infinitely fair although he were not known And there are things whose knowledge is equally clear and certain which are not equally fair for the Understanding distinguisheth the Natures as more or less perfect in the same manner as the eyes and ears judge that there are Colours and Harmonies the one fairer then the other Now as things are sensible not by reason of our sensibleness but because they can make themselves sensible and as the essence is not good in that it communicates it self but in that it can communicate it self so Goodness is not fair because it is known but because it may be known So that Beauty is nothing but Goodness in that order and essential relation it hath to Knowledge that is to say that it can communicate it self to the intelligent faculties And in my judgement we are so to understand Plato when he says that Beauty is a glittering and splendor of Goodness for as the brightness of light is that which renders it visible the brightness of goodness is that also which makes it known and this brightness is no other but the act whereby goodness resplends enlightens and communicates it self to the knowing faculties Now because there are two kindes of faculties the Intellectual and the Sensitive there must also be two kindes of Beauty the one intelligible the other sensible And because that in either kinde there are subjects which are fairer and more excellent some then other some we must on the foundation we have established observe the cause of this difference It is true it requires a higher meditation and a longer discourse then our designe will permit but we will onely touch on the principal and on what is necessary to understand what we shall say in consequence of Humane Beauty Suppose then that Beauty is but an effect of Goodness so far as it hath a relation to the knowing faculties and that Goodness is nothing also but the being and perfection of things so far as it can communicate it self as the School teacheth those things which have more of being and of essence must be better fairer and more perfect And we know they have more of being when they have more unity and in that unity they have more power and different vertues So God hath an infinite perfection because that in a most perfect and most simple unity he hath a power to do all things The intelligences which are the most simple and the most active of all creatures are also the most excellent Even amongst Bodies the mixt are more perfect then the simple whereof they are composed the Animate more then the Natural and those which have a Reasonable soul more then those which are onely Sensitive Because that in comparison of those they have more different vertues and more actions and therefore divers degrees more of essence Thus much for what concerns Intelligible Beauty But in Sensible objects the perfection is not absolutely considered as in that it must depend not onely from the being they have but also from the organs of the Senses which receives them and from the fitness they ought to have with the bodies where they appear So the Light which is most resplendent is more perfect then all Colours but in respect of the eyes Green is more although even that colour is displeasing in some subjects Now the cause of this diversity first of all comes for that the Senses having been given to creatures for their preservation they must not destroy them And as their action is performed by the impression which the objects make on their organs if this impression is not proportionable to them their action will be imperfect So that it ought to be strong enough to give knowledge of the thing but not so violent as to corrupt the organs Whence it is that the Senses cannot judge well of their objects in their extremity as the eyes of too great a light or of darkness the ears of a too violent sound or of silence And Aristotle says that neither of them are sensible because that this makes no true impression and that the other destroys the organ So that there are onely those objects which are between both extremities which can make a just impression proportionable to what the Senses require It is not therefore that all the objects equally touch the Senses there are some amongst them which are more perfect and more agreeable then the rest Green is fairer then Grey or Black the Eighth in Harmony is sweeter then the Fourth But the cause of this difference is extremely obscure yet if you observe what we have said of the perfection of Intelligible things you will finde that it depends from the same principle For it is certain that Colours and Harmonies have their beauty from the proportion they have and those which have it the most perfect are also the most agreeable Now proportions have the more perfection the neerer they are to unity and the more they are in that unity composed So the Diapason which is the most pleasing of all simple harmonies is made in a double proportion to wit of two to one which is the most perfect of all simple proportions because it is neerest the unity nothing being neerer unity then the number of Two and is the most composed for what is twice as much more is more composed then that which is but once and a half or once and a third part as the other proportions which are the Diapente and the Diatessaron It is the same with Colours for the proportions which make perfect harmonies make also as Aristotle says fair colours For which cause Green which is the most agreeable of all others is to be in the same proportion with the Diapason and that of Blue and Purple with that of Diapente and Diatessaron But seeing we have examined these things in their place it sufficeth to shew that Beauty and the perfection of Sensible things is deduced from the same principle as that of Intelligible things to wit in that they have more unity and that in this unity they have more powers in a word from that they have more of a sensible being It is easie by this Discourse to perceive that Light considered as in it self is the fairest thing which can be presented to our sight but that Green in respect of the organs is yet more pleasing then it It remains onely to discover why this colour renders not all those Bodies fair wherein it is To this end you must remember that things work not but according to the powers they have and that these powers follow onely the degrees of their being Now as there are things which cannot work without matter it is evident this matter ought to be fitted and proportioned to their actions and their powers
them proportionably and cause also by their knowledge a greater satisfaction and a greater pleasure It is not but that often less perfect things do more content the Senses and the Understanding but this proceeds from the error which their ill inclinations give them which commonly come from the temper from custome and from weakness of spirit Now forasmuch as knowledge is a good which respects not onely the faculties which exercise it but also all others to which it may be profitable because that the Senses were not given to the creature for themselves but for the preservation thereof and that reason is a light which lights not it self alone but also all the other vertues which are in man hence it is that the knowledge which the Senses the understanding have of things which in som manner are useful to the creature perfects these faculties because that being destined to its service they at last attain the end whether they tend when they operate for it and in that respect they acquire a perfection which in some sort is more excellent then that which respects them onely being their last end and the mark nature proposed for them even thence it is that the eyes esteem fair all which makes the goodness of asiments known and the colour of the wine or even of the water is for the same reason more pleasing for a thirsty man to behold then the fairest green of the fields In a word all what the understanding and the imagination know of seeing and hearing being the observers of what is profitable or agreeable is esteemed fair and perfects these faculties forasmuch as their perfection consists to know what is for our use it is thus that corporal beauty ravisheth the soul and the Senses because it is the mark of that interior power which ought to render us more perfect and it s principally in this sence that we may truely say that beauty is the flower and splendor of goodness But before we shew how this power ought to render us more perfect we must observe what we have already said of these powers for there are those which respect the nature of man in general and others which are proper to the sexes These have their particular dispositions which make the male and female beauty and which being nothing but the instruments which they are to use in the performance of their functions are also the marks which make known whether they may be well or ill done for certainly a male beauty is nothing else to our Senses but the mark of a good constitution of the active power in generation in the same manner as a female beauty is the signe of a passive power to all that is necessary for the performance of that function Now as generation is the most natural and most excellent of all the operations which are common to creatures for that it in som manner renders them eternal it in som sort also approacheth the Divine perfection and renders them like their cause and principle we cannot doubt but nature hath imprinted in them a most powerful desire and also endued them with a knowledge which may serve to this inclination its true that this knowledge is obscure and hid and that it is to be found in our selves without the help of discourse and even without our thinking of it and indeed it is in the same rank with that which nature hath inspired in all the things of the world who know without understanding what is useful for them for even in the actions of the Senses and the Understanding we perceive that there are objects which are more pleasing to us then others the reason whereof is unknown to us and we have nothing to say but that there is in our souls a certain spring of Understanding or rather that it is the Spirit of God which hides it self in his works and drives things to that end which is fit for them For as an Artist manageth the action of natural things to the end he pretends as we must ascribe all that order which appears in the artifice to his knowledge and not to the things he useth which are incapable of that knowledge so in all the things of nature where we perceive so many marks of admirable wisedom we must not beleeve that it is from them that it proceeds but that it is the Spirit of God which flowes in their effects which gives the order and the motion and which guids them to the end which he hath prescribed for them However it be it is by this obscure and hid knowledge that corporal beauty presenting it self to our Senses the soul knows it for the mark of the natural power of that Sex wherein it is at the same time that secret and powerful desire which it hath to perpetuate its species awakens and forms in it that Love which afterwards agitates it with so much violence Yet do I know very well that an ill-favoured person may cause the same motion in the soul and that it is not always true that beauty is the certain mark of the perfect disposition of the powers which serve for generation and to conclude that it may affect those who are of the same sexe to whom this motive is useless But as for unhansomeness we have shewed in the Treatise of the Love out of inclination that although that this Passion seems not to draw its origine from Beauty yet there is in the soul a certain Idea of perfection contrary to that which the Senses represented which causeth this admirable charm For the two other Objections which remain we must confess that Nature suffers defects in particulars because she doth not always finde the matter obedient whence it happens that there are parts which remain imperfect and because we often abuse the gifts she bestows employing them in things contrary to the end which she proposed her self There is amongst men another kinde of Love which corporal beauty also may move but whose motive is different from that whereof we speak for it respects not the sexe but all the species which being to have its vertues and its powers ought also to have those corporal dispositions which are to serve it Now these dispositions are natural or acquired The natural are those which come from our births and which render men capable of the functions of the Understanding for as all what is in Man is destined for the service of that faculty which is mistress of all the rest since it cannot know things but by the intermission of the Senses and the Senses cannot operate if their organs are not well disposed of necessity the parts of the body must have some proportion and agreement with the Understanding and then the Soul which sees by this secret sentiment of which we have spoken that it is the mark of humane perfection pleaseth it self in this object and forms that love which unites it to the good it knows 'T is thus that well-form'd men are
it self desirable so that it is never content and that it is rather weary of the good which entertains it then fully satisfied therewith But we have spoken enough of the trouble it moves in the Minde let us see what it causeth in the Face There are some pleasures of which we may say the Soul is jealous which it seems she would possess in secret and which she dares not communicate to the Senses But what care soever she takes to hide them she cannot do it so well but she must discover something her retreat renders her suspected and when she would hide 't is then she the more discovers her self For the looks become fixt and staid all the body is immoveable the Senses forget their functions in fine there is a general suspension made of all the animal vertues And although at first we might doubt whether it proceeds from astonishment or grief which often produce the same effects 't is afterwards discovered by a certain gloss which remains on the face and by I know not what sweetness which it leaves in the eyes and by a light image of smiling which appears on the lips that these troublesome Passions have no share in this transport and that it comes from that inward joy which ravisheth and as it were inebriates the soul But when Pleasure hath the liberty to disperse it self abroad and that the Senses bear a part and that the Minde and the Body seem to enter again into commerce and intelligence then it is easie to know the agitation which is made in the soul by what appears in the exteriour parts You see on the face a certain vivacity a pleasing disquiet and a laughing boldness Pleasure sparkles in the eyes sweetness accompanies all their motions and when they happen to weep or to cast forth some dying looks you would say Laughter confounded it self with Tears and that Jollity mixed it self with Languishings The Forehead is in this calm and serene the eye-brows are not lifted up with wrinkles nor with clouds and it seems as if it opened and every way extended it self The Lips are red and moist and are never forsaken by smiles and that light trembling which sometimes happens to them would make one think they danced for joy The Voice becomes greater then ordinary sometimes it is resounding and it never goes out but with earnestness for there is no Passion so talkative as Joy how barren soever the Minde be what heaviness soever there be on the tongue it makes one speak continually and nothing but its own violence sometimes stops the mouth and at once cuts short the speech To conclude all the face takes an extraordinary good plight and from pale melancholy and severe which it was before it becomes ruddy affable and pleased The rest of the body is also sensible of this alteration A sweet heat vapor sheds it self thorow all its parts which swells and gives them a lively colour even they become stronger and do their actions more perfectly then they did before In effect of all the motions of the Minde there is none more a friend to Health then this so as it be not extreme It drives away sickness it purifies the blood and the spirits and renders as the Wise man says our yeers flourishing As soon as it enters the heart it swells it with great beatings it lifts up the heart by long respirations In the Arteries it causeth a large and extended pulse And yet although all these motions are made slowly and without vehemency those of the other parts are made with precipitation and vigour The head and the eyes are in a continual agitation the hands move without ceasing we go we come we leap we cannot stay in one place But it sometimes also happens that the violence of this Passion takes quite away the use of Sense and Motion it quencheth natural heat it causeth syncopes and in a moment bereaves one of life Let us then examine how it can produce so many effects so contrary and so wonderful PART 2. Of the Nature of JOY SOme perhapes may think it strange that Joy which speaks so much of it self hath not as yet told what it was but you may much more wonder that Philosophy which promiseth us the knowledge of all things falls short in this although there be nothing which endeavours more to make it self known then Pleasure It penetrates to the bottome of our soul it environs it on all sides it sollicites it by all the wayes of its knowledge it is the end of all its desires the crown of all its actions and yet for all that its nature is unknown to it and the greatest understandings which have enquired it are not agreed under what kinde it ought to be placed For some have said that Pleasure was nothing but the rest and tranquillity of the minde others that it was a Passion in which the Soul operated not and amongst those who have ranked it amongst actions some did beleeve it proceeded not from appetite but from knowledge In fine there having been some who not daring to put it in the rank of other Passions have said it was the principle of them others that it was their gender or their first species Had we not banished from our designe the wrangling and the Criticisms of the Schools we should be obliged to examine all these opinions and to seek in their ruines foundations whereon we should build the definition and Idea of Pleasure But since we have not that liberty and that we should render delight importunate and unpleasing by the length of the discourses we should use without advising with any we will consult the thing it self and see whether it will discover it self to us after having hid it self to so many excellent spirits We say then that we need not doubt but that Pleasure is a motion of the mind and that its impossible to conceive a calm and rest in the tempest which it raiseth in our thoughts in our spirits and in our humors as those things doe not move of themselves it must be the minde which agitates them and she gives her self the same shake which she imprints in them For it is evident that effects being like their causes the motions of the body which are the effects of the minde ought also to be the images of the agitation she gives her self I know well that the Schooles will not call these agitations true motions but that stops us not it will suffice that they are such as the soul can have that pleasure is one of that order But yet as she hath two parts which may be moved we might doubt to which of the two Pleasure belongs for although all the world confess it is a Passion and consequently a motion of the appetite yet it seems that there are some which are proper to knowledge since the Senses and the understanding finde a complacency in the objects which are conformable to them even before that the appetite is moved
them towards Good for when they can go no further they must either stop or return to their source or disperse themselves They cannot stop themselves since they follow the then-disturbed agitation of the soul they cannot return to the heart since nothing but the presence of Ill can constrain them thereunto They must then overflow and disperse themselves And the Soul which employs the same motives for the motion of the Spirits as for her own takes care to make them move so that they may be the more united to Good as we have before said For by this effusion they dilate themselves in their organs and occupying more room they think to touch the Good in more of its parts But where can they disperse themselves To understand this you must remember that Good toucheth not the soul but by its presence and that it is Knowledge onely which renders it present Now this Knowledge is made by the Understanding and by the Imagination or by the Senses And as the Imagination is seated in the brain and the Senses in their particular organs so Good must be in the one or the other of them and consequently Love must carry the Spirits to those places and Joy disperse them in the same precincts For if Good be onely in the Fancie and that it toucheth not the exteriour Senses all the Spirits arrive at the seat of the Imagination and disperse themselves in the brain But if any of the Senses possess this Good then the Spirits which ran thither disperse themselves also on their organs and carry thither heat redness and vivacity This effusion augments the Pleasure of the Minde by reason of that sweet and temperate heat which runs thorow the parts which flatters and tickles them So that those Pleasures which are accompanied with this corporal agitation are greater and more sensible then when they are without it Nay even after the emotion of the Appetite hath ceased the agitation of the Spirits continuing leaves the soul in a certain confused Joy which comes not from the object which at first touched it but from that tickling which the Senses made known unto it as a thing conformable and convenient for their nature And this makes me believe that all those secret Joys which we feel without knowing a reason of them come from the same cause and that there must necessarily be something which disperseth the Spirits and which inspires Pleasure in the soul whether it be the knowledge it hath of the tickling of those parts or whether that all the differences of the motions which it employs in every Passion being known unto her she sees this to be fit for Joy and at the same time forms a delightful object as we said it happened in that love which is out of inclination You will perhaps say that this effusion of Spirits may often be without Pleasure That Anger which casts them into the face that Grief which draws them to the diseased parts and that the Fever which drives them everywhere with impetuosity afterwards disperseth them and causeth the same alteration which Joy imprints on the body and yet that the Soul is then sensible of no pleasure But we may two ways answer this First it is true that the most delightful objects are often diverted by little griefs from making an impression in the soul This motion of the Spirits which is so secret and which the Senses can scarce discover ought to be far less powerful against great obstacles which cause these troublesome encounters But supposing they did cause pleasure it is so weak and so light that it is stifled by the least sensible inconvenience For it is an observable thing that although it seems that the Sensitive Appetite at the same time cannot suffer contrary Passions it is not absolutely true since we evidently know that the tongue is pleased with agreeable savours whilst the heart is full of bitterness and grief And the reason of this is that the Sensitive Appetite is not shut up in one part onely as the most part of the other faculties are it is dispersed thorow all the organs of the Senses and we may say that its stock and root are indeed in the heart but that its boughs and branches are extended thorow all the body For it s a general and necessary power to all the parts of the Creature and it must have been communicated to all that Motion might not be far off from knowledge and that the Soul might not languish in expectation to possess a good or flee from an ill when they were once come to her knowledge Nature having made for the appetite what she made for the pulse whose principal organ is the heart and yet which forms it self in all the arteries where even it is sometimes found different from that which agitates the heart Which being so Pleasure may be in one place and Grief in another although they are in one part incompatible But it is also true that when Passion is raised in the Centre and source of the appetite that which is in the little rivulets is very weak and seems to vanish although the Spirits cease not to agitate in those places where it was formed whence these secret feelings of Pleasure follow which often steal themselves from the knowledge of the understanding nay even of the imagination This is the first answer which may be made to the proposed objection now for another which pleaseth us more as being better fitted to our designe for we will show how every Passion hath a particular motion of the spirits and that then if the effusion be in others as well as Joy there must be some difference which renders it fit and particular and which is not to be found in the rest We must then confess that Anger Grief and Terrour and divers other exterior things may disperse the spirits but by violence and as a tempest which scatters the rain and transports it here and there with impetuosity in stead whereof Joy sweetly disperseth them and makes them distil on the parts as a sweet dew now this causeth many different impressions on the Senses For the spirits which are driven with force which precipitate themselves one on the other cause a troublesome sentiment to nature and rather provoke it then flatter it but those which disperse themselves as themselves and sweetly insinuate themselves into the parts tickle and content it Considering that in those Passions which have ill for their object the spirits keep themselves united contracted to assault or flee from it whence it is that they are piercing and offend the parts they light on but in Joy wherin they dilate themselves to embrace the good it must needs blunt their point and make them lose the impetuosity they had before So that what effusion soever there is in Anger and in Grief its never accompanied with pleasure because it is not like that which is with Joy to avow this we must onely consult the countenance of
a joyful man for you will finde therein I know not what kinde of a more pleasing vivacity a clearer and purer splendor and a sweeter heat then in all the Passions we have made mention of by reason that the purity of the spirits is not changed by those sharp and darksome fumes which are raised in the rest and that their motion is more free more equal and more conformable to their nature it might be asked whether this effusion of spirits be onely made in those places where Good is presented to the soul and truly it s there only necessary for it since they onely disperse themselves to possess this good and that good toucheth it nowhere but where it makes it self known yet it is true that it abundantly pours them into the intrails and that when Joy is high there is no part which it over-flowes not for which cause the heart and the lungs loosen themselves as Hippocrates says we are sensible of I know not what pleasing emotion which moves all the interior parts and a sweet heat and vapor which disperseth it self through the whole body Now this happens according to my opinion from that the sensitive soul hath not always a clear and certain knowledge of its object and being charmed by that of Joy she fancies that she ought everywhere to encounter it and that she ough also to send spirits every way to entertain it or rather the urgency which presseth her forwards to the quick enjoyment of the presented good is the reason she drives them on all sides without choice or order or so much as discerning the places whether they are to move This shall suffice for the knowledge of the Motion of the spirits in Joy in pursuit of the examen we have already made in the Treatise of Love But one difficulty remaines which the former discourse hath bred and whose resolution will give some light to the obscurity of this matter for we have said that the spirits are not agitated here with violence and that their motion is always sweet and calm although this seem not to agree with the transports the ravishments and the excesses which are so common in this Passion and which cannot be conceived without a violent agitation of the spirits And in effect when we compared this motion with that which is made in Love we were not afraid to say that they were driven in Joy as a great wave and that it seemed then as if the soul would cast it self wholly and all at once before its object So that it being not to be done without violence and having certified that there was none in the effusion of the spirits we cannot escape the reproach to have spoken contrary to Truth and against Our Selves Yet it is very easie to answer this Objection remembring that Joy and Love are inseparable and that these two Passions being for that cause often considered as if they were but one onely these Motions were also confounded with their effects so that Love drawing the spirits from the heart and driving them out we commonly say that Joy also transports them And as this motion is made with violence and causeth troublesome accidents the same thing may be said of Joy For thus we discoursed of it in the former Chapter where we did not absolutely compare Love with Joy but onely the love of Beauty with the love of other things wherein Joy causeth faintings and syncopes confounding as commonly they do these two Passions in one But here where we make an exact Anatomy of them we separate the motions of the one from the other and conclude that the transport of the spirits towards Good is a particular effect of Love and that the effusion which follows it is that of Joy So that if there be violence in the first motion it proceeds all from Love Pleasure hath no share in it and how impetuous soever it be it must break and soften it self when the spirits begin to disperse themselves otherwise Joy would destroy it self by that troublesome sensibleness which that impetuous and turbulent motion would excite in the parts Yet it follows not that because this effusion is not violent and impetuous it must be made slowly for the spirits are such stirring and subtil bodies that they without resistance penetrate everywhere and their motions are so quick that nothing in Nature could be found to compare them to but Light and it is by that also that we can make appear how they disperse themselves in Joy For it in a moment insinuates it self in Diaphanous bodies without violence and without confusion runs thorow all their parts without constraint dilates and extends it self and we might say that had these bodies any knowledge they would be sensible of an extreme pleasure in that sweet although sudden effusion of Light So is it with that which is made in Joy for after the soul hath carried the spirits towards its Good and that she believes she hath united them together she leaves that pressing that disquiet and precipitation which she caused before that she might arrive there and thinking she can then with security enjoy the good she possesseth she with liberty dilates her self without hinderance extends her self and in an instant penetrates all the parts of her object causing the spirits to move in the same manner which she findes always obedient to her command It is true that in pursuit thereof there is a great dissipation of them made which the soul takes no care to repair being wholly employed in the enjoyment of the good she pursued and being as it were charmed and ravished with her good fortune whence those weaknesses follow those faintings and those other actions of which we have already spoken PART 4. The causes of the Characters of Joy YOu have seen what we had to say of the nature of this Passion before we enquire the causes of those Characters which make it appear Let us then now examine first the Moral actions and enquire why Joy is so talkative so vain and so credulous why it confides so much in it self why it makes it self to be defired even when it is present and why it is so soon weary of the Good which begot it For these are the most observable effects which it produceth in the Minde and whence it seems the rest proceed Let us seek then the causes of its Prattle There are Passions which will always speak and others which love to be silent Silence commonly accompanies grief despair and fear Joy boldness and anger and generally all those which move towards Good or resist Ill are given to Talk but none so much as Joy all the rest seem to drive out their words and cast them forth with violence as if they were a burden which the soul would discharge this dispenseth them with liberty makes them flow with pleasure and we may say that it is rather abundance then constraint which sends them forth Indeed Joy is full of babble is pleased to
Pleasures as those of the Senses become distastful and importunate because they are not absolutely convenient for nature they surpass the natural capacity of the powers and their use weakens and corrupts the organs but those which are pure and true do never disgust because they never exceed the natural reach of the Soul but they perfect it and instead of burthening and weaking they ease and fortifie it It is true they may give a little because the minde being a lover of novelty and finding it no longer in an object whereto it hath long applied it self it also findes not that satisfaction which it took at the begining and seeks by change to nourish its desire and inclination But we have spoken enough of these things wherewith Moral Philosophy is full let us examine the Characters which Joy imprints on the Body Of all the many Characters which Joy imprints on the body There are the looks onely the serenity of the forehead Laughter Caresses and disquiet which are caused by the Souls command all the rest happen without her thought and have no other cause but the agitation of the humors which necessarily produce those effects For the Looks there are three kindes common to this Passion for it renders them sweet dying and unquiet we will say what is the cause of these last when we speak of the disquiet and impatience which appears in all its other actions The Looks are sweet either because they are modest or because they are laughing and these are proper to Joy which causeth the lids to fall a little and contract themselves and which fills the eyes with a certain pleasant splendor Now this splendor comes from the spirits which arrive in those parts and the motion of the lids is effected by smiling and by the design which the soul hath to preserve the image of the desirable object as we shewed in seeking the causes of amorous Looks so that we have onely these which are called dying which require a long examen We have already said in the discourse of Love that they were called so because those which dye cast forth the like lifting up their eyes on high and half hiding them under their lids But that seems very difficult to conceive that Looks which accompany Languor Grief and Death should be found in the excess of Pleasure Yet as there are several things contrary which have common effects because they have common causes it may also be that this kinde of Look findes the same cause in Grief and in Joy in the pangs of Death as in the ravishment of Pleasure Let us then examine the reasons why they are to be found in these troublesome Passions that we may see whether there be any which may be accommodated to Joy First we need not doubt but Grief lifts up the eyes on high and looks up to heaven as the place whence it expects help to drive away the ill which afflicts it For Nature hath given that instinct and inclination to man to have recourse to superiour powers when he believes himself abandoned by the rest So that without minding it his mouth invokes them his eyes turn towards them and his arms are lifted up to crave their assistance It also happens that this Passion which would flee the ill which presents it self gathering up within it self draws along with it all the more moveable parts and so retires the eyes in as if it thought to hide it self by hiding those organs whence she seems most to shew her self Or rather it comes from that the parts being void of spirits which the force of Grief dissipated or transported elsewhere they of themselves repossess their natural situation which is to be a little lifted up For it is certain that the situation of the parts when they rest is more natural then that which they have in action wherein there is always some kinde of constraint And we must consequently believe that the eyes which take that site in sleeping seek it as the most calm and most natural for them So that it seems the looks become dying in Grief as they do in Sleep by the flight of the spirits which leave the eyes to their rest Death may also cause this effect by the convulsion which often accompanies it and which makes the nerves retire to their origine or by reason of weakness cannot retain the parts in that tension which their action requires so that the lids fall and the eyes are lifted up taking again as we have said their natural situation Of all these causes there is onely the gathering up of the Soul and the drawing back of the Spirits which are to be found in Joy and from whence these dying looks may take their birth for they have no assistance to implore nor convulsion to fear But in the transport which the enjoyment of Good gives the Soul it often quits the exteriour parts gathers the spirits inwardly together or carries them elsewhere and so forsaking the eyes leaves them the liberty to regain their natural situation which makes them appear languishing and dying The Forehead is serene when it is smoothe and without wrinkles and this smoothness comes from that all the muscles are extended and equally draw it out on every side or from that they are all at rest and leave it in its ordinary situation Now it seems that Joy causeth a serenity of the forehead in both manners For it is certain that as it hath the property to dilate and disperse the soul and the spirits it seeks to do the same in all the parts of the body So that because the muscles cannot move but by contracting themselves it never intends to move those of the forehead since it would cause a motion contrary to its designe chiefly their action being not necessary in this encounter as that of the eyes might be and of the tongue and of others which it agitates in this Passion for particular reasons The Forehead then remains calm and without contracting it self On the contrary it seems to open and on all sides to extend it self by reason of the spirits which rarifie the parts and makes them appear the larger Yet because that in Laughter the forehead becomes smoothe by the stretching of the muscles which equally draw it upwards and downwards it might seem that Joy which causeth Laughter caused also that tension and brought that serenity to the forehead as well by moving as by slacking the muscles But in the following Discourse we will shew that it is not Joy which produceth that effect but the Surprize which is the true cause of Laughter 'T is not but that the Soul without that Surprize may extend the forehead by contracting the muscles but then it is a feigned and forced serenity as that of Flatterers of which Aristotle says that the Forehead is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say stretched and not contracted as the Translators have explained it for it is the Muscles which are contracted but the Forehead
her exile she may have some commerce with those Divine things wherewith she is allyed which at last ought to crown the pains and labours of her banishment now she hath given her Desires to draw her to those goods she was without to set her at liberty and to raise her up to heaven which is the place of her nativity and the source of her felicities We must indeed believe that the principal objects which ought to move this fair Passion in us are not to be found on earth nor amongst vile transitory things our Soul being immortal needs not corruptible things And if there are things which conduce to her perfection they must be more noble and more excellent then she she must seek them from above In a word God alone should enflame her Desires since he alone can fill that infinite depth and immense vastness of hers Neither did this wise Philosopher who fancied she had wings think they were for any other use but to carry her towards that primary and soveraign Idea of Good When he perceived her to descend and run after corruptible things he then believed she had lost them that she rather got a fall then made a flight that she was then in the body not onely as in a Prison but as in a Tomb For being sensible of no natural motion therein nor seeing no agitation of that Divine fire wherewith they say she is clothed he had reason to believe that she ceased to live or that she transmigrated into the nature of those Bruits which onely look on the earth and which according to his opinion are rather shadows then that they have true beings It is true that the Senses which are under her conduct oblige her to seek what is fit for her that she must provide for the necessities of the body which serves her in her functions But Reason hath reduced her cares to such narrow bounds and Nature hath render'd necessary things so common that there is scarce a way left to wish them at least if we must employ thereabouts a part of our Desires it ought to be the weakest and the least It were indeed to offend the dignity of the Soul and the excellency of those Goods whereto she ought to aspire to destine so many noble desires which she can form to such vile and useless things it were even in stead of enriching her to render her necessitous since it is certain that Desire is the measure of Poverty and that as many things as the Soul desires so many things doth she stand in need of So that in seeking more goods for the body then are needful she renders it so much the more necessitous and oppresseth it with the poverty she hath caused Lastly the Desires being as the pawns and earnests which the Soul gives of her subjection to those things she seeks if they are conformable to Nature and her dignity this subjection is honest and lawful they are her first steps towards vertue and felicity But if she engageth her self to subjects unworthy of her she submits her self to her enemies and opens a door to all vices mischances which may befal her We ought to engage our selves no further in these Considerations which belong to Moral Philosophy we will therefore pursue our Designe and present you with the Characters of this Passion It is a bold undertaking to designe the picture of Desire It is so subtil and so changeable a Passion that it is almost impossible to finde colours wherewith to represent it It is a Proteus which assumes as many figures as there are imaginary goods It incessantly flies like the winde it everywhere mixeth it self like the air And Picture cannot have a greater trouble to form bodies for these things then the Minde to designe the Characters of this Passion It is true there are Desires which may easily be exprest that without difficulty we may describe Ambition Avarice and Luxury that Hunger and other Appetites of Sense may easily be exprest But to touch these differences is not to form a general Idea of Desire as we have obliged our selves to do To follow then the Order we have proposed we must take off this Passion from all particular objects and consider onely the effects which are common to all kindes We will then begin by its Moral actions Although Desires as children of Love make the same advance and growth with Love it self and that at their birth they are but small sparks which by little and little inrease and afterwards become great flames yet it often happens that they break out all at once and that at first they have the same force and vehemency which time useth to give them you would think them those artificial fires which kindle in an instant and whose flame no sooner appears but it devours all the matter which serves for its food which carries with it all that stops it and overcomes all that opposeth its course For at the same time that they take in the Minde they occupie all its thoughts they take away its reason and hurry it towards the desired good thorow all obstacles and hinderances that oppose it At that time she slights all counsels and all danger Prohibition kindles her lusts difficulty provokes them Neither doth she believe that her Desires can be noble unless they are extreme nor generous unless they be rash In pursuit of these dangerous Maximes you need not wonder that he who is moved with this Passion becomes insolent and importunate he speaks but of what he wishes he incessantly demands it neither doth a refusal give him the check and when his mouth is stopt his eyes still sollicite for it and beg more eagerly then his words did before You may observe a certain impatient ardor and I know not what urging avidity which seems to pursue the desired good And when it is presented to them you would say they throw themselves on it that they ravish it and devour it even with their looks But if in this encounter his eyes are clear sighted his judgement is blinded he neither considers his own nor other mens condition In his pursuits there always is either an insolent liberty or an infamous submission and all the excuse he hath for his impudence or baseness is that he believes he deserves what he desires and that absolutely he must have it To obtain it what cares and what pains he takes He goes he comes he seeks he adviseth with one he asks help of another he threatens he begs in fine he is never at rest suffers no body to be so for even when he is alone he turns over in his mind all those powers which may serve or travers him He hath no thoughts wherein some of his friends or of his enemies are not interessed and whoever could see the designes he meditates in his heart would say that it was there where all the storms were formed which were to trouble all the world But indeed all these
that the Appetite in darting it self so goes beyond its natural bounds and that as animate bodies it goes from one to another to advance towards the absent good all this agitation is made in it self as we said in the discourse of Love and although it seems as if it would cast it self out it onely beats against its bounds and drives those parts as waves which beat on the shore without being able to go farther But since in effect the Soul goes not out of it self and that consequently it approacheth not the destined good we may enquire to what purpose the motion serves which it makes in this encounter we must doubtless confess that it is often useless to it if it penetrates not into the Faculties which may move the creature towards the good and give it the possession thereof For Nature hath given the Appetite the power to move it self thus onely to inspire the same Motion into those Faculties which are under its direction The agitation it gives it self is the Idea of that which the moving qualities ought to have outwardly it is like the chalk and the designe of a work which is to be finished in the Organs but if it rest there they prove vain and useless throws and sallies they are imperfect Motions and unformed desires which in some manner offend Nature for that she having destined them for action they destroy the order and commerce which she hath established amongst the Faculties of the Soul when they drive them not to the end she proposeth In effect there is so great a relation and so essential an order between the Desire and the enjoyment that we never form desires for those things which we beleeve impossible because the Soul at that time hath no end nor aim to work and can produce no action unless it have a motive to excite it and which staggers it since that the end is the first of all causes and that which gives them efficacy and Motion I know that there are several things we unprofitably seek which can never be acquired what care or pains soever we take but for that we do not consider the impediments and obstacles which we ought therein to encounter And if reason sometimes proposeth them and that contrary to its advice we continue to wish for them this disorder comes from the imagination which most commonly fancies things feasible which easily perswade the Appetite thereunto which afterwards causeth those vain and chimerical desires of which we have now spoken It is far a greater difficulty to know how this darting forth may be effected when Desire mixeth it self with Fear Grief and other Passions where the Soul inwardly retires it self and venters it self sooner then it seems to have gone out We may well beleeve that these Motions follow one another as we said it happens in Love that after the presence of ill hath made the Appetite retreat Desire sends it forth again to seek the good which is to accrew unto it by the absence of the ill and that there is thus every moment a continual ebbing and flowing of all these Passions but I beleeve this happens not always so and that even in flying the Soul may make the Motion which the Desire asketh without being obliged to return the same way As he who flees his enemy at the same time gets farther from him and neerer the place of his security so it is likely the Appetite retiring it self may at once shun evil and pursue good and that the same endeavours and the same strivings it makes to hasten its flight may also serve to form those desires which it hath to possess the good it fancies and that it seeks to go out of it self in the same manner as when there is nothing but what is purely good which attracts it for the Soul is so much disturbed at the presence of ill that it seems as if it were not enough to flee and estrange herself from it but that she must even hide and steal her self away from her self that she may by precipitating her flight go beyond her bounds and go out of herself as she doth in the pursuit of good But it is an errour which the Passions easily inspire in a blind power which is not guided by Reason whatsoever endeavour she makes she remaines still within her own limits and leaves not those places which she beleeves she hath abandoned it is true that the Spirits which follow the Motions in effect retire to the Centre of the Body and that the Organs cause a real flight in the creature which is surprised with this Passion but all this is without the Soul and we are to speak onely of what is within For the full clearing of this definition we have given there remains onely to be examined whether the Absent Good is the true Object of Desire for we proposed at the beginning of this discourse two very considerable Objections which seem to prove the contrary since it is evident we often desire the things we enjoy and that Absence being an evil is rather capable to take off the Appetite then to provoke it thereunto so that in this case the Object of Desire cannot be different from that of Love and so both must be but one Passion For the first we have already shewed in the former Discourses that when we desire the good we possess we alwayes fancy somewhat which we doe not yet enjoy whether it be that the most part of goods not presenting themselves to it in the whole there must still be a part wanting or whether this possession being to be but of a short continuance we desire its continuation as a good which is still to come To the second we must say although it be true that absence draws not the Appetite and that it is goodness onely it doth not therefore follow that Love and Desire have the same Motives nor that both make but one Passion for besides that it seems that Motion draws not always its species from the end it tends unto but ever from the middle through which it passeth to reach thither as we may judge by the circular Motion which is onely different from the direct but for that it makes a bent line and for that cause should these Passions have but one Object yet they must be of different species by reason of the different way they take to attain it it is true that in moral things the conditions and circumstances which have no relation with the Object diversifie the Motives of Actions and that the absence of Good gives another Motion to the Soul then goodness of it self alone gives for although it always seeks to unite it self to the good it knows if it be not present it must add another design to this first inclination and take care to draw near what is far from it before it can unite it self and gain a perfect enjoyment so that the true Motion of Desire is the Souls drawing neer and not the
union nor enjoyment that being the Motive of Love and this of Pleasure as we have it elsewhere Wherefore the Appetite is agitated by several Motions in all these Passions for in this it Parts it self and gets out of itself in Love it binds it self to the Idea of Good and in pleasure pours it self on it PART 3. What the Motion of the Humours and of the Spirits is in Desire SInce the Motion of the Spirits is conformable to that of the Appetite we may without much difficulty say how they are agitated in this Passion after we have showed how the Appetite in some sort diverts it self from the Idea of good to move towards the absent Object For Love which always precedes Desire having drawn them from the heart and carried them to the imagination to unite them to the image of the good it fancied Desire follows which retires them and casts them forth to come neerer the good it thinks far of And thence it happens that the face swels and grows red that the eyes advance themselves and seem as if they would go out of their place the spirits which escape drawing with them the most noble parts and driving those which oppose their issue But it may be demanded if the Appetite effectually goes not out of it self is it therefore so with the Spirits is it sufficient they beat against their bounds and stop after that vain endeavour certainly the greatest part pass no farther as they are the first Organs of the Soul without which she can effect no perfect action she with-holds them to her power neither do they separate themselves from her but with great violence for if as it is likely they are animated or if they are of those instruments which will alwayes be united to their principle they cannot go far from the Soul without losing themselves and when that happens it must be against their intention since every thing endeavours its own preservation when therefore Desire drives them to the surface of the Body the Soul which is constrained to keep within its bounds keeps in also the Spirits but this hinders not a part of them from escaping and the impetuosity of their Motion from casting them beyond their prescribed limits They are fluid bodies they disperse and steal away with the least agitation they penetrate everywhere and no resistance can stop them and although as they are Organs of the Soul they love to be always with her yet as they are subtil and loose bodyes which have a great affinity with the air their first inclination is to deliver themselves from the prison wherein they are and to leave the mixture of those gross and impure things to unite themselves to their like But it is also true that they often issue by the Souls command which because it cannot leave the body it animates it sends them to execute its designes and causeth that transport and that influence of Spirits of which we have spoken in our Discourse of Love out of Inclination Yet we must observe that all desires drive not the Spirits into the outward parts there are those which move them not as those which are formed in the supream part of the Soul whose actions need no Organs It is true those desires cannot long stay without the Motion of the Spirits for the Imagination is so neer the Understanding that at last it always discovers a part of what it doth chuse and then working on the Idea's it hath received the Spirits run to its service and agitate the body in the most secret actions of the will so that in the most Spiritual Passions which should be hid from inferior powers we see they bear a part and sensibly alter the Body There are even of these desires which are formed in the sensitive Appetite some which crave no assistance from the outward Senses For when we desire a good which is no more or is far distant from us we know that neither the ears nor the eyes are employed in the inquiry of it The Soul alone operates and even then the Spirits it moves arrive not at these Organs They cast themselves onely on the substance of the brain and disperse themselves on this and on that side without causing a change in the outward parts In fine it is an undoubted thing that the Desire which accompanies Fear Aversness and the other Passions which flee what is harmful carries not the Spirits outwardly as those which purely seek the good or resist the ill On the contrary it retires them inwardly at least if it cause not this Motion it resists it not but follows the impetuosity wherewith the Spirits are carried away But it is also certain that when these cowardly Passions have brought them back again to the heart Desire again darts them further out as if they were to pass beyond it and that presently after these former recal them making thus a long combat of contrary Motions which cause this great trouble and violent agitation which is at that time felt in the entrails Now we should examine whether Desire dilate the Spirits whether it drives them with equality lastly whether it stirs onely the purest blood and the sweetest humours which are in the veins as we have discovered was done in Love But since we have observed that Desire mixeth it self with all the Passions that it is often with Grief and with Fear which contract the Spirits and often with Love and Joy which extend them that it always accompanies Anger how turbulent or impetuous soever it be and in which the most Malignant humours are agitated we must acknowledge that all these kinds of Motions are indifferent to it that it fits it self to them all That sometimes it dilates the Spirits sometimes it contracts them and at other times it drives them with confusion and vehemency otherwhiles with order and moderation according to the Nature of those Passions with which it allyes it self Yet this takes not of the difficulty for since Desire presupposeth Love it seems as if all the Motions which accompany this Passion are to be found in Desire and that consequently the Spirits are therein agitated in the same beforesaid manner But besides that we have not spoken in those places of Love in general but only of that which Beauty inspires it is evident that the greatest part of the Passions are formed and that after Love hath dilated the Spirits others may be raised which may contract them to which Desire may ally it self Otherwise as the emotion of the Soul precedes that of the Spirits it is often formed of those Passions in which the Spirits are not moved because the Appetite agitates with so much swiftness and so nimbly passeth from one Passion to another that they have not time to follow its Motions and so obey onely the last and most vehement Thus Love may mixe it self with Desire without giving to the Spirits the Motion it would have were it alone or that it longer or more forcibly
his liberty and his own proper excellency for being a creature naturally free and glorious he beleeves that difficulties reproach him his weakness and that prohibition wounds his liberty wherefore when either presents it self he raiseth himself against it and thinks that bearing himself towards the good against which they contest with him he presents those advantages which he received from Nature Thus far in relation to Moral actions let us now examine the Corporal Characters These are of two kindes as is beforesaid some by the command of the minde others purely natural and happen by necessity The first are swelling eyes and urgent looks the trembling of the tongue watry mouth several inflections of the voice talk and silence the agitation and motion of the Body The Eyes and Looks which are proper to desires are not onely fixed and setled on their objects for meditation and attention of the minde may procure that but there is also a certain ardor and vivacity which makes them come outwards and seems to throw them on the thing desired which happens not to those who meditate whose eyes sink and grow dim as Aristotle teacheth and as we shall say in its due place These Looks then which the Latins so happily call Instantes Procaces Devorantes that is to say Pressing Greedy and Devouring whence even that vulgar manner of speaking comes he feeds on him with his eyes that is to say he looks on him with ardor Those looks are the true images of Desire which being onely a transport and a sally which the Soul makes towards Good imprint the same darting in the eyes which are the most mobile and the most obedient parts of the body casting them out as much as she can and as much as they can suffer it Besides that the spirits which abundantly run thither and would go out drive them forward to make themselves way and fill them with the lustre and vivacity which we perceive in them The trembling of the tongue and a watry mouth are effects which serve for the appetite of Aliments for the Soul which hath a secret knowledge of what is useful for its designes knowing that tasting cannot be without humidity and that the motion of the tongue is necessary to send aliments down into the stomack brings this water into the mouth and stirs the tongue when we see the things we desire or hear them spoken of the Fancie in some manner rendring them present and causing the organs to do the same thing they would do if they were really on the tongue But whence comes this clear und subtil water Doth it not descend from those kirnels which are in the bottom of the mouth whose chief use is to receive the superfluous humours of the brain and to disperse them on the tongue to moisten it It is evident it commonly proves so and that the motion of the spirits which the Desire brings into those parts opens the passages and makes these waters run the more But it often also happens that they come from the stomack either by the means of those wandring spirits which run thither to cause digestion or by the contraction of its fibers which squeeze the humour wherewith they are watered and raise it up on high for in Desires they sometimes contract themselves so much that they even overthrow the stomack and principally in fish who naturally are all gluttonous and who pursuing their prey too ardently cause it to run out of its place and cast it sometimes even into their mouthes However it be we must believe that these two effects belong to the desire of Aliments and that the Soul hath some reason to employ them to that use But when she makes them serve other desires as it often happens it is an errour which comes from its blindness and precipitation and which perswades that that which is necessary for one designe may also be so for another although indeed it be quite useless The several inflexions of the voice which are observed in Desire do not all proceed from it As it mixeth it self with other Passions it borrows from them the sounds and the accents which are familiar to them Sometimes it lifts it up with Boldness and Anger sometimes it lets it fall with Fear and Languor sometimes it cuts it with grief and astonishment other times it draws it out with admiration and joy But the change which this alone seems to give is the precipitation of words and the long exclamations which commence its discourses For the force which follows this Passion causeth the words to go out in a croud and the darting forth of the Soul causeth a transport of the voice which is always made by the strongest vowels which most of all open the mouth as if she would make a freer passage that she might issue out the more readily In effect we never finde the I nor the U in the ordinary exclamations of Desire but onely A O and E which she also chargeth with vehement aspirations which shew the force she useth in issuing forth Silence and confusion of discourse are the effects of a great distraction of the Minde which is common to those who ardently desire a thing when we speak not to them of their Passion or when they are with persons which cannot serve them therein For the Soul quitting with regret the thought of the Good she wants and incessantly seeking the means to possess it flees the conversation which might trouble her pleasure and her designe and re-entring in her self or rather wandring in the pursuit she makes she hears not what others say she silenceth her self or makes disorderly answers And her transport riseth often to that excess that it takes away the use of the Senses and even ravisheth her into an extasie as we shewed in our Discourse of Love For what concerns the agitation of the body it follows the disquiet or the motion which the soul makes towards Good for when he who is troubled with this Passion changeth every moment his posture and his place casts about his eyes here and there turns now on one side now on the other now riseth now sits goes and stops ever and anon they are the effects of his irresolutions and the divers designes which his disquiet proposeth But if he reacheth out his head if he stretch out his arms towards the desired object if he goes and walks with large paces and runs towards it they are endeavours which the Soul causeth the parts to make to draw neer the good which is distant from it For although they are often useless in the errour she is she still believes she goes forward and that casting the eyes the head and hands towards what she desires it is as much ground gotten and that at last she shall arrive at the end she tends to We have nothing more here to examine but the necessary effects of Desire But as the most part of them are to be found in those Passions of which we
did we believe that nothing could hinder us from the possession of them they could never beget Hope in us and the Soul would be content to adde to the Desire which she would then form faith and assurance that it would happen which is an effect of the Judgement and not of the Appetite The difficulty then in Hope comes always from a third which is as the medium betwixt him who hopes and the thing hoped for in whose liberty we suppose it is to do or not to do what we hope For although we should often hope good from those things which do not freely operate even from those things which are inanimate as when we hope that Lands will be fertile and that Seasons will be pleasant that a beast will delight us or be serviceable to us we fancie them to our selves as if they had that liberty whether it be that there is in beasts an image of true liberty or for that we have a natural instinct which secretly instructs us that there is a Superiour power in the world which disposeth thereof at will and according as it thinks fit So that what we hope depending from the will of others whose masters we cannot absolutely be it is impossible but we must esteem it difficult and but that the success must seem doubtful It is not but that sometimes the difficulty may be in the thing it self we desire and the means we use to obtain it but it is not considerable in this Passion being not essential to it However from what part soever it comes we must take it for granted that it is necessary to form Hope Let us now see what its designe is and what the motion is which it causeth in the Appetite All the difficulties presented to the Soul either in the search of Good or assault and flight of Ill appear greater or less then its forces that is to say she believes she can overcome them or that she cannot resist them If they are the weaker they beget Hope Boldness and Anger if they are the greater they cause Despair and Fear Now it is likely that in difficulties the Soul doth in it self what we outwardly do when they present themselves to us For as we bend our selves against them if we suppose we can overcome them and as we lose strength and courage if they appear invincible it must needs be since the motions of the body follow those of the soul and that there is some relation and resemblance between them that the soul bends or slackens her self as the body doth in the encounter of the difficulties she fancies And indeed it is the onely difference which can distinguish the motions of the Irascible appetite from those of the Concupiscible For in these the Soul hath no occasion to employ her force or courage seeing no enemy she ought to assault or against whom she is obliged to defend her self Or if she pursue Good or flee from Ill it is without bending or slackning her self Since it is then a thing common to Hope Boldness and Anger to bend the Soul against difficulties let us see wherein they are different and chiefly what Hope hath particularly therein it being the subject of this Discourse We must then suppose that in Hope the Soul distinctly observes the Good but confusedly sees the difficulties on the contrary in Boldness and Anger it considers the difficulties more then the good For although in these the soul assaults ill to enjoy the good she expects by victory she chiefly sixeth her thoughts on the enemy she fights against and thinks onely on the good which shall thereby accrue but as a thing at a distance which provokes not as the presence of ill doth But in Hope she neerly faceth the good which presents it self she attentively considers it and sees but by the way the difficulties which besiege her so that they do not appear so great and consequently do not oblige her to use such endeavours to resist them as in other Passions Indeed in Boldness and Anger she riseth up and assaults the ill because she thinks it so powerful that she believe she cannot overcome it without assault or combat But in Hope it appears not so strong as that it ought to be assaulted nor so weak as to be slighted She keeps her self in a certain mean betwixt heat and neglect and without animating her self gainst it she puts herself in safety stands upon her guard which she doth in stiffening and fortifying her self in her self as it happens to the body which its parts being all equally stretched without changing place and almost without moving makes a vigorous motion which keeps it firm and extended which for that cause is called in the Schools The Tonick motion The Soul then doth the same in this Passion without assaulting or fleeing the ill which might traverse it she fortifies her self stands on her guard and with assurance expects the good she seeks So that we may define it to be A motion of the Appetite in which the Soul in expectation of the good it desires strengthens and stiffens her self in her self to resist the difficulties she may encounter therein Indeed the whole nature the properties and conditions required in Hope are contained in this definition Desire and Expectation which consist in the opinion that the good will come are marked as the necessary conditions which always precede it the desired good as the object which moves it the appetite as the subject where it is received and that firm assurance as the difference of the emotion which is proper to it and which distinguisheth it from all other Passions For although Boldness and Anger stiffen the soul also as we have said yet are they not content to keep it fixed in it self they make it rise up and drive it against the ill and force it to fight with it But this breeds a very reasonable doubt for did the soul keep it self stiff steady in Boldness Anger as she doth in Hope it would follow that Hope must always accompany them And yet it is true a man may cast himself into danger without hope of ever getting out and that sometimes we desire to be revenged of an injury whereof we know we shall never have satisfaction yet it hinders not but that this proposition is most certain and but that it is true that Boldness and Anger are ever accompanied with Hope For it is not always the onely good which Boldness proposeth to get out of the danger which it casts it self into honour and glory which spring from generous actions are often the Goods it aspires to and the enjoyment of which it always hopes what mischance soever happens to it although it fall under the difficulties it assaults it still thinks 't will be to overcome them if they do but serve to obtain what it pretends to as in the Discourse of Boldness we shall more fully shew For Anger we will in its place make it appear that
the satisfaction it expects in Revenge and the principal end Nature hath assigned it is to hinder the thing which injures us from continuing to do so so that what can stop the course and continuance of the III appeaseth Anger and we are satisfied when he who hath offended us repents himself of it when he acknowledgeth that it was not his designe when he flees or when he hath been hurt for that then it appears that he wants either power or will to mischief us or else we suppose we have taken them from him This then is the satisfaction which Anger always promiseth it self and if it happen that we despair of obtaining it as when the things which offend us appear so powerful to us that they seem beyond our strength and endeavours and that we have no hope to be able to stop the malice they have to injure us we are then no longer capable of Anger having lost our hope to be avenged that is to say to beat back the ill on him who caused it that he may cease to do us more If there be then a satisfaction which Revenge is out of hope to obtain it is not natural to the Passion it must be a stranger as what comes from the custom of the Country from the humour of the person from the weakness of judgement and the like But this shall be in its place more carefully examined Let us betake our selves to our former Discourse The Soul then stiffens it self in Hope and in some sort suffers that Tonick motion which as we have shewn happens to the body But we may say that what image soever this example may give of the manner wherewith the appetite is moved it doth not fully satisfie the Mind and leaves always in it a difficulty to conceive how the Soul can move so For it is not as of Bodies which have nerves and muscles which stretch the parts and keep them extended drawing them equally on every side We can imagine nothing like it in the Soul which is wholly simple and which would rather suffer to be compared to subtil and fluid bodies which this effect cannot reach then to those who are massive and heavie where it is commonly performed Now although this be true yet it destroys not our proposition for it 's certain the Soul stiffens it self aswel as the Body but that the manner is quite different It is not always necessary that the same motions should be made in the same manner and we see that creatures bend and stretch out their bodies although by different means Amongst those which are perfect the muscles perform this effect by contracting and loosing themselves But there are divers in whom these parts are wanting as in those which are so little that we can scarce discern them and in which most likely it is the spirits and the nerves alone perform these actions without the use of other organs There are a thousand other examples in Nature which clearly manifest this truth but were there none the Schools teach us that spiritual substances carry themselves from one place to another that they may occupie more or less room that they drive and draw bodies that in sine they perform almost all the motions which we observe in animate bodies although the manner and the means be quite contrary Which being granted we ought not to doubt but that the Appetite can stiffen it self as well as living parts it being needless it should do it in the same manner or by the same means as they are usually accustomed to do But if it were enquired what this manner is and what particular means the Appetite useth in this motion we must confess it to be a bold enquiry to which it seems the minde of man is not able to give satisfaction For since its knowsedge how high soever it be draws its origine from that of the Senses how can it have any in those things when the Senses forsake it How can it discern the ways Nature takes in the motions of the Soul which are not sensible when it is ignorant of those it keeps in them of the body which touch the Senses and are visible to our eyes Indeed all our Philosophy must confess that it toucheth but the extremities of motions and that it almost never speaks of what passeth between both And we may say that Nature which so freely gives all things seems to be jealous of the art wherewith she doth them and is unwilling we should see the springs of her works However it be I believe more cannot be assured in this matter then that the soul stiffens it self in exciting and quickning its vigour and putting it as the School says out of the power into act And truely since Angelick natures can move and even transport bodies from one place to another it must be granted that they give to themselves to them also a certain impetuosity which changeth the situation and consistence they had some particular vertue must disperse it self wheresoever they extend which renders them stronger more agile and this vertue according to my opinion is nothing but their Will which moves it self or else their very motion for things get a force in motion which they have not in rest The same thing may proportionably be said of the Appetite which is the first moving power in creatures For by exciting it self it agitates corroborates it self and being agitated with an equal and uniform motion which holds it so suspended without advance or recess it remains stiff stedfast to oppose the difficulties which may present themselvs But without engaging our selves further in this enquiry which exceeds the limits of our designe it will be sufficient to take away a difficulty which springs from what we have already said For if this motion of the Appetite be onely an equal and uniform agitation whereby the soul remains fixt in it self without advancing or receding it must follow that Desire can never be with Hope since it darts out the soul and drives it out of it self and that this restrains it We must then say that it is true Desire is not always with Hope although it always precedes it And indeed when we desire any thing ardently we perceive that Hope slackens it self as Desire also diminisheth when Hope increaseth Certainly they destroy one the other when they meet Forasmuch as the Soul in Desire considers the Good but as absent and takes no other care but to draw neer unto it but in Hope she fancies it so neer not seeing any difficulties which it cannot overcome that she almost thinks it as if it were present whence it happens that Joy is greater in it then in Desire So that she makes not therein those sallies and dartings she doth in this unless she be by some other things forced to it On the contrary she stops to receive the Good which seems to be produced and advanced towards her This truth discovers it ' self in these ordinary
Neither must you believe they congeal here as they say it happens in some diseases or that they fix as those Metalick spirits do whereof Chymistry relates such miracles for besides that those we speak of are much finer and perhaps of another kinde then those are they must at that time become immoveable and consequently all the parts whereto they are to run must remain without action since they can work onely by their motion Which yet cannot be true Experience and Reason shew us that the organs move freely in this Passion and that Desire which often mixeth with it as we have shewn causeth the spirits to move without ruining the setledness and consistence which Hope gives them We might perhaps imagine that they contract and gather themselves together that by uniting and crowding their parts together they become stiffer and stronger and so put themselves in posture the better to resist the assaults might be made against them And certainly there is a great likelihood that some such thing is done in this encounter For the Soul which knows that what is united is stronger then what is divided never fails so to fortifie it self when ill appears Now the difficulties which are always found in Hope are taken for evils because they oppose themselves to the possession of good And it is therefore likely that the Soul contracts the Spirits the better to defend her self from that enemy which crosseth her designe Yet as in this Passion she is wont but by the way to consider of those difficulties which consequently seem not so great nor so uneasie to be overcome we must not doubt but that if she contract the spirits it is so little that it is neither considerable or powerful to confirm them in the manner they ought to be And indeed the Spirits cannot much contract themselves without retiring inwardly and consequently making the face look pale forasmuch as they draw the blood along with them and rob the complexion of the colour it had before So that Hope having the property to maintain the countenance equal and not to change its colour if it renders them so firm as we have said it must be by some other means then by contracting or reuniting them together To conceive then how this is done we must observe that the Soul can hope for nothing but what she first loved and desired it is necessary that the Spirits should move conformably to these two Passions before Hope can agitate them Now they dilate and open themselves in Love to embrace the good and in Desire they commonly recoil a little that they may the more easily dart themselves towards it Being in this state then if Hope intervene it changeth nothing in the situation of their parts it retains them onely in the proportion they had together and from free and wandering as they were they subject themselves to a certain order which they keep amongst themselves as long as Hope lasts which is made by the souls intermission which hath an absolute command over them placing them as she will stopping them as she pleaseth and holding them as it were by the hand in the rank she had placed them And for that time they remain firm and stable without confounding themselves with others or inwardly retreating or advancing outwardly which is the particular motion of the spirits in this Passion Some perhaps will say that if these parts remain firm and stable they will not move and consequently that the Spirits would have no motion in Hope But there are things which although they do not change place forbear not to move Thus Elementary bodies which are not in their centre although they are retained and seem immoveable yet they make a kinde of an endeavour to return to their natural place which makes them seem either light or heavie We may say the same of the Spirits which being retained by a strange violence are not truely at rest but suffer a secret agitation which holds them in continual suspence Now although the Spirits remain thus firm and stable in Hope it hinders not but that at the same time they may be agitated by other Passions which mix themselves with it So Desire and Boldness may cast them forth without mixing their stedfastness because it consists but in the order of their parts which this darting forth destroys not as we have said seeing we may move a thing from one place to another without disturbing the order and motion which those parts may have amongst themselves It is also true that as Desire grows weak when Hope is strong if the Spirits are very stable their darting forth cannot be so great because they are not so free nor so easie to move as they would be were they not restrained That if Passions rise whose motion quite destroys that of Hope as Joy and Despair then we may be sure that Hope ceaseth for a time to give place to those others and that the Spirits lose their firmness to disperse or slacken themselves afterwards resuming their first consistence if the Soul sees new subjects of Hope which sometimes happens so readiry that it seems as if it were done in an instant and that these motions confound themselves the one with the other I see nothing more here to stop us but that some may chance to imagine that if it were true that in Hope the soul and the spirits did bend themselves to resist difficulties somewhat must appear on the outward parts and they also must bend themselves for the same purpose since that in Laughter we see the muscles retire as the soul doth that in Desire and in Anger they cast themselves out as she doth that they slacken in Joy and that all other Passions make the same impression on the Body as the Objects do in the Appetite But we must consider that the organs of a voluntary motion move not in the Passions but through the strength and efficacie of the object which urgeth the soul and obligeth it to employ all the means she hath to attain the end she proposed her self as we see it happens in all violent Passions or else out of a particular designe she hath to shew outwardly what she inwardly resents as she doth in Laughter and in Caresses So that there being none of those motives in Hope she needs move none of those outward parts and contents her self with the agitation she gives the spirits not considering the ill but by the by she esteems it not so great as to employ all her endeavours against it so that she commonly agitates but the most mobile parts as are the spirits the eyes the brows and some other parts as it happens in all other Passions which are weak or moderate PART 4. The causes of the Characters of Hope BUt since we have spoken sufficiently of the secret tempests let us now see whence those come which appear outwardly and examine why Hope renders men bold presumptuous temerous insolent credulous negligent in their affairs and
impatient in their actions although it be the most moderate and the calmest of all the Passions of the Minde It is easie to discover the cause of its moderation after having shewed how it moves the Soul and the Spirits for it is impossible it should keep them stiff and stable as it doth and that it should be subject to those agitations which are abservable in other Passions On the contrary those languishing and impetuous ones which mix with it assume a conformable mediocrity to that kinde of motion which suspends the soul between ardor and neglect as we have already said wherefore it enfeebles the Desire when it is too ardent and stirs it up when it is remiss it is a spur to Laziness and a bridle to Violence it hinders Boldness from being rash and takes off the transports of Joy and if it chance to be with Fear and with Grief it so moderates them that they fail not of their courage and refuse not to admit of the sweetest Passions But whence comes it then that it renders men rash vain and impatient How can Anger and Fury be compatible with it And if it excite and animate the Courage and the Desires how doth it beget Negligence and Idleness And yet we cannot doubt but that in some sort it is the cause of all these effects But they also who will consider the manner of their production will confess that it is neither the nearest nor even the true cause For Hope indeed begets Boldness but afterwards Boldness runs to Temerity it excites and awakens the Desires but these bring Disquiet and Impatience with them it brings Joy with it but aftewards Joy flees into raptures and extasies it inspires the Appetite with Revenge which is afterwards converted into Fury Finally it gives Confidence and that begets Presumption vanity and the scorn of all things which may traverse our designes whence after Negligence and Laziness are bred So that all these defects come not immediately from Hope but from the other Passions which accompany it And it is clear that when these are raised to this excess it quite vanisheth or becomes extremely weak For when we are sensible of a great Joy at that very moment we have no sense of Hope it scarce appears in violent Desires nor in the transports of Anger the soul suffering her self to be born away by the particular motions of those Passions And Presumption it self which seems nothing but an excess of Hope wholly ruines it imagining that there are no difficulties which can oppose its designes for where there is no more a difficulty there remains no Hope However it be Boldness is easily joyned with Hope because the Soul having confirmed her self by this to the resistance of difficulties is already in state to assault them if they appear very strong and if she betake her self to consider the danger wherein they may cast her for want of fighting and overcoming them Besides that the good opinion she hath of her strength heightens her Courage and perswades her that it is not enough to maintain the defensive part but we must pursue and assault our enemy If her forces are not proportionable to this good opinion and that she believes them greater then in effect they are thence ariseth Presumption which joyned with Boldness reacheth to Temerity and thence grows Insolence in the same manner as with Joy she begets Vanity Prattle and Importunity as in its place we shall further shew Impatience raigns powerfully in this Passion Forasmuch as it commonly accompanies Joy Desire and Fear there is always somewhat of these three mixt with Hope and even they are often found all together So that we must not wonder if we are unquiet when we hope whether it be from the apprehension we have that we shall not soon enough possess the good we expect or from the urgency of pressing desires or from the sparkling which accompanies pleasure There is no Passion so credulous as Hope for others give credence onely to the Good or Ill proposed but this equally gives in Both. Indeed pleasing things onely perswade Joy Love and Desire those which are troublesome make no impression on them without destroying them On the contrary Ill onely is resented by Grief Fear and Despair Good hath neither audience nor admittance among them But Hope hearkens to both of them forasmuch as being in the midst between both it easily inclines towards those extremities and she no sooner believes what favours her designes but she hearkens to what renders them impossible The Corporal characters which are found in this Passion are of two kindes as in all the rest The one by the command of the Soul the others by Necessity The motions of the head brows eyes and voice and of all the body are of the first rank The rest are in the form of ordinary effects The body sets it self upright the head is lifted up the brows are raised for the same intention For the Soul which would obtain the good and resist the difficulties which oppose it puts it self in posture to do both Now besides that this posture is advantagious for to see afar off what may happen it is so also in pursuance of Good or in defence of Ill if one be assaulted by it it is the most natural situation which bodies require for action it is the motion which begins all other actions of creatures whether to pursue pleasing things or to flee or assault ill ones the first thing they do is to lift up the head and the body The Soul now putting her self in posture of defence disposeth thus of those organs that she may not be surprised and raiseth them to make them the firmer as in Despair and in Fear where she slackens her self she bows the body hangs the head and casts down the eyes and brows An assured countenance is made by a wide opening of the eye-lids with vivacity A fixt and stedfast look it is common to Anger Impudence Boldness and Hope yet with this difference that in Anger the eyes are too ardent too open in Impudence and too rude in Boldness But in Hope they have none of these defaults all is therein moderate and it seems as if sweetness and severity were confounded together in all its motions The eyes then are more open then ordinary the better to see the good and the difficulties which present themselves The stedfastness of the looks is a signe that impediments astonish not the Minde and that it believes it shall overcome them The vivacity of the eyes comes from the Spirits which Desire hath driven to these parts or which Joy hath there dispersed In fine sweetness and severity are therein mixt together because that at the same time the soul sees the Good and the Ill and is touched both with the one and the other and is not so sure to obtain what she pretends to but that she still hath cause to doubt of it This Passion often also makes a man turn up
his eyes for that having need of the help of others to acquire what he seeks it casts his eyes towards heaven as to the fountain of all good things and the common helper of all Nature and hath recourse to superiour causes being not always assured of the assistance it promised it self from others But when the looks are urgent and unquiet they are effects of Desire and Fear which mix with it in the same manner as Joy often causeth its transports sparklings and agitations To conclude the voice and the speech are firm that is to say strong without vehemency or inequality neither heightning nor talling neither trembling nor precipitated For the Soul which bends it self to resist difficulties is in no condition to fear but because also she will not assault them she makes no great endeavour Wherefore the voice falls not because there is no weakness in the Minde it riseth not also there being no violence therein neither is it trembling being without fear nor precipitate being without impetuosity but strong and equal the air being beaten strongly and equally by the Soul which hath assured and confirmed her self against difficulties There remains now onely the Necessary Characters which follow the agitation of the Humours and of the Spirits The first and that which seems the most proper for Hope is that the colour of the face changeth not the reason whereof we touched at the beginning of this Discourse For the Spirits which become stable stop also the blood and hinder it from retiring inwardly or dispersing it self outwardly So that if sometimes we grow pale it is an effect of Fear as blushing is of Love Desire Joy and the rest of the Passions which drive the blood into the outward parts Sighs follow Love and Desire also It is Fear that cools and makes us lose Courage it is Boldness heats and re-animates it Finally Disquiet chiefly comes from Desire and from Fear which are augmented by tediousness and delays which retard the possession of the desired Good But these Characters are strangers to Hope whose examen is not here to be made Let us onely consider those which seem fit and natural to it It renders the Pulse stedfast without being vehement for the heart and the arteries which confirm themselves as well as the spirits make the Pulse appear somewhat harder then it was and by the touch you may perceive a steadiness which it had not before But this is without vehemency forasmuch as the soul makes no great endeavour to assault as we said and the heat is temperate which require a moderate and equal motion It is true if Hope fall into some cold and weak nature it causeth a higher and greater Pulse then it had usually forasmuch as the Soul which knows her weakness and whose designe is to fortifie her self somewhat augments the heat which hath afterwards need of the greater refreshment But at that time the Pulse is nothing quicker the heat being not so increased that the Soul had need to trouble her self to temper the ardor it might cause she contents her self to enlarge the heart and the arteries to receive the greater quantity of air For it is the order which Nature holds when heat increaseth that first she makes the Pulse greater and higher after she makes it quick and at last renders it thick imitating herein what she makes beasts do who to go to a place begin to march with great paces which if urged they double and at last betake themselves to run Howsoever what we said of the Pulse happens in respiration excepting the hardness which the Sense therein cannot be sensible of although it be likely that the substance of the Lungs may therein harden as Hippocrates saith it happens in Anger because it is almost impossible that the Spirits which run thorow all the parts should not imprint the quality they have in those which are soft and obedient as the Lungs are In a word Hope fortifies all the parts because the spirits therein are more vigorous and as it stops and in a manner retains them that they cannot dissipate nor make any violent motion it is not to be disputed that of all the Passions it is the most advantageous for Health for Length of life for Vertue it self which with so great a care seeks Moderation which naturally is to be found with Hope I say again It is advantageous for the Length of life for what serves for a great Health is not always good to render Life long Active and vehement heat produceth strong actions but shortens our days because the Spirits easily dissipate and suddenly consume the natural moisture So that to live long heat should be moderate the spirits ought not to be violently agitated nor also should they be languishing Now if Nature give them not this justness then it seems there is onely Hope which can acquire it us being the onely one which retains it and secures it without suffering excessive heat or irregular motion And therefore we must not wonder if those who feed themselves with good hopes live longer then other Men And if death often follows high successes it is because it makes us lose Hope which is the true Anchor which holds fast our Soul our Lives and our Yeers FINIS THE Second Part OF THE PASSIONS Wherein is Treated of the Nature and of the effects of the COURAGEOUS PASSIONS English'd by R.W. Esq LONDON Printed by T. Newcomb for H. Herringman at the Anchor in the New-Exchange 1661. The Stationer to the READER A Gentleman of quality during these late unhappy times having betaken himself to a retired life made it his business to study this our Incomparable Author and that he might the better imprint him in his Mind aswell as render him beneficial to others who understand not his language made it his pastime to transscribe into the English the First and Second Part of the Characters of the Passions which having been formerly severally brought to light he easily perswaded us to reconcile them and obliged us upon a Review to present them this second time in one volume being confident that they cannot but begratefull to all learned Men no Man as yet having ever treated of the Passions in his inimitable way which hath truly gain'd him the reputation of one of the Chief Philosophers of our Age. Amongst the most eminent wits of his Nation who are his fittest Judges the One calls him The most splendent light of the time and one of the greatest Genius of learning But none flies higher then Mounsieur de Balsac who tells Mr. Chapelin in two of his Letters to him in the one What great matters he expects from the learning and judgment of Our Author and in another he breaks forth into these expressions Wishing his Book had been far greater that his pleasure might have been the more lasting that he never read any thing with more delight and that he was sensibly charm'd with the beauty of his Passions Others saies he have
of the Councel and of the enterprise He beleeves and speaks high that he is the onely man who knows the means to make it succeed and it 's he onely can execute it And as if Prudence and good Fortune could do nothing without him he confidently assures that the success cannot but be unhappy unless he hath the conduct of it or at least if he be not of the party In the mean time it 's certain that commonly there is no man less capable to give or to follow good counsel then he Presumption makes him despise the best advice precipitation bereaves him of foresight and the great confidence which he hath in himself exposeth him to all manner of dangers and makes him fall into all the ambushes which are prepared for him It 's true that he perisheth nobly in them and that the proofs which he gives of his Courage may wipe away the shame of his temerity or of his imprudence for although he be surprised by his Enemy that he sees very well that resistance is useless and that all what presents it self before his eyes declare his loss yet all this makes him not lose Courage nor Judgement after having without trouble and without apprehension considered the greatness of the danger a certain generous choler and a noble despair seizeth on him which transports him beyond himself and carries him through fire and sword and makes him perform such wonderful efforts that they seem to surpass his natural strength He strikes he casts down he kills all those whom his sword can reach and after a long fight finding himself rather cast down then conquered he leaves a sad Victory to the Victor and an ample cause of admiration and of jealousie But we labor in vain in one picture to represent all the motions which this Passion can form in the Soul they are so different amongst themselves that its impossible they should be found in one and the same subject And we may say that Boldness is a fire which produceth as many several sorts of heat and flame as it is taking in several matters There is no inclination nor profession which hath not its own particular and although this Passion be naturally generous and modest and be far estranged from choler or cruelty and be imcompatible with fear or astonishment yet some are found to be base and insolent some which are Bragadocio's brutal and cruel Choler almost always accompanies that of Women and Children and many of those who boldly run into danger lose their courage as soon as it presents it self before them But that which is most strange is Fear often devanceth the most noble Boldness those often who are most valiant in fight dare not speak in publick and as the most furious Beasts are frighted at the sight of Spectra's and of the feeblest amongst Beasts there are some who without cause are afraid at the first encounter of some persons who cannot endure the presence of some things and even without horror cannot so much as walk in the dark We will here examine the cause of these differences We will now therefore see whether Boldness hath as much power over the body as in hath over the soul and whether she can imprint out wardly as fair characters as those which she forms within Certainly we must confess that no Passion gives so advantagious a Mind nor so noble and becoming a port to a man as this doth all others corrupt that masculine beauty which he naturally ought to have some render him fierce and savage as Anger and Despair others make him soft and effeminate as Love and Joy Boldness onely gives him that majestical air that graceful stateliness and that bold pride which becomes his Nature and his Sex In effect can we behold any thing more august more full of pompe then a man whom Boldness leads into danger That generous coldness which appears in his face that setled look his proud march and the noble efforts which he makes in fight inspire in the mind I cannot tell what kind of veneration and in my opinion make the most magnifick representation of vertue which can be imagined For it is not only in the progress of this Passion that it takes this heroick air it forms it self from the first motions it makes in the heart and he no sooner perceives the danger but we may see in his eyes the resolution which he takes and the confidence he hath to overcome it He coldly considers it without emotion without changing colour and if sometimes he trembles and grows pale at the encounter thereof we may beleeve it is not that he fears it but it 's the greatness of his own Courage which astonisheth him Neither doth this trouble last long he presently recomposeth and reassureth himself and looking through and through his Enemy with a severe smile he makes us judge that he at once both scorns and threatens him If he thinks he ought to assault him he marcheth towards him with large paces but gravely with an erect and stable stature with his brow lifted up and his sparkling eyes seem as if they would go out of their place and begin the Combate before they come to handy blows For without winking and without heeding any thing else he keeps them always fixed on him he considers his port his pace his arms he measures him and seems to seek afar off those places which are weakest and marks those which are to receive his first blows Afterwards he accosts him with a silence both fierce and disdainful with his forehead shriveled up betwixt his brows stooping his head and all his body bowed and shortned in it self he assaulteth him he thrusteth him he presseth him and calling to his succor that noble fury which reigns in Combates he suffers himself to be carried away by it and at last abandons himself to all the turbulency and impetuosity whereof it is capable Then it is that fire flies up into his face that his looks become terrible and that all his air his port and his mind render themselves formidable His hairs stand on end his Forehead wrinkles his Nostrils widen and all his veins are swoln and extended Sometimes he blows with impetuosity sometimes he keeps in his breath and shuting his Lips and his Teeth he displaies his Arms and dischargeth his greatest and most heavy blows Sometimes he sighs under the endeavors he makes and from time to time he sends forth the short and penetrating lightnings of his Voyce wherewith it seems he would provoke his Courage and startle his Enemy He stamps the ground with his Feet he puts forth himself he leaps he bows himself and the sweat running from all the parts of him mixeth it self with the blood and dust wherewith he is covered and forms I know not what frightful colour which renders him still the more formidable whilst his Brest all red and inflamed raiseth up it self with grievous secourses and causeth a strong and fond respiration his heart beats
first Powers move Or to speak out they are the same Powers which the disposition of Organs renders capable to perform their actions And as those dispositions are unequal in their particulars and that the one hath them more or less perfect then the other so are they more or less fit to perform those actions so that we use to say of him who hath them perfect and who is most proper to act that he hath the power and natural Faculty to do such a thing and of him who hath them imperfect that he naturally hath an impotency and incapacity of working Now Courage is undoubtedly of the number of those derived Powers because it requires certain dispositions in the Organs proper to elevate and stir up the Soul against difficulties and the principal of these dispositions is nothing but the natural heat of the heart capable to kindle and inflame this noble ardor which is necessary in these encounters But we must here consider two things What that Power is which makes Courage First What this radical vertue is which enters into the Courage since the natural and derived Powers are nothing else but the radical in that they are joyned with their dispositions certainly we must say that Nature which hath distributed to all Animals as much strength as was necessary for their preservation hath also given them the vertue to raise up and employ them when they have need of them And this vertue is nothing but the irascible Faculty which is the principle and as it were the form and substance of Courage Forasmuch as inflaming the Heart and lifting up the Soul it doth nothing else but move the natural forces of the Animal to oppose them against those difficulties which present themselves And indeed these differences and the effects of Courage are drawn from the quality of the forces for as there are some which are proper for the Soul and others which belong to the Body every one hath its particular Courage which stirs it up and sets it on work such a man will be couragious in the greatest dangers of War who dares not speak in publick or will suffer himself to be overcome by the least Passion On the contrary there are others who in such like occasions have courage who lose it at the sight of a weak Enemy or of the least little danger they encounter and this proceeds from that the Courage being a vertue which stirs up the forces when they fail it ought also to fail and therefore those who are deprived of corporal strength ought to be cowards in War and couragious in the actions of the Mind and Judgment if they have the forces which belong to those two Faculties Finally as the forces are destined to assault or to resist as we shall make it hereafter appear the Courage also employs them in both the one and the other of those actions and in pursuit brings forth two different Passions Boldness which assaults evils and Constancy or Strength of Courage which opposeth it self and resisteth their violence The second thing which we ought to know is Why beat is the principal dispositiâ—n of Courage why Heat is the principal disposition that creates Courage and what conditions are requisite for to produce it The first is easie to be decided because Heat is the most active of all the qualities that it stirs up all the other natural Vertues and makes the best part of the Bodies vigor neither need we to be astonished if the Soul being joyned to so powerful a quality and conscious of the help she can draw from thence have a good opinion of its forces and if she trust in them and if she readily oppose them to those difficulties which present themselves As for the conditions which this Heat requires to form Courage What that heat ought to be which forms Courage there must be three principal ones The first that it must be natural the Second that it must be great and strong the third that it must be proportionable to the greatness of the Heart In effect a strange Heat as that of a Feavor although it inflame the Heart and the Spirits yet it augments not the Courage on the contrary it abates it as not being conformable to Nature Now for it to be thus conformable it must have two things One that it must be born with the life and that it must be as it were a continuation of that first flame which was kindled at its first birth for if it be once extinguished there is no means left to reinflame it and how temperate soever that might be which may be substituted in its place yet would it be strange and useless The other is that it must remain within those limits which Nature hath prescribed forasmuch as every thing hath a certain measure beyond which it ought not pass without breaking that proportion which ought to be betwixt the organs and their principles to perform their Functions so that that heat which is more violent then the nature of every Animal can bear is not natural unto it But how conformable soever to Nature it may be unless it be great it never will be accompanied with Courage Wherefore those who are of a cold temperature as Flegmatick and Melancholy persons are those who are attenuated with long sickness with long griefs and who by other Passions quench natural heat are not couragious Yet it is to be observed that natural heat being not a simple quality as that of Fire is but a hot and moist substance which is commonly called Spirits composed of the Humidum Radicale and of this heat which Nature inspired with life it may be great two ways to wit in quantity and in quality that 's to say that there may be much of the Radical Humidity in it or many degrees of that heat So Children have more of that natural heat as to the quantity as those which are older have much more as to the quality So in the Winter and in cold Climates the substance of heat is augmented because not dissipated and exterior cold hinders it from issuing out although it be less burning then in Summer the coldness of the Air somewhat diminishing its vivacity On the contrary the ardor of the Climate or of the season draws forth a great part of the substance of Heat and imprints in what remains a certain acrimony which renders it more violent Now although all actions are performed by means of natural heat yet there are some which more depend on its substance as concoctions and digestions are being to be made by means of humidity so that those who have most radical moisture as Children perform these operations most perfectly although they have a very temperate heat such as it ought to be for such actions But there are also those which more depend on the quality of heat as are the actions of the Imagination and those which we call Vital for those who have the most ardent heat have
heat which is therein entertained to awake and to render it active As for those Passions which oblige the Soul to flight they make a quite contrary effect and because the Spirits retire unto the centre and the Soul also finding it self too weak to resist the Enemy loseth all its Courage nor cares it to repair its strength and so suffers the natural heat to be extinguished without endeavoring to rekindle it But that we may well conceive what the endeavor is she makes in other Passions Whâ—t the quality of heat is in Boldness we must not consider the quality of the heat which accompanies them and compare it with that which is observed in those Passions which seek good for in these it is sweet humid and graceful and in those it is sharp dry and pungent So that it 's very likely that in the first the Soul employs it and sheds it abroad without violence and in the other she raiseth it and drives it forth with impetuosity that in those it only needs its ordinary vertue and in these it must be greater and more active Finally we may say That in the one she useth it as a follower accompanying of her to her friends but in the other it 's an Assistant which she leads with her even against her Enemies In Love indeed in Desire and in Joy the outward parts receive not heat because it 's sent thither but because it flies from those spirits which are sent thither forasmuch as the Soul needs not that quality to approach or unite it self to good but only the Spirits which force it to the place where it is On the contrary when she is to fight she sends heat as a powerful instrument to act and to destroy what is contrary unto it as also in this design she renders it as strong as she can whether it be by degrees augmenting it or stirring up the Spirits by a continual agitation or in removing the humors when she is most active as cholerick are And certainly what the sensitive Faculty doth in these encounters the natural also doth it very often in those ordinary functions as is easily judged by the Feavor which is just like Boldness and Anger the same heat the same tempest of the Spirits and Humors and the same design which the Soul hath in those Passions it encounters in that disease For we must not think that the Feavor is kindled in the Heart by some stranger fire It 's the Soul its self or rather the Vital Faculty which reunites its force which stirs up natural heat and which lifts it self up to fight those causes which destroy the harmony and constitution of the Body This is readily proved by its crisis which are those fits of the Feavor which the endeavors of Nature and not the Disease stirs up by the inflammation which the coming of the spirits and of the blood causeth in the infested parts by the cessation of the Feavor in the heighth of the sickness when the Humors are so malignant that Nature is overcome with them and that she dares no longer assault them And by a thousand other Reasons which we might produce had we room for them by which we might evidently make it appear that the Feavor is nothing but an innitation and a rising up of natural heat to drive away the ill and that therefore it 's a motion like to that of Anger and that in the lowest part of the Soul as well as in the highest there is an Appetite which hath its irascible Faculty to raise it self up against those difficulties which present themselves However it be the Soul encreaseth Heat in Boldness and in Anger producing and adding new degrees to what it had and stirring it up by the continual agitation of the Spirits For although they stir themselves impetously in Love Boldness entertains the motions of the Spirits in Desire and in Joy yet their motion is not therein maintained and the Soul takes no care for their entertainment the transport and the ravishment which the approach or the possession of good affords her bereaving her of the remembrance of what she ought to do for which cause languors and soundings follow these Passions unless Hope Boldness or the like mix not with them and call back the Soul to her Duty as it often happens in Love and in Desire which being commonly accompanied with Fear and Hope suffers not such great and violent accidents as those in Joy are the Soul therefore is more careful to continue the motions of the Spirits in Boldness and in Anger then in the rest of those Passions because the danger she is threatned withal keeps her in breath and continually sollicites her to oppose new forces and to make new endeavors against the pressures of the Enemy which she cannot do but by producing every moment new Heat and new Spirits and sending them to relieve those which made the first assaults Nay often What humors are moved in Boldness as if she mistrusted her succors when the ill appears too powerful she raiseth up the most working and the most malignant Humors that thereby she might the more easily destroy them From thence it is that Choler is stirred up in the violence of those Passions and that in venimous Beasts that poison which is quiet and hid in the centre of the Body casts it self forth into the outward parts and chiefly into those which serve them for arms and defence which may oblige us to judge that it 's the Soul which brings it into those places to assault and destroy the ill and by a very probable consequence that she doth the like with those others which have any proper quality for that purpose To confirm this Truth we need onely to consider those dreams which are formed when choler predominates for they evidently make it appear that the Soul is accustomed to use this humor to assault evils and that presently as soon as she sees it in a condition to be thereby relieved she prepares herself for the Combate and during sleep she forgeth Enemies Battels and Victories At least its certain that Choler being agitated in these Passions renders the Heat the more strong and pungent Or because it 's naturally dry and that driness is a quality which gives most efficacy to Heat or because those sharp fumes which this humor exhales when it 's moved cast themselves on the parts prick them and give them that angry sentiment which the heat of those Passions useth to cause CHAP. V. The Causes of the Characters of Boldness TO follow the same method we have held in our former Discourses The morol characters of Boldness we must here examine two sorts of Characters the one immediately formed in the Soul which we call Moral because they consist in those actions which we call Moral or at least which respect Manners The other which are Corporal and which are remarked in the change and alteration which this Passion imprints on the
way for Fear unless some new relief arrive But it happens not so with that Boldness which is conducted by Reason before that undertake the Combate it exactly considers the forces of the Enemy the greatness of the danger it is entering upon and all those obstacles which may traverse its design for which cause it hath not at first that impatient ardor which is to be observed in the other On the contrary it appears cold and restrained and sometimes even paleness trembling and such other accidents of Fear which surprise it in these encounters do so hide it that a man might beleeve that it was not there at all or that it was associated with its enemy And certainly the Soul might conceive the danger so great that for a time she may not be capable of any motion unless it be that of Fear and in that case she could not be agitated with the Passion of Boldness although she might have the habit thereof Now although we must say That the image of the danger being carried to the sensitive Faculty by the Knowledge which the Sences or the Judgment may have given her the Soul will form Fear in the inferior part whilst the superior will be raised with a true Boldness and then a man will boldly go to the fight whom we shall see look pale and tremble at the sound of the Trumpet and at first sight of the Enemies It s true this disturbance will not last long Reason presently getting the mastery either by re-assuring it self or raising the Courage of its inferior part Neither after a man hath taken this noble resolution is he susceptible of Fear or of Astonishment he meets with no difficulties which seem not less then he fancied they were and if his strength fails him in this occasion his vertue forbears not to hold fast and obligeth him rather to perish then to flye or rather yeeld to undergo the burthen then quit his undertaking As for those who valiant as they are dare not speak in publick or who fear the encounter of certain things which in appearance ought not to give them the least apprehension besides that this rather respects the habit of Boldness then the Passion it 's an examen which more fitly belongs to the discourse of Fear then to this We can onely say That a Bold man is not so in all things because he hath not or beleeveth he hath not competent forces to undertake them and to surmount the difficulties which are therein to be encountred every profession even every action requiring its particular forces Such a man may have the one and want the other so he may be bold in those and timerous in these He who is naturally valiant and couragious hath not commonly those dispositions which are fit for the great actions of the Mind Coldness and Quietness which they require cannot allay themselves with heat and that tumult which accompanies Courage So that if he finde himself engaged to speak in publick or to do any other the like action astonishment and fear surprize him being sensible of his own weakness to execute a design beyond his strength We are now to examine the Characters which Boldness imprints on the Body The corporal Characters of Boldness which as in the rest of the Passions are of two kinds For some of them are formed by the Souls command and the others unknowingly and out of a necessity useless to her design as we shall make it appear in the examen we intend of every particular Let us therefore begin with the Eyes which afford us the sight of all and which are the Souls Looking-glasses An assured Look although it be common to all the generons Passions of the Irascible Appetite belongs particularly to Boldness because she assaults ill and that she ought to have more assurance then the rest which do onely expect it For we have said in the Discourse of Hope That this Look was made by a wide opening of the lids with a fixed sight and with vivacity This opening is that we might see the enemy the more exactly the steddiness of sight witnesseth that the Soul is not astonished and this vivacity comes from the arrival of the spirits which dart themselves forth to combate it And to speak truth it must have at least these three conditions to form this kind of look Most of the Passions makes us open our eyes to consider the good or ill which is their object even Fear seems to be most careful of it being most of all obliged to provide for her safety But it hath no set look being not able long to suffer the presence of the enemy the disquiet she is in rendring her inconstant and startled A strong meditation settles the sight but not with vivacity forasmuch as the spirits retreat towards their principles and so leave a dimness in the eyes These three things therefore ought to meet to form the Look we speak of and he that will but observe it will finde that the motion of the Eye-brows the carriage of the Head and the rest of the Face contribute somewhat thereunto However it be a Bold man looks upon danger with assurance Why a Bold man shuts not his eye-lids without winking and this partly is from that the soul stiffening it self in it self stiffens the Muscles and so hinders the lid from falling and partly because she will not lose the sight of her Enemy nor so much as one minute interrupt the looks she casts on him Moreover we may say she hath not then so much need of winking as before having rendred them stronger by the quantity of spirits which she sent thither For it 's certain that when these parts are strongest this motion is least necessary for which cause Birds of prey and all other Creatures which have a strong sight wink seldomer then the rest as on the contrary men whose sight is weak wink at every moment Moreover this motion of the lids moystens the eyes and cleanseth them and thereby preserves their transparency and mobility it 's chiefly destinated to asswage and temper by an interposing obscurity which it brings the splendor of the exterior which continually beats on it Now so it is that those who have a strong sight can longer and more easily endure the light then others and consequently they are not obliged to close their eye-lids so often If it be therefore true that Boldness sends a great quantity of spirits to those parts and so renders them more strong and vigorous It must also at the same time dispence with their winking so often as they did formerly In fine if weakness and fear cause them to fall to cover and hide them from the ill which persues them Boldness which apprehends nothing and sees peril and danger without astonishment needs not this vain precaution nor to employ an unprofitable relief A thorow Look is also common to many of the Passions Why he looks thorow and chiefly to Indignation
gather it self betwixt the eyes and then certainly if the skin be fleshy it makes as it were a great cloud in the midst of the Forehead which Aristotle calls for the same reason Nebulous which is proper and natural to Lions and to Bulls and which is one of the principal signs of the natural disposition a man hath for Boldness as elsewhere shall be said When the hair stands on end Why the hair stands on end it is because the skin it s rooted in is moved but this motion may be made two ways for those creatures which have a moveable and musculous skin make it move when they please and when they will assault or defend themselves they shrink it up that they may render it stiffer and stronger and then necessarily those plights and wrinkles which are formed must make the hair or feathers stare with which it 's covered It is not so with men their skin being not musculous they cannot voluntarily move it but onely out of necessity and that happens when the spirits with precipitation quit the outward parts of the Head and flye away elsewhere For the skin which is then forced to restrain and shut up it self makes the roots of the hair retire which are commonly obliquely laid in the thickness of the skin and in reverting of it it makes the hairs rise and stand on end Commonly fear and astonishment cause this flight of the spirits and which calling them back again to the Heart render the Face pale and makes the hair stand But this is sometimes also done by a great endeavor of the Courage For the Soul seeing it self pressed by a puissant Enemy gathers the spirits from all parts in which its principal strength consists and sends them to the Arms and so those other parts which are appointed to assault and combate so that those which are abandoned of them grow pale and the skin shrivels and the hair stands on end even as they do in fear Now as Boldness and Anger onely can cause this endeavor its onely they which are capable to produce this effect in the manner spoken of But when that happens it 's a sign that those Passions will rise either to fury or despair for which cause we commonly say that a Man that looks pale with Anger is terrible because the Soul never useth these extraordinary means but when she is extreamly prest and when she carries her self away to her last violences To conclude therefore this Discourse a Bold mans hair may stand upright from the fear and from the astonishment which may sometimes surprise him at the sight of danger or by the last effort of Courage as hath been said The Nostrils open and widen themselves because the heat growing stronger requires a greater respiration and obligeth the soul therefore to enlarge the passages by reason whereof those who naturally have those parts wide and open are commonly bold and cholerick The Smile comes from the indignation a man hath to see himself assaulted by a temerous or insolent enemy or from our despising of his weak endeavors But if we would know why these Passions cause these effects we must see what hath been said in the Discourse of Laughter Silence is proper to true Boldness Why he is silent chiefly when it s going into danger either because it is then entirely gathered up in it self to consider the greatness thereof or because it disdains to speak to any body with whom it denies society either because it hates or scorns them or last of all because it knows Words are arms of weakness and with them Combates are not to be decided And certainly Boldness abounds not in words unless in such who have their weaknesses for the Soul which knows its defect useth all those means which may releive her and employs besides those endeavors which she makes threatnings cryings out and reasons to fright the enemy and hide her own imbecillity such is the Boldness of Women and Children such is that of Bragadocio's And this Maxime is so general that even amongst Beasts we see that little Dogs continually bark when Mastiffs and great ones which are bigger and taller seldom bark and are readier to fall on then we are awares A man that is truly Bold doth the like he is silent when he sees the enemy he goes towards him and assaults him without speaking a word but it 's a threatning Silence and which better expresseth his desire he hath to fight and the confidence he hath in his forces then even words themselves Yet this hinders not What the voice of a Bold man is but that in the heat of the Combate from time to time some flashes of his Voice short and piercing may escape him which commonly accompany the blows he gives or the steps he takes and this in my opinion is to astonish the enemy by those exclamations which remark Ardor and Courage or to animate and provoke himself his cryings out producing the same effect with that of the sound of Trumpets Or rather this comes from the endeavors and struggles which the parts make within which with impetuosity driving the air to the Lungs force it at its issuing out to resound again and to form a strong and penetrating sound because it s driven out with violence Great because the passages are inlarged by heat and short because it 's made by sallies and shocks it seems even as if it issued not with liberty and as if the lips and the teeth stopping it in its passage would force it to return and retort it on himself and to seek other passages in which it's inwardly heard to resound This appears in the howlings of Mastiffs and Blood-Hounds in the roaring of Lions for all of these cast onely forth a great sound of a short and resounding voice which loseth it self in the hollow of the Throat and Breast and which they do not redouble but by long intervals by reason that the Soul which trusts its strengths thinks not it ought to double its shocks with that eagerness which always accompanies weakness The voice of a Bold man is then constrained disturbed and as it were entangled in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle calls it which the Commentators understood not when they said it signified words which precipitated themselves the one or the other and enterfer'd by the swiftness of the pronuntiation For this indeed may happen in Anger for these reasons we shall note but not in Boldness which is neither loud nor talkative which shortens as much as possibly not onely its voice but even its discourse for besides that it never useth any long threats it cuts them short at first and leaves always more to be thought then is said Quos ego Somtimes he blows with impetuosity whether the pantings and shocks he gives his Breast cause the air violently to issue or that from time to time keeping in his breath he is afterwards constrained to use more blowing to drive out the fumes
of the Heart which could not get out during this constraint But why doth he keep in his breath Why he keeps in his breath Doubtless to fortifie the motion of the other parts for that we commonly never employ this action but when we intend to give a great blow to do some other great endeavour The reason of this Effect is drawn from the nature of the Motion which is to be on some stable thing whereon the body moving upholds it self It 's thus that Beasts move that Birds flie and that Fish swim and that all other things move for in all these motions the Earth the Air and the Water or some other Body remains firm and resists the thing agitated and in proportion as the resistance and firmness is greater the motion also is greater and stronger Now as the parts of Animals lean more the one upon the other when any of them is to perform any powerful motion it 's necessary the rest keep close and even to the furthermost which contribute thereunto It must finde without it self somewhat which may sustain it self otherwise the motion of the first of these will be weak and their actions will be the less perfect Whence it comes that Birds are troubled to flye when their Legs are broken that we run not so well when our Hands are tied and leap but ill unless we stiffen our Arms and shut our Fists because those parts in the condition they then are cannot uphold as they ought to do the motions of the rest The Soul then which hath a secret knowledge of all what is beneficial unto her and who knows that in violent endeavors there must be a great and strong support for those organs which are to move retains the Breath that that air which is stopped in the Lungs may keep up the Muscles of respiration and that pressing them on all sides she stiffens them to support the rest which are engaged in the action So that we are not content onely to stop the breath but we drive it and cause it to descend down that the diaphragma may dilate it self and press the neighboring parts which thereby are rendred more fit to support those which are in motion In pursuit he shuts his Lips and his Tteeh as well the better to stop the passages of respiration as to confirm the parts whether it be that their confirmation truly contributes to the great designs we have spoken of or whether the Soul is abused in the choice she makes as being useless as it often happens in divers other occasions wherein she is hindered by Passion to discern things and to remember the true use of the organs That Coldness which is observed in the beginnings of Boldness Whence comes the coldness of the Face is nothing but a certain constancy and assurance of countenance which is not astonished at the sight of danger and which also witnesseth neither ardor nor impatience to fight And it hath been so called because that besides that it is the property of cold to render things immoveable defect of heat is commonly called Coldness Now this constancy and outward assurance comes from that which is made in the Soul and in the Spirits and which retaining the humors and the parts in the posture she findes them in hinders the blood from retiring or expanding it self and the organs from moveing For in this condition the countenance must not change colour must remain firm and settled must appear cold and resolute at the encounter of difficulties But the first cause of all these effects is that at that time the Soul raiseth it self not yet up against the enemy onely prepares herself for the combate as hath been said for when she assaults him the Spirits must rise up with her must carry blood and redress to the face and fill all with vivacity ardor and impatience The fierceness of the Countenance This Coldness is followed with a noble fierceness which animates the countenance of a Bold man chiefly when he goes into danger for it appears not commonly in the first motions of Boldness nor in the heat of fight but onely when he is ready for the assault and marcheth towards the Enemy So that it seems it is as a mean betwixt his staiedness at first and that ardor which transports him at last In effect as this Fierceness is a kind of severe and disdainful Pride which comes from the presumption and scorn which Boldness useth to inspire The Soul cannot be susceptible of it before she hath conceived a great opinion of her own strength because that is the ground of her Pride nor after she hath found any strong resistance because that makes her perceive the danger greater then she fancied it and that therefore she ought not to slight it It 's therefore onely when she is ready to fight for then she is full of the esteem which she hath of herself and then she disdains the enemy whose forces she hath not yet experimented However it be the Head is then kept erect and the Brow lifted up the look quick and full of assurance the countenance swell'd and double-gorged and hath I know not what in it that 's rude and disdainful Now all these are the effects and characters of Pride as in its place shall be said For the Soul which in this Passion swells it self raiseth up the Head lifts up the Brows and swels the Face as if she thought more room to enlarge her self or by those exterior motions she would make that appear which she hath in herself An assured look comes from that considence which accompanies its Pride and that severe and disdainful countenance from the indignation she hath to finde obstacles in her designs The Posture and the Gate contribute also to this Fierceness for all the Body keeps it self streight and set and if he stir his march is haughty and proud The Stature erects it self because the Soul raiseth and stiffens it self in the design which she hath to assault which puts the Body into such a posture as is most advantagious for it to act as we said in the Discourse of Hope As for the proud Gate it s that which Aristotle calls Magnifick which is natural to Lions and is a sign of strength and of greatness of Courage It 's performed with great and grave paces balancing the Body on either side and at every step lifting inwards and forewards the Shoulders But how difficult soever it be to express this action to the life it s yet harder to finde the true cause thereof Some have sought it in the same temperature which renders the Body robustious and have said that constitution being more firm and solid their parts also were more united and shut together and so they communicated the motion wherewith they were agitated to one another and in pursuit that when the Legs did lift themselves up and advance to go the Shoulders must be moved in the same manner Of a truth if all those
herself For in resistance she knows nothing but how to stiffen and streng then herself in herself to stop the effort of the Enemy But in assault she goes out of herself and casts herself on it to combate it here she darts and precipitates herself there she stays and remains stable here she boldly bestows the blow there she receives them with assurance In a word in the one she would overcome in the other she is content not to be overcome But if this Reason will not oblige us to distinguish these Passions which Philosophy hath always confounded let 's but follow the common opinion of men and the ordinary way of speaking in such like encounters For they never say That a man with Boldness bears his ill fortune nor that he suffers Infamy Grief or Death boldly but that he endures them that he suffers with Courage with Resolution with Constancy and with Patience If it be not Boldness therefore which produceth these effects and if amongst the Passions mentioned by the Schools there is none whereto we can refer them we are constrained to encrease the number of them and to add to the emotions of the Irascible Appetite that which serves to support ills and to resist them Now as those who discover a new Land commonly give it the name of those Countries which are best known unto them and which have some likeness together We have by their example taken the liberty to give this Passion the name of Constancy a vertue known to all the world and whereto it hath a great conformity And truly there are Passions which always carry the name of Vices because they always appear to be vitious as Envy and Impudence It must follow that those which always appear vertuous should also bear the name of Vertues Now this is of this kinde for in what condition soever we finde her what defects soever she hath we still see some image of Vertue in her And even when she is altogether irregular we are forced to admire her and to afford her those praises which are due to fair actions let 's boldly therefore give her the name of Constancy since she is not unworthy of those advantages which are due unto Vertue But if any man would object That what we call Passion is nothing but the action of that Vertue and therefore that it is nothing necessary to introduce a new Passion since the actions of Vertues are not properly Passions We must first say That all the actions of Constancy cannot be reckoned for actions of Vertue since some of them may be vicious as when we resist ills which necessarily we should flie or when we do not resist them as we ought nor when we ought nor for that end which Vertue hath proposed to it self Moreover an action of Constancy may be performed without possessing of the Vertue forasmuch as Vertue is a habit which is gotten by custom and that there is no habit acquired till we perform the first actions of Constancy Now if there are but three things in the Soul Power Habit and Passion this first action must be a Passion since it is neither a Power nor an Habit as it is easie to be judged In fine If Constancy is a Vertue it must needs have a Passion which serves for its subject and which makes if we may so speak the body and the substance of this action for Vertue to speak properly is but an order and a rule which Reason gives to the actions and motions of the Soul So that we must suppose motions before they can be regulated and these Motions are Passions which for that cause are called the substance of Vertues Constancy being then a Vertue ought to have a Passion to work upon which is no other but that which we have spoken of for the reasons already declared Now although we ought not to think it strange that both of them bear the same name since the word Boldness is common both to the Passion and to the Vertue yet if after all these reasons any shall think its to prophane the name of Constancy to assign it to a Passion I will not oppose him he may if he please chuse that of Strength of Courage because the Soul stiffens it self to resist the ill which assaults it as shall be seen in the following Discourse Let 's therefore no longer stop at words but examine the things in that order which we have proposed You must not think to meet here with an insolent and an ambitious Passion which like Love or Boldness would be Queen and Mistris of the rest The Elegy of Constancy She is too generous to use flatteries and baseness which the one employs to establish its power and she is too modest to subject her Companions by force and violence as Boldness doth what advantage soever she hath over them she yeelds them the precedence without pretending to command she contents her self not to obey them And without marching at the head of the Passions it 's sufficient for her to be a follower of the Vertues In effect it 's she which maintains and preserves them it 's she which makes them overcome and which crowns them and he who would more nearly examine what she doth for them might boldly say that if she brings them not forth yet at least she accomplisheth them and renders them worthy of the names they bear and of the recompence they expect and truly a vertue which yeelds and keeps not firm which gives up its arms after the first fight or flies after the victory is an imperfect Vertue And the perfection which it wants can be added unto it by nothing but Constancy which alone can consummate commenced vertues and make them deserve the glory they aspire unto But I say further that to examine them from their birth we may see that they wholly owe it unto her and that after reason hath conceived them it 's she that brings them forth which makes them operate and makes them subsist For it 's certain that what service soever Vertue draws from the Passions they are the onely enemies which resist her they alone form those difficulties which cross her and it 's none but they which are capable to stifle her when she comes to light and to destroy her when she is in her greatest strength Without doubt were there no Passions Vertue would appear in the Soul like a pure light which would have neither vapors nor clouds to overcome It would be a Star which would direct its course towards good without any let and which would conduct us to felicity without trouble or disquiet We should no longer speak of those vices and crimes but as of such monsters as were invented by Fables and all that great croud of ills which at every moment disturbs the tranquillity of life would be unknown or impotent at least if it yet caused any disorders we should not rescent them since it's Fear and Grief onely which render them sensible But as
it by and estrange it from her presence she ought to follow the motion of this Passion and not expect an enemy she cannot overcome Did Reason onely engage her to this resistance it were easie to discover the advantages she pretends to make those motives of honor and glory which she commonly proposeth in those encounters would evidently make it appear that she aspires to those noble rewards and that those are the fruits which her Courage pretends to gather but because these motives are extraordinary and unknown to the fancy as hath been shewn that they are not in beasts and that in our selves Reason doth not always force the inferior part but suffers it to go its common road we must seek some other end proper and natural unto it and see what she pretends unto when she takes a resolution to resist those ills which assault her To speak to the purpose it 's not so easie to be discovered as some may think And we must confess that that light which enlightens the Soul in those occasions is of the rank of those which Nature sheds abroad in all those things which without knowing know whereto they ought to tend and which without perceiving it moves to their end The Soul indeed knows that she ought to assault ill and that she ought to overcome it that she ought to resist it and that she must oppose violence but she knows not why and the understanding it self which often doth the same actions is not always advised of the true motion which made it undertake them Upon this ground we may say that as the Soul assaults her enemy out of hope to overcome him and that she seeks to overcome him to take from him the power of doing ill that she also resists him not to take away his power but onely to stop the course thereof and hinder it from producing its effect that the advantage she pretends to make from this hinderance is to retard her own loss as long as she resists or to cause the enemy to lose its will to contuinue his assaults letting of him know that with the strength she hath she cannot be overcome And last of all to shun the danger wherein she would be engaged did she but yield or take flight for she can never slye but she must forsake and quite abandon her Strength and Courage and to augment those of her enemy or at least give him freedom to do all the ill he is capable of In effect did we not oppose grief fear and other evils which are in us they would overflow all the parts of the soul and would bring her to languish and to despair Did we not constantly suffer injuries adversities and other mischiefs which come from without the imagination seeing no means whereby to stop their course would fansie them greater then they are and make them always appear extream and insufferable did we not even sometimes stiffen under the burthen of our sufferings we should be opprest by their weight and those parts which yielded to the violence thereof falling on those which upheld them would batter them by their fall and fill them with grief In a word whatsoever ill the Soul would flie she is in the same danger that a Souldier casts himself into who falls before his enemy or that a whole Army incurs when it flies the sight of a Conqueror who comes pouring down upon it Let 's then conclude that the motive which she proposeth in Boldness is to bereave the enemy of the power of doing ill that in Constancy she onely suspends its effect and that in Fear she seeks to shun it by flight Now as there is more security to have no enemy then to have one who doth harm us and neither is this so much to be feared as one who puts himself in posture to do it So it 's also true that the Soul is more secure in Boldness which destroys ill then in Constancy which hinders onely its effect As for the same reason she ever thinks to fight before she thinks of her own defence and never resolves to flye but at her greatest extremity that being her worst condition and the saddest posture she can be reduced unto leaving the enemy with full power and liberty to work her ruine The soul then resists the ills which assault her Why Constancy resists ill to stop the course of them Let 's now see how she resists them For we question not here that exterior resistance which is performed by the action of the parts which oppose themselves against the efforts of those things which might harm them Besides that there ate ills against which the motions of the Soul would in vain employ this resistance as those which are purely spiritual are for it resists not afflictions by the opposition of corporal forces but by her own proper strength Besides that the motions of the Appetite do not always descend to the organs whether it be because they are restrained by Reason or because they are sometimes formed so quickly and move so readily that it 's impossible they should have time to communicate themselves with the Body It 's certain that all these exterior motions which are observed in the Passions are the effects and sequels of those which are formed within the Soul so that if the Body resist outwardly the Soul also must within herself perform the same action or to speak it better she must of herself resist before she can resist by the Bodies means So that we are obliged to seek in what manner she makes this secret and inward resistance which she employs against spiritual ills and which is the source and cause of that which she causeth to be made in the organs This will be nothing difficult having so often shewn that the agitations of the body are the images and the Characters of those which are made in the Appetite that there is some relation and some resemblance betwixt them and that the Soul exciting both of them it s very likely she would render them as uniform as she can Now we experiment it in our selves that when we must make an outward resistance against a puissant Adversary we stop and remain firm and to fortifie our selves against his assaults we stiffen our Muscles and our Nerves and there is no part about us which becomes not harder and more solid by the effort which we give our selves Somewhat therefore like this must be done in the Soul and consequently she must necessarily stop and confirm herself that gathering her forces together she must stiffen herself in herself In a word she must take as it were a kinde of a consistence which yields not easily to the shock and assault of the enemy The stiffening of the Soul stops the course of ill and how We are now to see how she can stiffen herself and of what nature this Firmness is which she makes use of in this occasion but because this hath been already done in the Discourse
of Hope and that in that place the Reader may finde wherewith to satisfie his curiosity It will be sufficient to examine here what it is that makes this stifness and whether it be a means able to stop the course and violence of the ills which assault the soul For it seems at first that this firmness serves to this purpose onely but in corporal things which being unable to penetrate one another are constrained to stop when they meet with any which yields not to their motion so that in stiffening the Body and keeping of it firm we sustain the weight of a burthen we break the current of a wave and of a torrent we stop the impetuosity of an enemy which presseth upon us and would overthrow us But in those things which have no Bodies as the Will and Appetite the stifness which either of them takes cannot in all likelihood stop the course nor the motion of ill whether corporal or spiritual the reason of penetration having no place in those things In effect let the soul stiffen and strengthen it self as much as she can she cannot stop the least corporal motion unless she also stiffen the parts and the organs of the Body she animates And if she assaults those ills which are truly or any way spiritual such as are injuries mishaps afflictions and the like this stiffening we have spoken of seems to be a means altogether useless to resist it Let 's first therefore say Two forts of Firmness that there is two sorts of Firmness the one which proceeds from material qualities and is onely to be found in hard and solid Bodies the other comes from the impetuosity of the motion and is common to all things which move whether corporal or spiritual Thus Water Air and Wind which are of a fluid nature and yield easily acquire a firmness by their agitation which stops the most solid Bodies Thus Angels Demons and all separated substances restrain one the other according as their motions are more powerful as we have elsewhere manifested it Now the Firmness which the Appetite hath is of this kinde for it proceeds from the only motion it makes in stiffening it self even as the members become firm by the tonick motion of which we have spoken in the Discourse of Hope And as by the first stiffening the bodies resist because they are hard and impenetrable so also by the latter all other things resist by reason of the motion which they make which stops what it encounters and is incompatible with it So that the Appetite resists ills by making a contrary to what they make But because there are some which are corporeal and other spiritual it 's certain that the Firmness which this part of the soul takes in stiffening it self cannot of it self alone stop corporal motions how weak soever they are but necessarily the exterior organs must contribute thereunto and that if it be formed without them it would prove a vain and useless violence and an imperfect motion which would not move to that end which Nature had prescribed it For she hath afforded the Appetite the power to stiffen it self at the encounter of corporal and sensible ills but onely to inspire the same motion in those Faculties which are under its direction and cause the organs to make that resistance which is necessary in those encounters As for those ills which truly or in some manner are spiritual we must consider whether they have motion as Grief Fear and the rest of the Passions for it 's certain that these may be stopped and restrained by the resistance onely which the Appetite makes by stiffening it self in it self Forasmuch as water loseth its rapidity and even its fluidity when it settles and congeals so when the Appetite stiffens it self the motions of the rest of the Passions must cease or diminish If the Soul indeed shut it self up in Grief if it dilate it self in Joy if it retire it self in Fear we need not doubt but Constancy foreseeing these motions or arriving afterwards must needs hinder or restrain them bereaving the Appetite of the liberty or facility of moving it self by that stifness which she imprints in it But when the ills are without motion as injuries exiles poverty in a word all those which are not in the rank of Passions we cannot say that the Appetite properly and immediately resists them for that it cannot resist those things which move not as hath been said consequently those ills must then have had some motion but it resists them onely by opposing it self to those Passions which they usually cause Truly he that constantly suffers Poverty doth not properly resist Poverty but the grief the impatience the peevishness which follows after it And he that suffers death with a courage cannot truly resist death since it as yet is not but onely Fear Grief and Despair which the image of so frightful an ill raiseth up in the Soul Neither are all these things Ills in effect but onely as we know that they are so forasmuch as a Man who thinks not himself poor suffers not the Ills of Poverty and that there are many who effectually are so and who have the knowledge of it yet place it not in the ranck of Evils So that ill is not ill but from the knowledge and the resentment we have of it Now the knowledge is no true motion there being no part of the Soul which moves but the Appetite and therefore there is no resistance to be made against ill when it continues in the Knowledge but onely when it descends in the Appetitive part where it forms those Passions which the Soul may resist as hath been said Let 's return to our former Discourse and say That after having cleared all those dfficulties it seems as if nothing could hinder us from defining Constancy to be a motion of the Appetite whereby the Soul settles and stiffens herself in herself to resist those ills which assault her But this definition raiseth new doubts Wherein Hope and Constancy consist for if the Soul settle and stiffen it self in hope to resist difficulties and if this stiffening is the difference of the motion which distinguisheth this Passion from the rest as hath been said Constancy to which we give the same definition is nothing different from Hope or that neither of them are well defined If indeed we ought to consider in the Passions nothing but the simple agitation which the Appetite gives it self this consequence certainly were infallible but it is not the onely thing which specifies the Passion there is another motive which regulates this motion which is as it were the form of it and restrains it to such or such a species So that according as the corporal motions are different the one from the other by the difference of the term and end which they tend unto those of the Soul are diversified by the several motives she proposeth to herself So we have observed that she equally darted
instead of it when it hath no cause to fight whether we despise the enemy or because its forces are not sufficient to assault it Wherefore the same causes and the same preparatives which serve the one do also serve the other And certainly after the Soul hath found its forces to be equal with those of the enemies which assaults her she assures herself that she shall not be conquered and consequently she hath no cause to be affraid In pursuit whereof she takes a Resolution to resist him and for that cause she raiseth her forces that she may stiffen and confirm herself in herself and if it be necessary she causeth the same motion to be made in the outward organs As for Courage it 's certain that it 's in common with Boldness and with Constancy for the Reasons alleadged in the former Chapter CHAP. III. What the motion of the Spirits and of the Humors is in Constancy SInce the spirits follow the motions of the Soul How the Spirits stiffen themselves and that they always move as she moves if it be true that she stiffens herself in Constancy they must needs also suffer the same agitation so that since we have treated of their stiffening in the Discourse of Hope it seems that we should have nothing more to say here unless we should repeat those things which we have there already examined Yet besides that the nature of this motion is extreamly hid neither is the repetition of these obscure and difficult things useless and that it would be troublesom to seek far off what ought to be here known it 's fit we should repeat a part of the things which we have said adding thereunto some new considerations for the better clearing of the Subject We must first therfore remember that the Spirits stiffen themselves not by congealing themselves as it happens in some diseases forasmuch as that would render them immoveable and that this Passion hinders them not from being carried to those places where they are necessary nor restraining and taking themselves up in themselves for that they cannot restrain themselves but they must retire inwardly and then it must needs be that contrary to the nature of Constancy the face must look pale and change colour the blood with which they are mixed being forced to follow them and as they do to abandon the exterior parts They therefore stiffen themselves by the intermission of the Soul which subjects their parts to a certain order under which it restrains them without being more free or Vagabonds as before they were But to conceive this kinde of motion which is extreamly hid and most difficult to be conceived we must make use of the same example which we formerly made use of and imagine that it herein happens near upon as water which settles and congeals For those parts which before were fluid being seised by the cold which is insinuated amongst them stop and become firm without confounding or mixing themselves together whilst all the body of the water so settled may be transported from one place to another and the current of Rivers often draws along with it great pieces which tear down those Bridges and Dams which they meet in their way But with what rapidity soever they are then carried away their parts change neither the position nor the order which they keep amongst themselves without penetrating they amongst one another maintain themselves and they remain firm without confounding themselves just as long time as the cold keeps them bound and captivated The Soul doth the same in the Spirits she sheds and slides herself into all their parts and being she may place them as she pleaseth she stops them in what order she will and lead them as it were by the hand to the place she assigns them so that how fluid soever they be the one cannot be mixed with the rest and what agitation soever they suffer they remain stable in that rank wherein they are placed Now although this comparison may give us some knowledge of the condition wherein the spirits are in this Passion yet it shews us not what is most difficult to be known for it supposeth and it 's true that the parts of congealed water are no longer in motion and we pretend that the spirits have one which entertains this stiffening We must therefore seek another example which may make this truth appear and have more relation to the Soul then cold hath or any other sensible quality Without doubt How the Angels stiffen Bodies this is to be found in the firmness which the Angels may give to the Air and to some other fluid bodies for besides that they are substances which have a great natural conformity with the Soul it 's certain that they agitate their Bodies after the same manner as she doth the spirits and that the stiffness which she imprints on them excludes not motion as it happens to congealed water Let 's then suppose with the consent of the Schools that a certain space of Air be occupied by an Angel and that the Wind or some other Body seeks to move or penetrate it it 's a certain thing that the Angel may so stiffen it that he may stop all its endeavors so that he cannot be shaken or penetrated by them To know now how he can impose this firmness we must believe with the common opinion of Philosophers that the Angels have a motive vertue by which they move themselves and may also remove bodies and transport them from one place to another as all prophane and sacred Histories teach us In effect it must needs be that those things which work the one on the other must have some proportion together and there must be amongst them some common nature which must serve for the foundation and principle of their action Now there is nothing which can be common betwixt spiritual and corporeal substances but the motive Vertue and the Motion and therefore if they work the one on the other it must be by that means which being so the Angel cannot stiffen the Air but by the motion which it imprints in all its parts since it 's that onely which gives him power over bodies And to shew that this is true it is that he is able to be present with all those parts without stiffening them so that it 's necessary that he should raise up his vigor and agitate them thereby to imprint on them this quality If any should say that being thus moved they must needs either be driven be drawn be born or be turned because these are the several ways by which one thing may be moved by another and howsoever it may be done they must necessarily change place so that herein not changing it and remaining still in the same situation there is no probability to beleeve that they suffer any motion We must answer that it 's true that when the Angel imprints any motion in the Bodies he necessarily makes them change place unless
there happen some obstacle which hinders them Now there is nothing which can hinder them but a contrary motion because there is nothing common betwixt them but motion and consequently if there be no contrary motion in the parts of the Air it 's certain that the impression which the Angel will make on them will cause them to change situation If it happen that after having received it that they remain in the same condition they were they must have had a contrary motion which resists this impression and which being of equal force with it puts them in aequilibrio and keeps them as it were suspended without stiring from one side to the other wherein this firmness consists But what continuing thus firm and stable and not changing place can they be in motion Certainly We need not doubt it since it is by motion that they keep this situation and that we cannot deny but that the impression of the motion must be received therein but that it agitates on them and that she resists not the first motion which they made like as a great weight which we hold lifted up or high for although it still remain in the same place yet would it not forbear to have that motion which its weight gives it and we should be sensible of the effort it would make falling and returning to its centre Finally as it were nothing probable to say that a thing which were powerfully drawn on both sides by equal forces should suffer no motion because it would neither move on the one or on the other side nor that the arm we stiffen should be at rest because it still remains in the same place Philosophers and Physitians being all agreed that these are the most violent motions which bodies can suffer we must necessarily conclude that those parts of the Air which are stiffened by contrary motions are in motion although they remain stable and change not their situation Let us now apply this Doctrine to our subject and say that what the Angel doth in this encounter the Soul doth it on the spirits for although she be present to all their parts yet she renders them not stiff she must also move them and before that they also must be moved by a contrary motion so that being equally driven from one and another they can neither advance nor go back but remain immovable betwixt these endeavors and violences Now this firm motion which they ought to have may proceed from the Passions which agitate them Constancy seldom forming herself unless she be preceded by some other Passion or from the impetuosity they are driven unto in ships for being very moveable she easily makes them straggle from one the other as it happens to all fluid Bodies when they are agitated and then the Soul giving them a contrary motion proportionable to the first they had they retain it and stop them in a certain order which they change not unless one or the other cease But although in this condition they appear immoveable because they remain in the same situation they forbear not to be in motion as hath been already sufficiently demonstrated This is what the motion of the spirits is in Constancy Why the Spirits stiffen themselves Let 's now enquire the end and profit which the Soul proposeth it self in this firmness We must not doubt but she desires them for her defence and employs them to resist those ills which assault her but at first it seems as an unprofitable means for that design For if ills have no motion as Exile Infamy and Slavery this stifness were against them to no purpose for the reasons before alleadged and if they have any either they are Passions which are formed in the Appetite whose motions the spirits cannot hinder or they are Bodies whose violence they cannot stop In effect what can this stiffening do against the effort of Grief against the force of a blow against the weight of a burthen which falls on them No being so easily overcome as they are it seems that the Soul in vain useth them in these encounters and that in vain she opposeth herself against such powerful things against which she is not able to resist We must undoubtedly confess that she often abuseth herself in the motion which she gives those organs and that she doth not always get those succors which she ought to expect from them and that she even sometimes agitates them without any need For when she resists the Passions it 's certain that neither the stiffening of the Spirits nor any other motiâ— on of the Body whatsoever can be either necessary or useful unto her since they are actions proper unto her who never goes out of herself and so consequently is above all the efforts of the corporal organs Yet if she then ceaseth not to agitate them it is from that that the Appetite which stirs up these motions is a blind power which cannot judge when she ought to make use of those parts and they are destined to obey unto it it rather in this occasion commands them out of custom then out of design and they also are so obedient that we may say that at the least sollicitation it makes them that they put themselves in a readiness to assist it and that even they seem to prevent its orders and commands It is not so when the violence of corporal things is to be resisted the stifness of the spirits is therein so absolutely necessary not onely because they are bodies which may work powerfully on those things of the same Nature but also because they are the first which receives the Souls commands and carrieth them to all the rest of the parts for being employed in this commission they must needs take that esmotion which they ought to inspire in the rest of the organs and as an Ambassador ought to carry with him the sence of him who sent him and be throughly perswaded of what he is to make others beleeve they ought to be agitated with the same motions which the Appetite suffers and of those which they would imprint on the rest of the parts so that they stiffen not themselves immediately to resist the forces of the enemy but that they may stiffen the Muscles and the Nerves against them and so powerfully resist their violence And truly we may consider the body as a great Machine wherein are several Springs which move one another The first go slowly and seem almost not to move although it is they which make the great Wheels to turn and cause those great motions which are observeable in them The Spirits are the same thing we hardly feel their motion neither is it they which perform the last actions yet they lead the dance to all the rest of the organs and did that Spring but fail all the Machine would become immoveable neither could the Body act any more But the principal reason for the which in my opinion they thus move is that their stiffening contributes
to maintain the Muscles which in this occasion ought to be stiff for the Soul which knows that all motion is to be made on somewhat which is stable stiffens as much as it may the parts upon which those which are agitated are supported so that often she holds back the breath that that air which is stopped in the Lungs may serve to uphold the instruments of respiration which thereby the better support the rest as hath been elsewhere shewed She therefore affords this stiffening of the Spirits to uphold those vessels wherein they are inclosed and afterwards they support those parts which touch them and they again the rest to the very last which serves for a foundation and basis to the principal motion which is made for although it seems that such frail and moveable things are not very fit for that use yet as the number of the Wheels and Springs augments the force of the motions so the number of Butteresses and Upholders renders the resistance the stronger and sometimes for want of the least a whole Building falls to the ground It 's true that if all the stifness of the Body were onely grounded on the Spirits it would be very doubtful and suspitious But as all the rest of the parts also stiffen themselves of themselves or at least by the intermission of the Soul if the spirits contribute never so little it still helps to make the resistance stronger and this small succour being joyned with several others produceth at last a great effect Let us hereunto add that being in this condition those which carry with them natural heat wherein the force of the parts principally resides they retain and fix it if we may so speak in those places where such actions are to be performed and not suffering it to retire inwardly nor dissipating it outwardly they stop and preserve it in those organs which have need of its service These are the Reasons for which the spirits in Constancy stiffen themselves What change Constancy brings in natural heat but the last gives us occasion to examine what change this Passion brings to the natural heat for if the spirits stop as we have now said it seems as if it should be the more quiet and the more moderate yet this ought not to hinder us from following the general maxims which we established in the Discourse of Boldness and from saying that when the Soul hath need of its forces she raiseth them and renders them as vigorous as shee can that there is no occasion in which they can be more necessary unto her then when she assaults or defends herself And that heat being the most considerable part she must augment it and stir it up in those Passions which are to serve these designs and consequently she must render it greater and stronger in Constancy then it naturally ought to be This principally appears to be in those which are of a cold and dull complexion or which are moved by some timerous Passion for when this comes to animate them they feel themselves warmed with I know not what kinde of extraordinary flame their pulse and respiration encreaseth their face takes a more lively colour and all their parts become more agile and more robustious then they were before It 's true that heat is not so active nor pungent in this as in Boldness and Anger having not the liberty to diffuse it self through the organs being restrained by the spirits which are stiffened and because it is not necessary it should be so strong in a Passion which is not undertaking and which keeps it self onely upon the defensive We may perhaps say that if the Soul ought to augment its forces proportionable to the need she hath she ought herein to render the heat stronger then in any other occasion whatsoever having an enemy in front which appears invincible which also hath the advantage to be the Assailant under whose efforts she often believes she must succumb But we may answer that it 's true that she hath here need of all her forces that she raiseth them and employs them for her defence but it 's onely those which are fit for that purpose since she would in vain use others which are destined to assault being not in a condition to do so and having neither the Will nor the Courage now the violence of heat is onely proper the more strongly to work and to destroy the power of the enemy in which consists the end of the Combate and of Boldness and therefore it 's nothing necessary in Constancy which hath no such great pretentions and which hath nothing else to do but to keep the Soul stiff and to render the organs firm against those evils which assault it It 's certain that heat is encreased therein but it is but to a certain degree proportionable to the design and capable to give the organs that force which is necessary for them to execute it For it is not here as with those Passions which tend to good in which heat encreaseth without order and without conduct because it is not therein ordered by the Soul that is it is not called thither as a useful thing for her end and that it is but an effect which happens to the agitation of the spirits But in this and in all the rest which assault the Soul herself takes care to produce heat she proposeth to herself to use it profitably and she regulates it as she thinks fit So that we may say that in this occasion she doth like a subtil Artist who knows how to order his fire for his works for some he makes it slow and moderate for others strong and violent and sometimes he forceth it to the height the Soul doth the same she knows to what degree of heat she ought to rise in every of the Passions in Constancy she makes it moderate strong in Boldness but in Anger she drives it to all extremity This is what we had to say on the motion of the Spirits for to know how they can preserve their stifness when they are agitated by other Passions is what we have examined in the Discourse of Hope As for the motion of the Humors it necessarily follows that of the Spirits which are ever mixt with them and it 's impossible to fancy that they should stiffen themselves in Constancy but we must presently judge they also ought to suffer the same agitation CHAP. IV. The causes of the Characters of Constancy WE have said that Constancy and Boldness were Sisters whose features and lineaments were so like that a man might often take the one for the other and indeed they have many Characters which are common to either as Hope Confidence Assurance in dangers Presumption Temerity Desire of glory and the like but they also have some which are particular for Constancy is not as Boldness is Imperious neither is she subject to Anger to Insolency nor to Cruelty which the other is often carried away withal She hath this
or continually to keep ones Arms stiff then if we used them to different motions because that all the Muscles agitate therein without taking any rest and herein there is but a part engaged which rests also when the other is in action Every muscle in particular grows stiff when its work operates but that is because it grows hard now it hardens by pressing and contracting the parts together for having no other action but to contract and shut up it self to bring towards it the members it ought to move it must needs take up less room and therefore its parts must be the more streightned whence this hardness comes Which although it happens out of necessity forbears not also to be sought for by the Soul as a thing which may render the body stronger and the less exposed to injuries and it is for the same reason that the skin of Animals streightens it self when they will defend themselves whence it follows that their hair and feathers stand on end as we have elsewhere declared Besides this stifness the Muscles and the skin may also acquire another by tention But because there are two sorts of it the one which is made by drawing strongly those things which may be extended as a rope or parchment the other of filling them with some body as a baloon it 's certain that Constancy cannot render those parts firm and strong by this but onely by the former And this happens when the Muscles cause a member to bend very much for those which are opposed to them and which do not agitate are constrained to lengthen out and extend themselves and by this extention they become firm and so render the skin hard It 's thus that this Passion sometimes extends the hands that the inside which they oppose to the danger may become harder and consequently more fit to resist ill As for the Body it grows stiff not onely when all its parts are stiffened but also by the support and weight which it giveth it self Now it may be upheld by some exterior prop for the Soul which puts it self on the defensive seeks both in and out of it self all what can stiffen it So that when a man is assaulted he who hath somewhat at his back to stay him up and help to support him against the effort of his enemy may make the better resistance The body also upholds it self by the situation and posture which it takes for by advancing a foot or widening a little the legs it makes for it self as it were a prop or a butteress to support it self which hinders it from being overturned on that side it rests on Add also how it also enlargeth its Basis and doth that which Art ordains for great pillars which are better upheld the larger and greater the pedestal is Lastly by making it self weighty it s less subject to be shaken because that augmenting its weight it the better resists the motion of those things which beat against it and so renders it more firm and more stable in its situation But how can it make it self heavy Certainly it is not that it hath more weight then it had but it is that it makes it more efficient by the motion which it gives it self for weighty things have much more strength and make incomparably a greater impression when they are moved when the Body therefore stiffens it self it burthens all the superior parts on the lower and those pressing the earth by the motion of the Muscles which are destined for that purpose they make an effort which augments the force of the weight which they sustain and so render the Body more firm and less easie to be shaken Besides these motions this Passion employs also that of the Hands to oppose herself against the shock she is threatened withal for as they are parts destined to the service of the body she freely exposeth them and hazards them to save it from danger and useth them as Barriers to stop the enemy or as a Buckler to receive the assaults for which cause she opens them that she may cover and defend a greater space she extends them to render them stronger and harder and she advanceth them that she may break and dead the violence of the blows which she cannot hinder from falling on it This is what we had to say of the Characters of Constancy for the rest which we have observed in its description they belong unto her onely by reason of those Passions which sometimes mix themselves with her So Cries Sighs Tears Groans the weakness of the Body proceed all from Pain Indignation Threatnings Blows follow Boldness or Anger The sweetness of the Eyes the gayness of the Countenance arise from the contentment which Love Desire and Hope propose PART III. CHAP. I. The Characters of Anger ALthough Anger be a flame which Nature kindles in the soul of all Animals The Elogy of Anger and that it may be compared to that fire which shines in the Stars for the preservation of the Universe It 's strange that it 's almost never considered but as a frightful Comet which declares and produceth nothing but fire and sword and that Humane Reason should be so unjust as always to condemn a Passion which always fights for Reason and for Justice Yes without doubt since she is onely raised in the Soul to repel injuries and to chastise those she believes have unjustly offended her we may boldly say that she never arms herself but against Violence and ever sides with Reason and Equity It is not but that men which abuse all the most useful presents of Nature do often make it serve evill designs but besides that to judge according to Reason of the price and value of things we must not consult concerning the abuses which are found in them nor the ill use which may be made of them It 's certain that when she appears most unjust she hath motives which seem equitable that she must at least have the appearance of Justice to oblige her to take arms and that if she be deceived therein it is not she that is to be accused but rather Malice and Error who call her to their releif As we do not blame Souldiers who are of a Princes Guard when they follow him in temerous enterprises and that it 's sometimes the duty of a good Subject to obey a Tyrant neither must we condemn Anger which was submitted to Reason to serve for its guard and defence when she follows it in its irregularities and obeys its orders how unjust soever they be In a word it is not in corruption we are to seek the purity of Anger we must go back to its source and enquire in the first channels wherein it runs if it hath Vertues and Qualities useful for life and worthy the praise we have given it If it be then true that she comes from Nature and that this Nature is nothing else but the Art of God and the effusion of his goodness and wisdom
the grief we have of seeing ones self unjustly slighted besides that Beasts are not touched with scorn who nevertheless are susceptible of this Passion there are a thousand encounters wherein we may be provoked to Anger without having cause to believe we have been slighted as when we are angry with our selves or against insensible things If instead of this slighting you put Injury the same difficulty remains entire since it 's very probable that Beasts know not injustice nor consequently Injury and that there are many things which make us angry at which we cannot justly be offended Add also that a man may have the grief to see himself offended and the desire of being revenged without being angry for the motion of Grief and that of Desire which belongs to the Concupiscible Appetite seem not as if they should enter into the essence of this Passion besides they should tell us what Vengeance is and why we desire it for if to revenge ones self be nothing but to retort the ill on him who afflicted it causing him to suffer the same pains There is no likelihood that a man should be angry with himself or insensible things seeing no man would be revenged on himself and that it is impossible and useless against those things that are without sence To say likewise that it 's a rising in the Soul whereby she overcomes those difficulties which traverse her designs This definition would be too general seeing it befits also Boldness and that therein the Soul may raise it self without being moved by Anger for I mind not those who say that this rising up is not an Appetite since it 's a received maxime That all motion of the Appetitive part is called the Appetite To conclude the worst of all those is that which raiseth it to an ebullition or fixing the blood about the heart for it it not therein that the essence of Anger consists that is only its effect it being certain that all Passions are impermanent actions which are formed in the Soul before she agitates the Body and principally the humors which are no parts of it These are the difficulties which are entertained in common opinion the method which we hold and the principles which we have established render not the thing the more easie For after having shewed that the Soul which will not flye before the enemy hath but two courses to take to wit Resistance and Assault which are Constancy and Boldness it seems as if we had exhausted all the springs whence Anger might proceed as if we were obliged to confound it with one or other of these two Passions Indeed it raiseth it self up against ill it assaults it it would overcome it even as Boldness so that they seem both to have but the same object the same motive and the same motion and therefore to be but one Passion since these three things which make the difference of all the esmotions of the Soul render them equal and every way alike Yet since it 's undoubted that they are different and that by experience we know there are ills which move Boldness and not Anger that this is more impetuous and turbulent then the other and that there are many persons which are cholerick as Children Women and those that are sick which we cannot call Bold there must necessarily be some circumstances and some conditions in their causes which must make the difference let 's first therefore examine the matter and the object of this Passion and consider whether it be truly the same which raiseth Boldness In the former Discourse we have shewn What ill is Anger 's object That the word Ill did not onely signifie the effect which properly is ill but also the cause which produceth it And this distinction is so necessary for the knowledge of the Passions that there are some which have no other object but the ill it self as Grief others which consider onely the cause as Anger Hope and Despair Lastly others which confound them together as Boldness Hatred Aversion and Fear Now Anger assaults nothing but the cause onely of ill for a man cannot be angry with an injury which he may have received but with him who did it Quite contrary Boldness looks on the danger without often considering whence it happens But as there are causes which produce ill without knowledge as others which effect it without design if we considerately examine those which Anger assaults we shall always finde them agitating with design for we are not provoked to anger against a stone which hurts us but against him who threw it And what ill soever we suffer it will never raise this Passion if we do not imagine that there is some cause which had an intention to make us suffer it Yet because he who chastiseth with a purpose to do ill doth not always provoke Anger there must be one kinde of ill proper to move this Passion which being properly moved may cause the Soul to rise against that which is the cause thereof Others as we have already said will have it be Scorn there being nothing more powerful to provoke Anger nor any ill which a man more impatiently suffers yet since Children and Beasts are not sensible of it who nevertheless are often touched with this Passion and that we every day see very many who patiently suffer Scorn who are all in a fury if you do but take from them what they believe is their due Finally we are angry with our selves with chance with insensible things by which we can no ways be despised so that we must confess there must be some other ill which moves Anger Others will have it to be an Injury men indeed are never so angry as against those by whom they think they have been unjustly offended And when we think the offence hath been done without design or believe that we have deserved it we no longer seek to revenge it On the other side it seems as if Beasts cannot know injuries since they know not unjust things and so we must say that they are not susceptible of Anger could injuries onely provoke it But if we consider that Children who have not the use of Reason and whose knowledge is not much different from that of Beasts forbear not to know when they are unjustly offended that a Lyon is not angry with a stone or a thorn which hurts it that there are Beasts fierce enough which in play suffer ill without seeking revenge and are seldom angry with Children It 's very probable that there is some kinde of justice amongst them that they know there are ills which they ought not suffer and that they know who offends them out of design not that they have the knowledge of things so clear and so distinct as men may have but the same instinct which guides them to their end without their pretending to arrive thereunto affords them also the knowledge of the wrong which is done them without discerning it It 's true there
is they are onely preservative remedies For although we say that the ill committed may be repaired by chastisement that the equality of Justice demands punishments for those who have offended as well as rewards for those which have done well And finally That it 's just that he who hath lift up himself above that degree wherein the Law hath placed him should be cast down by it and suffer pains for the pleasure he took in doing it Yet the question remains still unresolved What the punishment doth against that fault which is committed since it takes not away the ill which is done nor the blemish or deformity it may have left in the Soul since even those sufferings have not that power And truly all the difficulty is concerning those punishments that God inflicts in the life to come for as for those which the natural and civil Law have prescribed we may say with the greatest men of Antiquity that they respect the future onely having no other end then to make him better who did the ill or to restrain others in their duty by the example or to provide for the safety of him who may be offended But all these motives have no place in those chastisements which the wicked suffer after death since they will then be no longer in a capacity to correct them and that they last to eternity wherein the example will be useless and where those whom they would offend need no longer have any thing to fear What design therefore hath Divine Justice proposed it self in those long and severe punishments For we must have a a care that we fall not into the error of those who say God hath no other design in punishing but to punish it were to offend his Wisdom and his Justice to make them act without being guided by that soveraign Equity which renders to every man according to his deserts It 's true that those he punishes deserve to be punished but why do they deserve it because they have offended him And why doth the offence deserve punishment since we cannot hinder the ill from having been done and that the pain hath no proportion with the offence nor with the satisfaction which God may require there being no likelihood that the ill which he inflicts on them can or ought to satisfie I know that in the design I have to endeavor to resolve such great difficulties by my particular sentiments some will say it 's a great temerity to seek to fathom the profundity of the Counsels and Judgments of God that they are mysteries which are rather to be adored with humility then examined with presumption and that those who dare enquire after reasons for their chastisements are in danger of such punishments as that Equitable Judge prepares for them Moreover if we are obliged to speak of it we must follow the already received Maxims and go by the ordinary road without taking by-ways which in all such cases are always dangerous But I shall oppose this advice onely with the respect and submission wherewith I undertake to speak of things which are towards men ineffable and incomprehensible The necessity which this subject imposeth on me to seek all the motives of punishments that so I might find that which Anger proposeth to its self in Revenge and the liberty which every man takes to speak what he thinks on questions which admit of no certain decision Whereupon I suppose I may with security propose my opinion hereupon since others do not satisfie the difficulties which are to be found therein and that even according to mine advice they do not sufficiently make known that soveraign Equity which God observes in his judgements We may therefore say That when God hath ordained Punishments he considered the future no more then the civil Laws do and had no other design but to keep men in their duty by the severity of punishments and to hinder them by the terror of sufferings from offending him and rendring themselves unworthy of his grace But because this forewarning were useless unless he executed what he hath ordained he at last makes the guilty suffer the punishment wherewith he before had justly threatned them not that he would thereby repair the ill committed or satisfie the offence done him but because he is faithful and true so that threatning and establishment of the Law is a work of his Justice which ought to hinder ill but the execution is an effect of his faithfulness which ought to maintain his Justice For which cause when the holy Scripture wherein we ought to learn the manner how we are to speak of divine things says that God is just it commonly adds that he is true and faithful all its pages are full of the fidelity of his Laws and of his Judgements and when it represents the history of things which happen after they were foretold it precisely observes that they happened that the prophecy might be fulfilled As if the event were onely to render God in his word true and faithful and to shew that his Justice and his Goodness cause him to make Laws and Decrees but that after they are made it 's his fidelity which obligeth him to put them in execution And truly did Justice exact punishment and that it were necessary to repair an offence by its chastisement we could never be pardoned without offending Justice and he who would remit the pain due to crimes would remain responsible to the Justice which of right belongs unto it And consequently Clemency Mercy and Lenity how excellent soever those Vertues are would be useless and contrary to reason To avoid these inconveniencies we must conclude that it is not the Justice but the Fidelity of the Law which exacts punishments and so neither is pardon contrary to Justice and if there be ought else which it seems to clash withal it 's the Fidelity of the Law which the Legislator in particulars may dispence withal since the Law is a floating general thing which is not determined to any in particular In effect the Prince hath power to diminish or change chastisements he sometimes suffers an innocent to suffer punishment for the guilty and believes he hath satisfied the Law when the punishment it ordained hath been executed on him who imputed on himself the crime of the guilty Finally this reason to me seems the more receivable because it easily resolves that great difficulty which Theology hath always held of the eternity of pain for to say that pain ought to be infinite because it respects an infinite object this and all other reasons which are commonly given do not fully satisfie the Mind and still leave some doubt why Divine Justice should exact an eternal punishment for a crime committed in a moment what necessity is there the chastisement should be infinite because the object is infinite and what satisfaction can God have of an offence which most commonly hurts onely him who committed it But if it be true that God ordains
caused by that violent transport of Humors we have spoken of It 's thus that in malignant Feavers we see so many sad and unlook'd for accidents happen which astonish the Physitian and overthrow the Patient But this Discourse concerns Physick let us pursue our design and seek the causes of those Characters which are proper to this Passion CHAP. IV. The Causes of the Characters of Anger ALthough Anger be composed of Grief and Boldness and for the same cause its probable it should have no other Characters but those which those two Passions separately produce yet as in all other things mixture affords new vertues or so confounds those which are principal that it makes them appear altogether different from what they were it also happens that Anger besides those Characters which are common to her with Boldness and Grief it hath others particulars added unto it which are not at all to be found in the other if at least they encounter it is with very great difference Indeed if we do but consider these which it forms in the Soul it hath even as Boldness Hope Confidence and Freeness it hath just as Grief Peevishness Impatience and Heaviness But Pride Fury and Despair are far different herein from those which accompany those two Passions for if Boldness is proud it hath strength to maintain its Pride if it be carried away with Fury it 's after great strivings and it never happens at its beginning If finally Grief easily fall into Despair it 's a timorous base heedless despair but Anger hath a Boldness which is commonly vain and without any ground a precipitate fury kindled at the instant of its birth and when it is in despair of revenge it 's a temerous violent and enraged Despair Besides which it in particular makes great threatnings speaks much discovers its secrets it 's credulous impudent and opinionate it 's base cruel and insolent But this diversity appears also in the corporal Characters as we shall make it known after we have examined the causes of these Let 's therefore begin with Hope Why Hope devanceeth Anger which ever gives a beginning to Anger for it 's certain that this Passion is never kindled in the heart what injury soever a man hath received or what desire soever to retort it but first he hopes to have his revenge So that we are seldom angry with those that are extreamly above us Demons or dead bodies although they may offend us will never provoke us and it hath seldom been seen that a man of a low condition hath been carried away with wrath against his King or against his Lord forasmuch as such persons are so high that they seem to be out of reach and that it is as it were impossible to do them any harm and that so having no hope of being revenged they find it 's to no end to be angry with them But since this Hope cannot be founded but on those forces which we believe we have How weak persons hope to be revenged and that Natures which are most weak such as are Women and Children and sick persons are extreamly susceptible of Anger how is it possible they should hope to be revenged having not the power and carrying always about them a secret sence of their own weakness as hereafter we shall make it appear Certainly it 's easie to judge by those vain endeavors which they make in these encounters that it 's from the error of their thoughts and that the Soul suffers it self often to be deceived in the Judgment she makes of her forces Now this error commonly proceeds from the motion of heat which awakens and augments it self in this Passion for as we have said in the Discourse of Boldness this quality taking part with the corporal forces being seated in the Heart and being if we may so speak nearest the Irascible Appetite it cannot be irritated nor increased without the Souls being abused with a vain opinion which it perswades that she is strong enough to undertake great matters It 's as with a Prince who hearkens onely to generous counsels to whom his power and greatness are onely represented and who sees no man that provokes him not to take up arms For how weak soever he is incessantly finding himself sollicited by those violent Ministers having his ears always filled with their flatteries he at last suffers himself to be perswaded and without considering his impotency engageth himself in temerous undertakings the Soul often doth the like in the weakest bodies when natural heat kindles it self it the Heart seeing nothing about it if we may so speak but this floating and unquiet quality being every moment provoked by its ardor and by its vivacity and suffering it self to be surprised by the ostentation she makes of her power and vertue she at last imagines her forces are greater then indeed they are and without remembring her weakness she resolves to combate the ill and flatters herself with the hope of obtaining the Victory But it may be enquired what it is which then thus irritates and augments this heat What it is that irritates heat in weak persons forasmuch as if it be the Soul as we have said which employs it to destroy the ill she must needs hope to overcome it before she will offer to make use of it since the design always goes before those means which are proper to execute it and that in effect the Passions are immanent actions which form themselves in the Soul before the Body resents them for there is no question but Hope accompanies strong and robustious constitutions where it is not necessary that heat should be irritated to raise up this Passion it 's enough for them that they know their forces and are assured of them but here where weakness is whereof the Soul hath the knowledge and which consequently ought to make her mistrust herself there must needs be something to animate her courage In a word it 's necessary Heat should be augmented before Hope can be therein formed And yet we see nothing which can raise it since we suppose that there is nothing in the Soul but Grief which proceeds from the injury received and that this Passion far from encreasing heat is that which diminisheth and at last extinguisheth it To resolve this difficulty we must discover a secret which hath not hitherto been discovered in the Passions That there are Passions in the lowermost part of the Soul and say that in all Animals there are two Appetites the one which is sensitive and the other which is natural that both pursue what is profitable and flie what is ill And that both of them again raise themselves up against what is contrary unto them to overcome it For it 's certain that in sickness Nature irritates herself against ill and stirs up her forces to drive it away and that this motion is answerable to Anger and to Boldness which form themselves in the sensitive Soul So that
the impetuosity and the boilings wherwith the blood and spirits are agited but we must presently judge that that is the cause which makes the Veins and Arteries swelled and extended and that all the rest of the parts are full and puffed up and whosoever shall represent to himself the impatience and the transport wherein the Soul is will nothing wonder at these motions which in this Passion the Body suffers The Head is lifted up and the Stature grows erect for as much as the Soul raiseth up herself to assault the Enemy And although he be absent she forbears not to put herself into this posture as if she were ready to throw herself on him for that the violence of those Passions which trouble her represent him to her thought as if he were truly present and as if he ought in effect to feel the blows she intends to inflict The frequent flinging out of the Arms The motion of the parts in Anger a light and quick pace a continual change of posture and place are effects which note the endeavors and sallies of the Soul the precipitation and impatience she hath to revenge herself But whence comes it that we set up our Hands by our sides when with anger and threatnings we quarrel with any man it is without doubt to confirm the parts that the Muscles of respiration which they uphold may the more powerfully operate and by that means the voice may have the more force and be the longer lasting For which cause we are never content to place our hands thus on our sides but that we also advance the Arms and the Elbows whereby enlarging and extending the Shoulders we render them for the same purpose more stiff As for those blows wherewith a man in Anger beats the ground and all what comes under his hands or under his feet it 's very likely that they are such means as the soul useth to give a repulse to those difficulties which traverse her designs and that the trouble and blindness she is in causing her to take all things for true obstacles which stop her she strikes against she drives and she beats them as it were to break them and to put them by or else they are the effects of a precipitated Vengeance which Anger doth discharge on the first Objects it meets having not either the patience or the power to make them be rescued by its real Enemy It 's thus that Dogs bite the stones which are thrown at them it is thus we break the Sword which wounded us in a word it is thus we revenge our selves on our selves and above all its what concerns those from whom we have received an injury But what reason can we give for all those shakings of the Head which are remarkable in this Passion Whence the shakings of the Head What can oblige the Soul to move it one while to the right and then to the left sometimes up and sometimes down and sometimes on one side onely And to what end doth she cause these so extravagant motions and so different the one from another For to conclude that they are signs and natural effects which Anger produceth in all men of what Nation or of what constitution soever they are So that if Nature doth nothing in vain she must herein have her causes and reasons as well as in her greatest and most considerable actions It is true in my judgement they are very hard to be known and it is with them as with most part of things which hide them selves so much the more unto the Mind the more they discover themselves unto the Sences and which are as difficult to be comprehended as they are easily remarkable And certainly as all natural things are made for some end or out of necessity we cannot say but that the alteration of the Body or the agitation of the Humors must cause these motions by a necessary consequence as it happens in the redness of the Face in the wrinckles of the Forehead in the splendor of the Eyes and the like which are formed by necessity without being destined for any use and if we would place them in the rank of actions which are performed for some end it is nothing easie to observe what motive the Soul therein proposeth it self no what service she pretends to draw from thence To give further light to these obscurities you must first know whether these motions are not in other Passions and afterwards seek those motives for the which they were therein formed and lastly to see whether they may be applied to Anger It is certain that we use to shake the Head and to give it readily two or three turns about when any thing displeaseth Why we toss the Head as especially when we refuse or disapprove of any thing when we are sensible of an ungrateful smel or when we tast ought that is disgustful For which cause the vulgar commonly call Wine when it is not good Wine with two ears because it makes those two parts move when we turn the Head from one side to the other and that by that motion we would signifie that we found it to be naught But what relation can this action have with these sentiments Is it not that the Soul would turn away the face where the organs of the sences are from those objects which are displeasing to it as she useth to fix them on those which please Or that she seeks by that endeavor to estrange from her what is troublesome At least it is thus that when any thing incommodates those parts we shake them about to drive them away for although this in these encounters we speak of be useless unto it yet are they nothing extraordinary since she often deceives herself in the same manner upon other occasions wherein she abuseth those means which Nature hath prescribed her to attain her ends employing them in others where they are of no use as hath been shewed speaking of that water which Desire causeth in the Mouth and of the motion of the Brows at the sight of distasteful things Or we may rather say that this shaking of the Head is a mark the Soul would make of the impression which some kind of objects make on her and that it is an outward image of that action which she performs in herself For it is her custom that when she would have that appear outwardly which is done within she causeth those motions of the organs which have some relation and resemblance with her own as we may judge by the laughter of the looks and by all those other effects whereof we have spoken in this Work And certainly since that at the encounter of pleasant things she makes particular signs which make known the sence she hath of them she must needs also have some for those which are displeasing So that if she sweetly casts down the Head when good presents it self unto her as it happens when we meet a friend when we approve a