them their error and to fight them with the Weapons wherewith they maintain their Principles For if Death be inevitable if there be no Altars of protection against her Arrests if no man have been yet able to secure himself from her and if that by which we live be the means of our Death why are we so much afraid of it And why do we afflict our selves for the suffering of a pain for which Nature hath no remedy We are born under this Law we came into the world to go out of it our Ancestors have beaten the Road and all those who shall come after us will find themselves bound to suffer the punishment of their first Fathers offence Who is not moved with compassion to see Lewis XI when affrighted with the horror of Death he courts the Physicians he promiseth them mountains of Gold to reform his temper and by excessive presents engaged them to give him length of years For as if Divine Providence had forsaken him and that his days had been in the hands of Men he summoned the Hermits from the Forrests and conjured them to request the continuation of his Health by their Prayers and without taking care to amend his Life he only chargeth them with the preservation thereof Sometimes being utterly void of all heavenly confidence he shuts himself up in his Closet causeth all avenues to be stopt the doors to be barracadoed the windows to be close shut and as if Death had not been able to pierce the place of his Retreat he converted his Pallace into a Prison Unhappy man what art thou afraid of is it not what thou must one day undergo Why art thou affrighted at that which is in thy power not to be troubled at Chace from thy Soul this Panick fear resign thy self to Gods Will forgo this vain superstition that renders thee guilty before him and then shalt thou see that thy departure may become an offering to expiate thy offences that Death is but the way of Life and that thou mayst be eternally happy for having generously despised it Though Nature have brought forth nothing into the world that is to endure to eternity though all her workmanship be condemned to dissolution and though all that we behold is but for a few days nevertheless we may say that nothing is totally lost that her labours are rather extinguisht than annihilated and that Death doth not so much determine as interrupt them If the Summer pass away if the Sun retire from our Horizon if the Flowers forsake their Beds and if in our Fields we see no remains of the Vintage and Harvest another year restores them to us and all those Beauties which we look upon as vanisht recover and renew the Face of the Earth by the same means which seemed to have caused their annihilation If Winter steal away if the Snow dissolve and leave bare the tops of our Houses if the Frost cease to harden our Rivers and if the North-wind forbear to shake our Buildings it comes again after a little time and his Months though departed for a while fail not to return to make good his season If darkness prevail upon the light if night hide the Sun from us and if its obscurity keep Earths Beauties from our Eyes the day following causeth the shaddows to flee away and makes us restitution of the Lights which the precedent darkness had deprived us of The Stars which are never at rest which are in perpetual motion and rowl continually over our heads hasten to the point from whence they departed and reassume their Course by the same degrees by which they began their Motions It is with Man as with other Creatures he dies to live again the parts of which he is composed return to their principle as his Body descends to the Earth his Soul mounts to Heaven and escaping her Prison she flies unclog'd to her original Neither do we see any but impious or criminal persons that fear this separation and look upon it as their most rigorous punishment wherewith Divine Justice can chastise them they tremble when they are told of Death they dread the judgments of God which they have despised and are unwilling to leave the Earth because they do not hope to reign in Heaven But just men look on Death without Fear they submissively expect it and wish for it as the ease of their miseries they calmly prepare for it and knowing it to be the Sepulchre of Vice and the Cradle of Vertue they cease not to supplicate the arrival of their change They know by Faith that the World is but a place of banishment that Heaven is their native Country and that they shall one day be called home to receive the reward of their Labours Descend into those solitudes of the ancient Anchorites and you shall there find the examples of this truth there you shall see men who are continually employed in the contemplation of Death who think only upon the day in which they shall be discharged from the Earth who expect it with joy and convert the most dreadful of our punishments into their ordinary imployments Break into their Cells there you shall find them who are loaden with Irons who having their flesh torn with the Whip lean with fasting weakened with watching wish for the end of their Life and like those generous Athletes or Wrestlers of old offer Combat to obtain Death the recompence of their Valor and Courage But waving these Christian Sentiments and to return to Philosophical Arguments I do not well apprehend why we are so much afraid of Death since it brings us so much advantage and that putting an end to our days it makes us infinitely happy or renders us uncapable of further offences For if we have lived as vertuous persons if we have not misspent the time given us for the working out of our Salvation and if we have well employed the moments of our Life why are we unwilling to be taken from it and why desire we not rather to lose it since Death by which it is determined is the passage to a blessed Eternity But if we have gone astray from our duty and if we have been Prodigals of our time why seek we to prolong it and to augment the number of our sins by the extension of our years If we are innocent let us not fear to appear before the Judg and if we are guilty let us not take it in evil part that Heaven calls us from the Earth and taking from us the means of farther Crimes prevents the increase of our Creator's Anger It is to be ignorant of our own condition to fancy that Death is a cruel thing and not to look upon it rather as a favor than a grief of Nature For be it that she give date to the happiness of the just be it that she finish the miseries of the afflicted be it that she give the aged a long day of payment be it that
attempted their Liberty and did sufficiently testifie by their enterprizes that they could no longer endure the Government of a Man who had rob'd them of their freedom Brutus engaged covertly in the Conspiration and though he forced himself in hiding the matter from his Wife he could not so well dissemble it but she perceived and observed by the change of his Countenance the disturbance of his Soul Fearing then that her Husband mistrusted her weakness and that he durst not tell her a secret which might be the price of his Life if it took air resolved to make tryal upon her self whether she could keep it undisclosed for retiring into her Chamber and putting out her Servants she laid hold on a Razor which she lets into her Thigh her wound bleeds in abundance her members grow feeble by loss of Blood a Feaver slides into her Veins and seemed to lead her toward the Grave when Brutus entering the Room and surprized by an accident so little expected informed himself of the cause and circumstances Porcia constrained them that assisted her to withdraw prayed her Husband to sit down and promised to tell him her self the original of her indisposition You know said she Brutus that when I came into your House it was not in the quality of a Miss or of a Concubine and that I preferred not your Alliance before that of so many Roman Gentlemen to be only the Companion of your Table and Bed but to lie in your bosom to be the Confident of your Secrets and to have my proportion as well of your misfortunes as of your felicities It is not that I accuse Heaven or complain that you are my Husband but only that you look not upon me as your Wife You must not imagine that I am content with the duties of Marriage and that I expect from your person only those outward Caresses that unite our Bodies rather than our Wills and our Souls I aspire to greater things Brutus I require to be admitted of your privy Council and that you honor me as well with your Friendship as your Love This request is too just to be refused and if you judg it such why are you so reserved Why do you dissemble your troubles of mind and wherefore do you hide from me that glorious resolution you have taken to put a Tyrant to Death If you cannot hope for help from me and if my Sex forbid me to assist you in your undertakings you may at least expect from me some comfort or lessening of your griefs or misfortunes and may be assured that if I am not sufficiently strong to be your Second I shall have always courage enough to bear you company where ever ill luck or fate shall call you consider not the weakness of those of my condition but remember only that I am the Daughter of Cato and the Wife of Brutus and that if this Body which I received from my Father have not vigor enough to suffer death the love that I have vowed to thee Brutus shall make me constant in dispising it Then shewing him her wound see there said she Brutus see there the tryal which I have made thereof do thou now not scruple to open thy Bosom to me to reveal me thy designs know that within this Body is contained Cato's Heart and that if my Sex permit me not to follow thee in that Execution thou hast determined know that my courage is great enough to die for thee and with thee If a punctilio of Honor if a vehement desire of Fame and if a short obstinacy animated by vanity have caused some to triumph over Death conquer Pain and despise the rigor of Tortures what cannot Vertue do when she is supported by Integrity When she stands up for the preservation of Laws when she suffers for the defence of her Temples and her Altars Since she is composed in her Actions and preserves the same measures in delights as in torments Wherefore to acquire this insensibility of pain so familiar to the Stoicks and so little known to other Philosophers let us often have in mind the Actions of those generous men who by their Courage surmounted Tortures let us fortifie our selves against the apprehensions of Death let us not love our Bodies more than necessity requireth let us separate from Torments that solemnity which affrighteth us and let us perswade our selves that those ceremonies contain no more than what is despised by a man in his Bed sick of the Gout than what is endured by one at a Feast who is sick at his Stomach and what is undergone by a tender Woman in Child-bearing Discourse III. That a Wise Man is not afraid of Death and considereth it as the end of his miseries and the entrance to felicity DEath is so terrible and the horrors that attend it render it so dismal that the Lawyers have thought the Fear of it to be just and that it might be accounted among the number of those things which seized upon a man of Resolution They say that the acts then committed are rather forced than voluntary that our promises are not binding that our agreements are invalid and that as she deprives us of Liberty or hinders the use of Reason she acquitted us of performance and annulled our Contracts Divines who consider Death as the production of sin rather than the effects of our constitution conclude that she must needs be a great enemy to Nature since she is so much redoubted since she gives dread to all sensible Creatures and that those which we stile inanimate testified some kind of aversness to be separated from their Principle The Chicken hides at the approach of the Kite the Hare flies before the Dogs and we find nothing in Nature which useth not its force or industry to make defence against Death We cannot seperate the Marble from the Rocks but by violence the Trees groan under the blow of the Ax the Air shuns the Fire that rarifies it and all insensible as it is it makes opposition for self-preservation If the Animals saith St. Austin which were created purely for slaughter love life and are so much afraid of Death how should not man be therewith affrighted when it threatens him since he was born to live for ever and that he should never have seen seperation between his Body and his Soul if he had been careful of his own innocence Philosophers support the justice of their Fear by the necessity of Death they think it reasonable to redoubt an unavoidable evil and which though common to all men hath yet no remedy in Nature They accuse it of cruelty they say that it is she alone of all the Gods that will accept no Sacrifice who refuseth the offerings of men and that it is in vain to dedicate Temples to her or build her any Altars since she is equally blind and inexorable But what Reasons soever these men invent to excuse the apprehension of Death it is not hard to shew
blamed in a man but so far only as she passeth into excess yet doth Despair design her ruin it opposeth all her Principles and engageth the most tractable of all Creatures to become his own enemy He breaks those Cords of Love which bind him so strongly to himself it causeth hatred to succeed his Love and by a fury wherewith miserable souls and mad men only are possest it forceth him to be his own Executioner to put a period to his misfortunes I know that Seneca did allow his wise man this sentiment that it was his opinion that we might depart this World without offence that there was always Glory by letting in Death by our own hand and that that man was able to live at liberty who could die without constraint That a Wise Man was Master of his Life as well as his Actions that he was to live as long as he ought and not so long as he could and as he withdrew himself from a Feast when he was satisfied or quitted his sport when tired he was to leave the World when he became weary of it In fine he maintained that this Passion was an honor to him and that if it appertained to men of great courage sometimes to forsake the Earth in their prosperity it was a mark of folly in a man to desire to live being discontent and unhappy This sentiment is so often repeated in his Works that we cannot deny but he was of that opinion and I must give the lye to my own judgment if I would defend or justifie him in that escape But he seemeth to me excusable enough being a Stoick since his error proceeded from the Principles of the Sect he was of and for commending Despair in his Wise man since it passed in his time for the most glorious act of our courage yet no sooner was he undeceived in this Doctrine no sooner had Christianity forbidden Homicides and that no attempt could be made upon a mans self without breaking in upon the Rights of his Lord but he quitted his judgment he retracts from his errors and confirmed by the close of his Life the truth of his Belief For having received the Sentence of Death he would not execute it upon himself with his own hands he permitted his Veins to be opened by them about him and suffered them to let his Soul with the Blood out of his Body without his own assistance In a Letter which he writes to Lucilius he exhorteth a wise man not to deprive the Executioner of his Office and without fear to wait for the termination of his days he saith that there is fortitude in despising but not in hating of Life and that it is rather a sign of madness than of wisdom to work our own dissolution by the fear of dying Indeed amongst all the Passions of the Soul none are more sordid than Despair those that have made use of it to recover their Liberty or to deliver themselves from the Tyranny of Princes have not so much made proof of their constancy as of their weakness and they have passed among men rather for impatient than couragious persons Cato is not blamed in History but for having hearkened to the advice of Despair his Death is the shame of the Romans his homicide blemisheth all his other actions and what praises soever Seneca gives him in his Book of Providence he cannot be exempted from the imputation of cowardise in having recourse to Death to shun the power of a victorious enemy It is a defect of Courage not to be able to undergo Adversity to wish for Death because our Life is unpleasant and to anticipate the end of our Days to free our selves from pain and infamy Regulus to whom the like evil befell shewed himself much more generous to Posterity than this Philosopher for being fallen into the hands of the Carthaginians he would not lend his own to Despair that they might be deprived of the Glory of his overthrow and although he was become the Captive of them whom he had formerly vanquisht in pitcht Battel he chose rather to suffer in being their Servant than violently to ease himself of their Tyranny by the commission of a homicide He received his disaster without murmuring against Heaven he bore the Domination of his insulting Lords with patience he retained the same greatness of Courage in his Captivity as in his Authority and though far removed from the Roman People he ceased not to preserve his affection inviolable for them If his enimies loaded his body with Chains they could not tear from his Soul the love he had for his Country he was faithful to it in the midst of his miseries he made vows for its welfare and as he knew that he could not go out of the world without the leave of him that placed him in it he waited for Death from his Enemies without daring to prevent it by attempting upon his own life But Cato never surmounted Cesar if he became his Prince he was also become his Conqueror by the Law of Arms and if he deprived him of Liberty it was after he had subjected the Roman Commonwealth to his Authority Likewise his Despair is an evident sign of his imbecillity he did not kill himself but because he envyed Cesars fortunes and set not the Dagger to his breast but because he could not bear the prosperity of a victorious Antagonist If Despair be found guilty of infirmity we shall find her no less full of fury violence gives not way to weakness and as we deem a man a coward whose heart faileth him in the day of Adversity he is esteemed cruel when he contracts with Death for his deliverance Those Tyrants that break in upon our Lives come short of the violence of Despair they discharge their Rage only upon our Bodies they leave our minds at liberty and afflicting the meanest part of us they often see the more noble victorious over their Cruelty But Despair that exerciseth its fury upon both it depresseth the Soul with the Body it sets us wholy on fire against our selves and more outragious than the evil that assaults us it constrains us to make use of Steel or Poison to deprive our selves of Life Then it is that we become our own enemies when we turn our advantages to our destruction when we employ our Reason to procure our ruine and to avoid Pain which is but the trouble of effeminate men we summon the worst of evils to our assistance Likewise an Orator hath excellently said that Despair was but the Passion of furious persons that it took its Laws from Impatience its Power from Indignation its Weapons from Fear and Pain and that a man called not for Death but because he hated himself or forgot his own Salvation Moreover Despair is accounted the most unjust of our Inclinations and whosoever should approve the use thereof amongst reasonable Creatures would no less offer violence to the Laws of Nature than those of Christianity Life
prescribed her How convincing soever this Reason be yet doth it not satisfy the most obstinate and although the Peripateticks agree with us that it is not more impossible for Seneca to bring forth his wise man then for Fabius or Cicero to form a perfect Orator yet can they not comprehend how this Wise man can be without passion that he should be a Man and not pertake of his faults and be ingaged in the Body and not feel it's infirmities They affirm as do their Masters that these Motions are natural to us that it is not in our power to hinder their Birth that they are the Seeds of Vertue and that as Speech and Gesture make the best parts of an Orator Passions are the auxiliaries that nature hath given us to make us active and virtuous That whilst the Spirit shall be united to the Body whilst the Angelical part shall share with the Bestial and the Soul be constrained to Negotiate with Flesh and Blood she will find disturbances That these infirmities of the Soul are the Subject of her Merit and Victories and that it is necessary that man should fret and fear rejoyce and be afflicted if he will be just and prudent temperate and valiant For by their discourse Vertue would be without employment if she had not these Monsters to fight with and this illustrious habitude that may be termed the Life of wise mens actions would languish if she had not these insurrections of the Sensitive appetite to exercise her vertue But who sees not at first that this Discourse striketh at the principles of Morality abaseth vertue to a dependance upon her Slaves and permitteth Rebels to intrench upon her power by insinuating the utility of Enemies that destroy under pretence of ayds and succours and I am of Socrates mind and dare affirm with him that whilst the Soul informs the fools head she will be forced to conceive Passions and whilst she hath no higher apprehensions then the Common People she will be constrained to fear an ill accident to form enterprizes to hope well of them desire Wealth and to regret its loss But if she view all these objects with indifference receive Fortunes ill looks with as much Constancy as her good Offices If without trouble she see Death represented on the face of that Body she animates if she consider her own Goods with the same Eye that she beholds the wealth of her Neighbour if she care not for pain and place her contentment in the possession of vertue What service shall passions do her To what end shall she desire Treasures since they make her not happy Why fear evils since she owns not that there is any evil but vice whose arrival she may prevent by the bare Acts of her will Why should Death afright her since she finds her advantage in it Why should she call anger to the vengeance of an injury since she slights it and why should she draw Joy from Fortunes smiles since she places her happiness in a good Conscience Passions are then of no use to the Wise it is the weak and sensless that resent them and if we consult those very people that have shewed them any countenance they will confess with us that they are rather friends to vice then Vertue more guilty then innocent and more proper to foment then to allay the disorders of our Soul And yet will any believe that Vertue must be idle unless she proclaim War against Monsters and that this noble faculty must pine away unless she fight to Subject the Rebellious and to range the Factious into reason She is without doubt too generous to derive her Glory from the Destruction of so weak Enemies She judges her self well enough employed when forming the Ornaments of our Soul and slighting the insolence of her Slaves she is busied about making us accomplished and Vertuous When the Sun finisheth his course when he withdraws from our Horizon that his absence causeth our nights and seeking another part of the World to enlighten he is not less powerful then when making our Shadows to fly away he guildeth the tops of our hills and produces the Enamel of our Gardens and Meddowes But as he draws not his light from our darkness it is hot in other parts though we feel it not and he is as absolute a Monarch in the Antipodes as in Affrica So vertue forms not her Glory from our disorders nor is she less active when she treats with her Lovers then when she combats Vice and dissipateth Passions Discourse II. That it is Mans happiness to live according to the Law of Nature THe Oracles of old have so little Coherence with their Name and the Events that followed them are so different from their promises that it may be doubted whether the Divels that pronounced them ever really aspired to Divine Revelations whether they strove not to appear more malicious then powerful and whether they had it not as much in design to flatter the Credulity of the Supersticious as to chastize the vanity of Philosophers For who so examineth well all their proceedings shall easily see that their words are void of Sincerity and as the Fox that puts the Changes upon Hunters they wind us into their uncertainties and lead us into Danger when they make shew of carrying us from it If they promise the Husband-Man a happy Harvest if they flatter Conquerors with the Rout of an Enemy if they assure Lovers of a Reward for their Constancy and if they engage the Merchants to seek strange Lands to gain Estates they are then as much Impostures as when they instruct Philosophers teach the Proud to moderate their ambition prescribe Rules to the Covetous to satisfy their avarice and show men vertues which themselves cannot practice In short all they reveal is faulty and nothing hath yet departed from Apollo's Temple which became not a lye or was a kin to impossibility The Pythians were the ruin of most Monarchs those Oracles weakened the most proud Empire of Europe and their predictions were more destructive to Romes Common Wealth then the Revolt of her Subjects the Faction of the Seditious the ambition of her Generals or the oppositions of her Enemies for relying upon the fidelity of their words their Captains neglected the advantages they usually had upon their adversaries and taking the victory for granted they disposed themselves more to Triumph then to fight to be Masters of the Field then to contest for it Those Philosophers that consulted them for the Conduct of their affairs Succeeded no better then the Chief Commanders and those who boasted of having peeped into all the Secrets of Nature discovered the Rules of Policy and unfolded the Paradoxes of Morality were astonished to find themselves Novices in the School of Wisedom and though they remembred all their instructions they could not comprehend their meaning or give an assured interpretation to words that seemed to them at first so intelligible But of so
so much fixt to the Earth that her desires are limited there and her thoughts are so little generous that she seeks for no other goods but what our common Sense hath set a price upon The honour she pretends to is fickle and vain her Resolutions uncertain her Counsels dark and she passeth Judgment expertè If some times she have good intervals and being hurried by the vanity of the Objects which she pursueth she wing her self towards Heaven yet those agitations are so short and inconstant that they last but a few moments She is presently stagering if what she desireth agree not with our Flesh She gives the Title of Error to our choicest thoughts and pleasing her self with Novelty She soon rallies her Counselers and makes them appeal from their first advices But Reason is the Daughter of Heaven her Extraction augments her Excellence and if some Philosophers may be credited She is a proportion of Gods Essence an effusion of his being and an expression of his Greatness Trismegistus thought her formed of his Substance a Branch of the Diety and as the Sun shooteth forth his light without diminution of his Power God produced Reason from himself without weakening his Nature These bold words though they seem to destroy our Faith by which we know Reason to be a part of our Soul produced by time yet it cannot be denyed but that she is an Image of the Diety having the Characters of the Almighties greatness and that without thinking it Robbery she imitates those perfections that render Him onely worthy of Adoration They also which could not comprehend the adorable Mistery of the Incarnation who doubted whether the Divine Nature were compatible with ours and whether He that was begotten from all Eternity could become Man by time made no difficulty of apprehending that God allied Himself to our Soul by Reason and that he communicated daily with our Spirit by means of this His Image Indeed this production seemeth to be His legitimate Daughter since she hath so much share in his glorious qualities being Heiress of his perfections and bestowing upon our Souls the same Advantages which she hath received from her Father For besides that she representeth the plurality of His Persons by the Trinity of His powers and sheweth us without confusion the unity of His Nature in the division of the faculties whereof it is composed Reason makes her so unchangeable in goodness that she never forsakes her when once she hath owned her repentance never succeeds her wishes her Counsels are as just as her Designs and she is assured she shall keep her innocence so long as all her thoughts please her and that she consult her in all her undertakings So that Reason is the most excellent part of us her glory maketh all our felicity and a Philosopher said truely that if the Spirit were the Soul of the Body Reason was the Soul of our Spirit She is also the most Majestical part of the Soul and if any Philosophers were found so rash as to deprive her of that quality they might boast of having destroyed her by doing violence to themselves Those who value a Man by the abundance of his Treasures who Judg of his Blood by the long continued line of his Ancestors and place his good Fortune in the Beauty of his Mannors his gaudy Apparel and the number of his Servants and Slaves that surround him do plainly discover that they never knew Nature and that they have been ignorant that these gifts which they so much prize are favors that God for the most part vouchsafeth to his Enemies But to know well the Excellencies of a Man to proportion his esteem to his merit he must be viewed in his Shirt Strip him of all that Splendor that dazles our Eyes consider him without those Ornaments that set off his Body and press the plummet to the depth of him to be informed whether Reason hath preserved her priviledges in him if she have not suffered her self to be abused by common opinion if Passions have not deceived her and if she have not permitted Forraign Commodities to prejudice the Productions of her own Countrey to cheat her Subjects and debauch her Ministers I acknowledg with our Divines that Reason is weakened and conceiveth proud designs that her lights are darkened by Sin and that she is subject to illusions since her revolt against God I confess that the Soul since her disobedience is light in her undertakings and embraceth falshood for truth that she often sides with Vice and seldom takes part with Vertue To enlarge upon these defects and to add to her own disorders the Tyranny of her Body I do know that they agree not that this Earth plays the Rebel against the Sun that enlightens it and that overwhelming the Laws of Nature the Mistress becomes often the Captive of her Slave Briefly I know that in her operations she hath need of the Organs of this Tyrant seeing with his Eyes hearing with his Eares judging of the diversity of tastes by his Tongue and that she would be condemned to perpetual ignorance if these parties concerned undertook not to inform her of their knowledg of Colors of Sounds of the softness and hardness of Objects How be it these disorders destroy not her good inclinations She is undistracted in her misery the advantages she had in her innocence are not lost by her fall and although she be thought blind she can yet find out the Truth in the midst of sensual illusions She is so generous in all her Enterprizes that with a little Care to redress her she gives us fresh assurances of her fidelity those Remains of Light that are yet in her since the State of innocence put her in mind of her first Glories and although she be guilty she is yet righteous enough not to commit any thing unworthy of her Birth Her disobedience caused her submission She knows God after she hath offended him She emplores his aid when she remembers her contempt of his Commandments and as she findeth her self bound to restore what she hath robbed Him of she obligeth the Soul to acknowledg Him her only Soveraign The Messengers she sends abroad for forraign intelligence cannot deceive her unless she please their falshoods make her prudent and if they be cunning enough to give her false informations they are neither so powerful nor industrious as to perswade her into the belief of them That Prison that surrounds her cannot arrest her thoughts The Diseases that weaken her Body cannot touch her and as if she held no commerce with the Earth She remains at Liberty in the midst of her Fetters and keeps her health in an infected habitation If Passions are able to obstruct her operations if they can cool that Fire that makes her Act as a Commander in chief they are not able to put it out and if Sin have disfigured this living Image of God it hath not been able to deface her first lineaments the
impious perceive her in their debaucheries if their Mouth protect them Reason condemns them if the night favour their Crimes the Sun laies them open and it 's but small comfort to have Companions in Sin when they find every where a Witness to accuse them a Judg to condemn them and the Executioner to punish them Reason is then Man's only benefit he must use it to climbe Heaven he must consult it to govern his Life and if he do but hearken unto her he shall be vertuous and tame the most insolent of his Passions Discourse IV. That a Wise Mans happiness is not built on the Goods of the Body SOme modern Philosophers seem to wonder that the least of all Causes should in our Actions be of the greatest use That the End which subsisteth but in Idaea should be the Motive of all our works and that that which hath so little share in all humane productions should be so necessary a Midwife to bring them forth They build their opinions upon Aristotles discourse and as they Learn of him that that which hath no being must needs be barren and that nothing can be drawn from it but what is imaginary they conclude that seeing the End is nothing in substance and that its being depends on our intelects it can conceive nought but Chymera's and bring forth nothing but conceited apparitions Others somewhat more ingenious do say that its subsistence is not so sensible as that of the matter that its manner of operation is different from that of the Form and efficient Cause and that when this unites the Soul with the Body and maketh them agree in one the End doth but figure out Idaea's and form imaginary Resemblances Nevertheless convinced by the deductions of the first of Philosophers they avow that if the End be not the more Noble of the four principles she is how ever the most necessary and that if she make less shew then her Companions she hath so much the ascendant of them as to make their operations Suitable to her Designs True it is that all our Projects would be monstrous if our intentions prevented not their birth and Nature that is so regular in her Works would commit nothing but Debaucheries if she directed them not to the End appointed by her Maker As Goodness is the most illustrious Object of Morality and all that is there intreated of tends to the acquisition thereof we are not to wonder if all men seek her if the guilty as well as the innocent court her and if she often procure her self real Lovers by the bare appearance of Goodness When a Tyrant oppresseth his people ransacks his Neighbours Countries depriveth the innocent of Liberty and to enlarge his Frontiers intrencheth upon those Bounds where wise Nature had limited his Authority Policy which is always self interessed excuseth all these disorders by Pretext of a greater Good and the advantages she hopeth for by weakning the Subject and ruining the Enemy seem considerable enough to justify such iniquities when a Criminal is accused and brought before the Judg finding himself engaged to shew innocency in the matters layed to his Charge he borroweth a good Countenance to excuse himself and as there is no man so impious as in his Crime purely to intend Evil he throweth his offence upon the sincerity of his intentions Goodness is so Natural to Man that he cannot loose the Love of her and when ignorance hides her Truth from him or that Opinion cheats him in the search of her he forbears not to Scuffle for her and to catch at all her Resemblances The Academia that made profession of understanding her Essence is of this an evident proof for designing to form a Felicity that should surpass all our desires they invented happinesses that have hitherto only bore the Name They would have it to consist in the health of the Body that Pleasure should be its inseparable Companion that Fortitude should have no other employment but to defend and preserve its healthful state and that Beauty which is but the Feminine ornament was part of a Wise Mans Felicity As Experience taught these Disciples that health was a fountain that watered all the parts with her perfections that its Comliness consisted in a good intelligence with the Elements and that all the Favours of Nature lost their Splender in an infirm Body they set up health as the Principle of their Felicity They averred that to live happily it was necessary to have a sound Body and that all our other Faculties were useless to us when the visage had lost its Color and the Members their strength and when the food that was for our nourishment became offensive to the Eyes They compared health to a Calm Sea They would have it that as this favored the Alcyons in laying their Eggs and in bringing forth their young the other assisted the Conqueror in the obtaining of Victories Princes in the Conduct of their Subjects Artificers in their Labours Orators in their Praises of vertue and Philosophers in outbraving their misfortunes That it was health that charmed the disturbances of our Life and that we should be condemned as eternally miserable if this did not sweeten the Travels of our Pilgrimage and change part of our miseries into delights If these Philosophers had well studied the Nature of Man's chief happiness and not ransact the Flesh for matter wherewith to content the mind I perswade my self that in seeking to be happy they would have put some difference between their own felicity and that of brute Beasts and that distinguishing their own condition from that of impious persons they would have learnt that that which entertaineth vice nourisheth all our Passions could not be a Principle of their Felicity For albeit that sin be familiar to us that we bear the seeds thereof in our Souls and that to will the commission of it be sufficient to make us guilty Mean while it is never more dangerous then when it meets with aids to second it then when it causeth our advantages to serve its designs and when by the health of our Body it throws Infection into our Souls There are some Men that know not what Vertue is till they become impotent in Vice Sickness must disable them to cure them of sin and they would never call to mind that Hell may be one day the place of their punishment if the enflaming feaver did not feed upon their Intrails Others there are that owe their innocence to the absence of health their Method of Life would be always criminal if they were not sometimes infirm and if some violent agitations did not overthrow their designs they might be ranckt in the Number of dissolute Persons As health is a benefit as frail as dangerous God bestows it but on few the Men of great action have been ever much concerned those high Enterprizes that have disturbed the whole World have afforded them little rest the violent eruptions of their
in the Schools For it is she that preserves his comliness which accommodates the interests both of Body and Soul which gives him strength to contest with the diseases that beset him and in the Opinion of Aristotle it is a Treasure surpassing all the Riches of the Earth If Beauty have her frailties if her Empire last but few days and if after she hath triumphed over a small number of Slaves she become the spoil of old Age or of Death she hath perfections which procure her reverence the reasonable Creatures worship their Creator in his Image vertue serves it self of her in communicating with her Lovers and as if the splendor of Beauty augmented the Majesty of vertue she takes pleasure to employ her when she Acts the Soveraign in the hearts of the Sons of Men. But pleasure is infamous in what shape soever she be drest She is ashamed to apear in publick they who protect condemn her they seek for darkness to possess her and knowing that she is as common to the Beasts as to us they blame her in all their discourses she is of so Malignant a humor that she turneth all our delights to remorses or punishments She courteth not vertue but to corrupt or seduce her If she give her Slaves a smile 't is but to deceive them and more cruel then Tyrants she paies respect to her Enemies and gives death to them that are her sworn faithful Servants Yet have we found Philosophers who have pleaded for her and forceing vertue to take her for a handmaid would afterwards perswade us that the Mistress and this Maid held a very good correspondence Epicurus that sage Professor of delights imagined that Man was born to enjoy her That pleasure ought to be the seasoning of all his actions and that after he had paid his honors to vertue it was lawful for him to aspire to the enjoyment of her Slave As he makes her to assist at her Triumphals he will have her the constant companion of her Labours in all her occupations he renders her assistance necessary he is of opinion that Fortitude it self would fail if the pleasure which she expects from the rout of an Enemy did not Spirit her to Battel and that temperance would be little concerned for the regulation of our Passions if she were not spurred on as well by delight as utility In fine he sayeth that pleasure to a wise Man is no dishonorable companion that the Slave might be courted without wrong to her Mistress and that the conversation of dissolute Women was not more unsuitable to Philosophers then Zenos disciples amongst the Academians I know that Seneca labours to justify this opinion in some part of his Writings and having arraigned the sence given it by them of the party he forms the Authors apology As if he had been of Intelligence with Epicurus rather then with Truth he takes part with him against his adversaries he asserteth that the pleasure whereof he treateth is modest that her humor is not less austere then that of vertue and that if she put on the pleasing ornament of a more cheerful countenance it is but with less difficulty to gain her Mistress a greater number of Lovers I should readily subscribe to this opinion and it were sufficient to know that it proceeds from Seneca to receive it with reverence But as most men abuse it they run to his Doctrin for a Justification of their disorders and supported by his Approbation they believe it is lawful for them to hunt after sensualities I find my self engaged to explain his meaning and to unfold to the Disciples of Epicurus that Seneca is not of their Party though some words have run from his Pen to their advantage If he give a favorable Explication of their Masters meaning they owe it to the greatness of his civility he gives him combat too often to approve the most sordid of his opinions and when he shews them the weakness of pleasure and the merit of vertue he lets them sufficiently know that he employs all those discourses but to perswade them to slight the Maid that she who is her Soveraign may receive their Honors As this is the only Mistress to whom he paies reverence he is concerned for her glory and he would think it a betraying of his Courage if he should reconcile her to an Enemy whom she dispiseth He cannot suffer that she who is content in affliction joyful in the midst of Torments who laughs at Fortune and Triumphs over those evil accidents that strike terror into the most stout hearted men should become the consort of an effeminate who grows pale at the sight of a misfortune who sinks under the assaults of distempers and who turneth the most pleasing delights of vertue into the severest of her own torments to shew us that they are unequal Companions he declares vertue to be Eternal and that pleasures last but for a moment that the one is generous but the other sordid that the one hath its residence in the Soul but the other in the Body that the one is insatiable but the other always attended with content In fine that to affect voluptuousness is to have lost our understanding and to be more sensual then Beasts in making the felicity of rational Creatures to consist in Pleasures Discourse V. That the goods of Fortune cannot make a Wise Man happy THose that proportion their esteem of things by the rule of gain and who judg of their value by the pleasure or credit which may arise from them do wonder that in the Stoick Schools vertue only should be valuable and that honors and wealth which they deem so necessary to humane Life should in their discourses pass for indifferent matters they are so wilfully linckt to the interests of the Flesh that they study only to content that and they would not be thought to be so ignorant of the nature of goodness as to allow that Title to any thing in which the Body hath no share For albeit that vertue have charms sufficient to enamour us that her Beauty invite us to court her and that the felicity which she promiseth to all her Lovers be considerable enough to stir up all men to be her Suitors yet can they not resolve to seek her her benefits seem to them not sufficiently splendid to engage their affections they affect not a Mistress whose Portion will not set them out in the world and dispising all the joys that attend the possession of goodness they have recourse to the Benefits of Fortune the better to establish their conceited happiness Morality that Examiner General of the price of all things which stateth so just an equality between our corporal advantages and the goods of Fortune seemeth to favor their conceits when she promiscuosly confoundeth them with vertue when she calleth the Soveraign and her vassals by one and the same name when she averreth all Gods works to be perfect and giving an Earthly construction to the
fetch their Reasons seem to be less weak then the opinion of an interessed Populace the good they contend for is so little related to the felicity of Man that they cannot assign it the least share without being ignorant of Nature For besides that Nobility hath often her Original from the enormity of her Ancestors crimes that those Titles of which the sound carrieth so much awe are most commonly the recompence of homicides or Adulteries and that we find not many men arrived at dignities by law ul ways nor without suffering a thousand affronts in the obtention and that Gold which is the Principle of all Court sins is at this day the Creation of Dukes Marquises Earles and Barons This advantage of being highly descended hath so little stability that it often cometh not to the Heirs and causeth persons of quality to own themselves more obliged to fortune for their Gentility then to them from whom they received Life We find some Parents that cannot reckon any but Plebeans among their Children these Eagles have yet only brought forth Daws and although the root were allied to Kings and Consuls yet do they dispair that ever their Branches will revive the memory of their Grandeur The Laws which establish the Heirs of Families and often force the Father to make his first born Master of his Revenews cannot give them the faculty of conveighing Gentility to his Successors If Nature permit him to love the Son she allows him not the transmission of his Fathers honor this benefit is above the affection as well as out of the Power of the Parent and in vain do some Men pretend to the glory of their Ancestors since it was not in their power to bequeath it them Vertue is the only advantage of the Nobility it is she that puts a difference between them and the Plough-Man and in the judgment of Plato she is the only inheritance which they may purchase to themselves without obligation to Fortune All those Pictures and figures that adorn the Closets and Gallaries of Princes all those Combats they set forth with so much Art all those Generals which are represented at the head of victorious Armies and all the Pomp wherewith their Triumphs are accompanied create no Nobles those great Men did not live for our honor Death that terminated their Conquests hath preserved their praises and it is vertue must make us their Heirs before we lay claim to their Honors what ever hath preceded us is not ours and we cannot lawfully covet a Benefit which is the Fruit of their Valor and not the testimonial of our own deserts Discourse VI. That Vertue alone maketh a Wise Man happy IN my opinion Seneca never shews less of partiality then when he condemneth his Enemies and without transgressing the Law of Nations he becomes judg in his own cause his sentences are so just and his decrees so equitable that no Appeal can lie without violation to Truth For as no man is willing to make the price of his peace the purchase of his happiness and as they who aspire after felicity aim at matters of real content and not at bare appearances that seduce or corrupt us it followeth that corporal advantages are too fickle to stay our desires and that the favors of Fortune are too inconstant or defective to satisfy our minds that Vertue only is the ultimate end that it is she that is able to satiate our hopes and that what ever is not of Intelligence with her is not to be admitted into the composition of a permanent happiness His principles are so manifest and his arguments so solid that they are not to be opposed without offending the Justice of the cause he pleadeth for Every one desires to live happily and makes it his business to arrive at a condition that may fully answer his hopes but as men commonly suffer themselves to be surprized with vulgar Errors and as the maximes of the World become the rules of their actions we must not wonder if they never attain the felicity they erroniously hunt after if for the most part they go astray from the proposed End and if they tumble into calamity when they expected the height of happiness they are always so unfortunate in their choice as to pursue the shadow for the substance they are deceived by the gay things that surround her and more unhappy then the Poet 's Tantalus they stray from the good they seek and fly from the felicity they pursue For whereas the fairest fruit of a happy Life is the tranquillity of the mind and a confidence which the sincerity of our Conscience gives us they aspire after goods that disturb her rest they wish for Honors that streighten their Liberty they desire Riches which torment them and by an inexcusable Error they take the causes of their disquiet to be part of the effects of their greatest happiness They do acknowledg that to be vertuous is sufficient to secure us from misery that this excellent quality which distinguisheth Wise men from Fools is their fortress against the accidents of Fortune and that they need but temperance to be triumphant over voluptuousness and courage to oppose the mischances that assault them yet can they not be perswaded that vertue alone can make them happy they distrust her power as well as her merit and affirm that a quality whose habitation is only in the Soul and hath no trading with the matter can make but the one half of a felicity They will have the Body satisfyed as well as the mind that pleasures shall never be from it that ease maintain its comlyness that it equally share with the Soul in joy and would think themselves ignorant of the nature of their chief good if they brought not into the composition the advantages of Simonides the delights of Epicurus and the Honors of Periander To the Stoicks it is not hard to oppose this opinion and their reply is so rational that to judg of the clearness of their cause and the weakness of their Enemies it is sufficient to hear them speak for as these Excellent men own no good but vertue and set no esteem but upon the operations of Mans more Noble part they prize not the advantages that are forreign to him the Pomp and delights that attend them attract not their admiration as they know that the flesh agrees not with the Spirit they would be ashamed to confer the priviledges of a Soveraign upon a Slave that warreth against her They assert with much reason that it s not possible to be made happy by what we possess not that a Benefit to make a Man happy must be in his power and that felicity depends so much on our Will that we may bestow it upon our selves when we please For how can a Man place his happiness in works which are not his own Magnify himself in Treasures that Fortune may pull from him And draw vanity from Honors which subsist rather in them that
others innocent some contend to subject the Soul to the Body and others to make the Body servant to the Mind yet they proceed from one and the same Spring Vertues and Passions have one common Mother and though they have different Objects when they are agitated their birth is nevertheless from one and the same Faculty of the Soul For to joyn the strengh of Reason to the Authority of this great Philosopher and not to undervalue the ingenuity of his Logick for proof of a moral Conclusion if Passions were born with us and if Nature taught us to desire and fear to grieve and to rejoyce we must of necessity infer that all these motions are good that we may follow them wheresoever they lead us and that we cannot err in treading the steps of a Guide who instructs us no less in particular than in our general Actions Now the Peripateticks confess that they are neither good nor bad that they are capable of good or evil and that they may serve as well to Vice as Vertue it must be then concluded that they are not ingrafted upon our Soul since they violently oppose the Works of Nature since they make war upon her Inclinations and seldom form any enterprise but to corrupt or destroy her Nature is so regular in all her Productions that she brings forth nothing superfluous she abhors Monsters no less than Excesses and when her Prodigies come to light which cause so much astonishment in the minds of men it may be said that she is rather passive than active indeed where shall we find any thing of excess in the Creation this sage Mother is determined in her Operations she produceth nothing but by limitations as just as necessary and if we often find inventions or take up customs to exceed it is when we become tyrannical or rebellious But Passions delight in excess the bounds prescribed us by Reason irritate them foreign aids must be called in to stay their disorders and if Virtue be not employed to vanquish or tame them we should see nothing in the world more monstrous and frightful than a man possessed by those evil spirits As the Juris periti account that Law unjust which is not common that a Prince would offend against Equity if he made not his Edicts universal and that those commands are to be had in jealousie wherein the Legislator doth not indifferently tie all his subjects Philosophers hold that Nature ought to be common that she ought to be equally distributed to all men and that as the reasonable Soul is intire in all the Body and undivided in each part she ought also to communicate her perfections and infirmities to all the Nations upon Earth mean while we find some persons subject to Passions which others know nothing of and of so many men as are contained in a Province or State few shall we see that are agitated by one and the same motions Ambition which tyrannizeth over Conquerours is not the Plague of all mankind if some are found to aspire to Grandeurs we see others that despise them if some hunt after Honours others have them in derision and if some will reign over their fellow creatures others find their content in obedience the Hunger of Wealth is not the Passion of a whole City some Citizens fill their Coffers but there are others that draw vanity from Expence Gain renders not every man avaritious and if some amongst them build all their hopes upon their Treasures we find others of them that take pride in their disdain Envy is not so much a contagion as a peculiar evil if some persons have been observed to make war upon Vertue we have seen whole Nations that have built her Temples and Orators that have presented her with Elogies As powerful as Love is he hath not yet been able to subdue an intire Kingdom the most perfect Beauties have gained but few Lovers and those Faces that have thrown so many flames into the hearts of Generals of Armies were not able to touch the affections of their Souldiers Now if all these perturbations of the Soul were natural they would be found equally in all men the Objects and the Sense would not make a different impression upon their imagination as these two causes are necessarily active they would every where propuce the same effects 'T is then an error saith Seneca to imagine that Passions are born with us and that these Children of opinion proceed from the marriage of the Soul with the Body Nature hath not allyed us to Vice she may boast of having brought us forth vertuous though we were conceived in sin the greatest part of our disorders ow birth to our Education and when Passions seduce our Judgments or deprave our Will it must be said that they follow not so much her inclinations as our evil manners We impute them to Nature because we despair of Cure and fancy them to be necessary in as much as they favour our crimes excuse our errors and authorize our injustice To support all these truths it 's needless to make Pillars of Seneca's Inductions or to draw Maxims from Aristotles Reasons which confirm them it is sufficient only to consider man in himself to judg that Passions are forreigners and to teach us from the generosity of his Nature how great an enemy he is to them For what is there of a more quiet Nature than Man and what more furious than Love This famous Tyrant takes force from all things that oppose his designs difficulties encourage him impossibilities encrease his impatience that modesty which preserves the Chastitity of Women redoubles his strength and that Council or Reason which ought to regulate or allay his fury renders him obstinate in his pursuit Man is a lover of Rest and Audacity finds its Contentment in turbulence the one submits to the conduct of Prudence and the other is governed by Temerity the one seeks to avoid Enmity and the other takes pride in creating of Adversaries and the one delights in things facile to acquire and the other engageth in nothing but matters difficult or impossible to compass Nothing upon earth is more affable than Man and nothing do we observe more savage than Anger it is a fury that breaths nothing but vengeance a plague that throws division among friends and a monster who more cruel than the Tyger and Panther turns his weapons upon himself when he cannot force satisfaction for injuries done him Compassion which seems so sutable to mans disposition is not less troublesom to his rest than Anger she afflicts him with evils that touch him not she makes the Chastisements of the vicious his punishment she looks upon the Suffering and considers not the Crime and more unjust than hatred she would bribe Justice if possible to deliver the guilty person and the murtherer from his Sword In fine Passions are mans domestick enemies and unfaithful souldiers who undertaking to defend him and keep him in
action trouble his Government abolish his Empire corrupt his Reason disorder his Will and throw confusion into all the powers of his Soul It 's true we meet with some men in the world whom Nature seemeth to have produced to give the lye to this opinion and whose inclinations constrain us to believe that Passions are grafted in the Soul for we see some so effeminate that a word puts them into a rage a sincere reprehension irritates them and in what method soever you deal with them their anger or indignation is not to be avoided Some from their youth are sordid they affect Wealth almost before they know what it is and it would be more easie to change the face of a Negro into the colour of his Teeth than to pull out of their hearts the desire of heaping up Riches Others are naturally bashful as often as they speak in publick they blush and what art soever is used to make them confident in company they cannot hinder shamefacedness from altering their Countenance It is not hard to answer these Objections and whoever is at the trouble to examine the Nature of Passions will be constrained to acknowledg that nothing is proved though much be said For to proceed in order Anger is not that first motion that arises at the appearance of an evil and which oweth its original rather to the Infirmity of the Body than to the Strength of the Mind but that fury of the Soul which by Aristotle is stiled rational that motion which hurries us to take vengeance and invites us to contrive the ruine of him that hath offended us All those other emotions that prevent the Judgment cannot properly be called Passions and when they trouble or seize the Soul it may be said that she resents but produceth them not and that she rather suffers than operates Generals of Armies have been seen to swoon at the approach of Battel Commanders to grow pale at the sight of an Enemy Souldiers to tremble in putting on their Armour or their Head-piece and all that Valour wherewith they were animated could not hinder them from beginning their Victories with quaking and their Triumphs with signs that brought their Courage into question The most eloquent of Orators found himself often taken with these surprizes and he was astonisht that his Discourses should chase Fear from the minds of his Auditors and that his Reason should not be strong enough to drive apprehension from the possession of his heart to hinder Fear from bereaving him of his Strength to prevent his hairs from standing on end and to oppose his tongues cleaving to the roof of his mouth when he was to speak But all these sudden changes are but corporal and surprizes which borrow their aids from the temper and constitution of the body If Riches make some men covetous it is after the Judgment is seduced Nature hath produced nothing in the whole universe that is able to stir their desires she hides the Gold in the entrals of the Earth she leaves us nothing but the sight of the Heaven and the Stars and knowing that this mettle might corrupt them if she discovered it in its splendor she caused it to grow among the Sands and the Dirt to the end they might despise it True it is that Bashfulness seemeth more natural to man than Avarice and Anger and that he is become impudent and insolent that altereth not his countenance after the commission of a fault or an incivility But this timorous Passion is only the daughter of the Body the Mind hath no share in her Production and if the novelty of a thing occasion it the cause thereof is the leaping of the blood about the Heart hence old men rarely blush the furrows in their front seldom receive a foreign colour and when heat declines their heart it ceaseth to send into the Face that innocent Vermilion that makes the Countenance of Children so amiable As this motion is a pure effect of the Bodies temperature our Players could never yet get her to appear upon the Stage and the most ingenious of them despair at this day of adorning the Countenance of their Actors with this curious colour They represent us Sadness with all her shagrine humors and as silent as she is they find inventions to counterfeit her follies They shew us Fear upon a pale Face and imitate all her actions so well that they seem to tremble grow wan and fall into a swoon Love is the ordinary subject wherewith they entertain their Spectators and the smallest Apes-face of the Society can act the Gallant the Suitor and the mad Lover but none of them have yet been seen that could act the Shame-faced person and if some few have learned to stoop the Head abase the Voice and to look downwards we hardly observe any that have been able to call for Blushes to testifie that the Applauses given to them or the Reproches thrown at them were unpleasing But as Passions depend on us it must not be wondered if they be counterfeited with so much ease if they can become sad and angry audacious and desperate when they please and that consulting the mind and opinion of which they are formed they represent all those outward signs which Passions discover upon the Bodies of such as are possessed by them Discourse IV. That the Senses and opinion are the two Principles of Passions AMong all the advantages which man disputeth with other Creatures and which beget him so much reverence in them of his own Species Philosophy owneth none more glorious then that of knowledg and although she be interressed when she pleads her cause she believes not that the praises given her are any thing but due debt she stiles her the only felicity of them that possess her she makes her the image of the Diety maintains that it is she that lifteth man into Heaven to contemplate there the perfections of her Author and though she know that her Body have need of health to preserve her she is assured that her Soul wants nothing but knowledg to participate of his Eternity By these mens discourse this quality is as immense as absolute present every where including all differences of time coexistant with all Ages and having regard to the original nature and end of every being she finds nothing in the Univers that can confine her but Eternity and he only that is infinite Man is a lover only of what is good and as free an Agent as he is he suffers evil with violence the senses that seduce his imagination reverence his will they cease to provoke him when the understanding hath shewed him that the thing she seeks is not suitable to him and if sometimes she discover a displeasure it is because she hath suffered her self to be deceived by the senses or disordered by false opinions But nothing escapes mans Curiosity he will not be a stranger to any thing in nature the most hidden things stir him to make diligent
search after them and if he find that the avoiding of evil is the beginning of his felicity Philosophy perswades him that knowledg is a part of his chiefest happiness By knowledg indeed he imitateth the immensity of the Creator by his mind he is present in all places of the World he flies into Heaven and descends into the depths of the Earth without leaving his Closet and drawing an universal notion from all particular things he comprehends all Creatures and becomes a true Microcosme by the multitude of his Idaea's To conclude in knowledg consisteth all his glory she is the most useful of his perfections and if Physicians learn of her to cure diseases States-men to govern and Judges to distinguish the innocent from the guilty wisemen confess that to her they owe all their prudence Soldiers their Conduct Monarchs their Justice and Philosophers the Conquest of their Passions Happy should we be if we were instructed by no other guide then this and more fortunate then Conquerors we should not need to give Battel to gain the victory of our Passions All their disorderly motions would be submissive to us we should prevent their fury by the knowledg of the benefits they hunt after and the evils they abhor and having no traffick with the People for their opinion in this matter they would obey Reasons orders But the greatest of our misfortunes is that we go to the ignorant for Counsel we rely upon unfaithful sentinels and against our own Judgments give credit to the senses who cheat and abuse us For generally their reports are false and though they be obtained by knowledg it is very rare if they do not ingage us in Error They are blind guids that carry us a stray from truth under colour of leading us to her windows by which falshood gets into our understanding and interressed Counsellors who always plead the cause of the objects which please them most As the Soul becomes often a Slave to the flesh takes the noise of sounds for realties and judges by their reports of things without her it must not be wondred if she be cheated in her distinctions if she make blind and precipitate Judgments and if forgetting her own Grandeur she fight under the Banner of her Slave For seeing these treacherous Ministers of her Goverment deal falsely with her plead always in favor of the Body and slighting her Counsels follow the inclinations of their fleshly Companion she sides with them she lets her self loose at their instigations and solicited by their importunities who present her the objects she pronounces her fiat to all that they Judg useful and pleasant From this unjust disorder arise our Passions and of so many motions as interrupt the quiet of our Souls we find not any that taketh not his original from some one of our senses Love is the Son of the sight the Eye conceives him before the Heart and though he terminate his Conquest by the will yet he always gives Battel by the look The Poets were assuredly mistaken when they represented him as blind and they rather had regard to the effects then to the original when they cover his Eyes with a Muffler For those lights which nature hath given us for our conduct are the common Messengers of this furious Passion that which ought to discover the defects of a face hides its imperfections and by an unpardonable ingratitude the most splendid members of the Body darken the Soul from whom they receive their light Desire ever begins by the Eyes or the Eares wealth corrupts not our minds but after infection of the senses and man would seldom form any wishes if he were born deaf and blind Hope owes his original to them the advantages wherewith he is flattered are not so much principles as accidents and the imagination could never dazle our understanding with their splendor without the intermediation of those Organs These are they who conceive Envy who make him consider the goods of his Neighbour with Grief who cause his Joy to arise from other mens misfortunes and make them confess that their felicity is able to create their torment In fine these faithless Ministers are the Fountaines of all our disquiet and Love which is the most common of our Passions would want Slaves Hope would be without Lovers and Envy without Martyrs if these blind guids did not prevent our imagination seduce our Judgment and deprave our will If sense begin our Passions opinion gives them perfection and if those give us the objects disguisedly these always deceive us in their choice For opinion being but the Picture of Reason and a common noise that gathers Authority from the encrease of those that approve it she deceives us by semblance of Judgment and without Examination of her Reasons she would have us to esteem all for just that is approved by many As she is concerned for Priviledges of the Body she is always of that party and as she is of an Earthly Original all her motions and inclinations partake thereof We are not then to think it strange if they which follow such a guide never arrive at generous things if they stray from the truth in the greater part of their sentiments and if discerning things no otherwise then through that false Glass they embrace an Error for its contrary For as the Multitude are not so happy in their opinions as to know how to judg favourably of Vertue or Reason and although all the men of whom they are composed have the same thoughts it hinders them not from falling into extravagance and Error the more to be lamented for being common They affect only such things as are vain or useless they reject good and embrace evil they applaud what they ought to shun and condemn what they ought to love Also with much Reason in my opinion doth Seneca compare the case of the vulgar to the condition of Fools or Mad-men saying that the greatest part of mankind were not less extravagant then they which have lost their senses and that there was but this difference between the Phrenetick and the Vulgar they were actuated by folly or madness and these by false opinions that the disease of the one was a corporal effect and the distemper of the other an Infirmity of the mind that the one arose from the abundance of Blood or Gall and the other from the weakness of Judgment and that the one came from a disordered temperature and the other from an ill governed Reason Indeed What is there more extravagant then a man who rejects the truth to embrace the noise of a biassed and interressed multitude Who departs from his own Reason to be guided by their Example And who despiseth all the Counsels of Reason to take the advice of one that is blind and ignorant For from this corruption proceeds all our faults hence we take the objects to be other then they are hence we are deceived in our choice and abused by the value or
undertake no enterprize but with Squadrons of Mutineers who dare to dispute all our Commands For to judg of their malignity by their effects and to learn from their operations the confusion of their nature if we be willing to succour our friends in their streights and if we know by what we learn in natures School that we are bound to relieve our Parents in want and our Allies under oppression covetousness will forbid it if we know that we ought to arm our selves in defence of our Country fear disswades us from it if we remember that we have vowed fidelity to the companion of our life and that we cannot frequent dissolute Women without offending our Conscience or our Honor lust will authorize this sensuality If we know that Tyranny is odious that usurpation is unjust and that we cannot seize the Territories of our Neighbours without breach of reputation Ambition will furnish us with excuses So that all the succours that some would assign us for our defence are the sources of all our disorders and man would hardly ever commit an injustice if Passions were not his Tempters This discourse runs the Peripateticks into despair and the strength of Senecas arguments is to them so irresistable that they are constrained to have recourse to Logical distinctions to arm themselves against his assaults For though they agree with us that the excess of Passions is dangerous that they cannot be employed without loss of liberty and that we cease to act as men when they get possession yet they affirm them to be useful if moderated that they may be formed into Vertues if we know how to manage their humors and that it is sufficient to render them profitable to us if we do but correct that fury which accompanies their violent comportment that Physicians prepare poisons and venims and as nature qualifies the disposition of the Elements it is the work of morality to reduce Passions to a mediocrity and stripping them of their extravagant temper to convert them into wholsom motions fit for our service What have you said ignorant Philosophers In what School have you been taught that nature is impotent if she take not Passions to her assistance With what confidence dare you render my wise man a dependant of his Slaves What advantage do you give him above other men if he have but a little more courage then the greatest Cowards If he be but somewhat more chast then the most unclean Something more temperate then Drunkards A little more modest then the Ambitious And but somewhat a better Governour in his Family then the Prodigal and Avaricious persons A man is not to be accounted healthy because he is only subject to extraordinary diseases to be deemed a sound person because his maladies are but small and he not able to exercise the functions of life but by helps that destroy it A wise man must as well be without Passions as free from Vices and exempt from that which may render him miserable as from that which may make him guilty If small offences disturb his Conscience Passions how much soever moderated interrupt his rest if inflammations hurt his sight defluxions weaken it if the Lethargy stupify his Senses the fumes which assault his Brain disorder him and if extravagancy succeed the height of Feavers weakness is always left behind when their fits are abated So that as to Judg of a sound body all infirmities must be removed from it likewise all Passions must be banisht from the Soul to make Judgment of her Tranquillity Discourse VI. That no Man is more miserable than he that is subject to Passions I Never well apprehended how human Policy could lawfully authorize subjection seeing she is so irksome and how Aristotle could render her natural since all men so much detest her Those that first laboured to introduce her into the world saw their designs opposed by all the Nations of the earth and they were taught to their cost that Subjects were not to be acquired without becoming their Tyrants or their Slaves The Romans could not endure her in their government they sought out all imaginable methods to preserve their freedom and although they equally made glory of subjecting both friends and foes they would not consent to the choice of a Sovereign to command themselves They invented a new mode of Government to secure them from servitude they made their Empire elective they annually created two Emperors and to avoid the vexatious name of Subject they ordained that those to whom they committed the management of their affairs should take upon them the Title of Consuls and not of Lords and Monarchs Man hath in him I know not what to call it something so sublime that he cannot endure violence he imagineth Servitude to be the greatest of his evils and he is so great a lover of Liberty that he often prefers a dishonourable freedom to an advantageous bondage That human prudence that regulates things present by the knowledg of things past teacheth Monarchs to stand upon their guard with Subjects and lets them know that they are to make the calculation of their enemies by the number of their vassals as she cautioneth Kings against the treachery of new conquered Countries she bids them be jealous of all that serve them she shews us men in History that have steeped their hands in their Masters blood for a remedy against their Slavery and others that have set Kingdoms on fire with a pretence of freeing them from Tyranny In fine Liberty hath so many Charms that so often as we are deprived of it we deem our selves unhappy and its contrary is so burthensom that believing our selves free-born and therein equal to the most mighty Princes of the earth we are sufficiently stirred up to be delivered from it Indeed this latter condition is very odious and it 's not without cause that the greatest number of men would rather die free under an apparent Slavery than live as bondmen under a visible Liberty Nevertheless it must be owned that this evil comes not near the miseries that we endure from Passions and the Empire of these insolent Usurpers is less supportable to man than the hatred of the envious the rage of Tyrants and the violence of his Enemies For if these torment or persecute him they exercise their fury but on his body they cannot with all their malicious cruelty ravish the liberty of the most noble part of himself if they assault his innocence if they deprive him of his friends if they cast him into irons and if they attempt upon his very life by injurious usage his Soul preserves her authority the fetters that restrain her slave touch her not and she acts with so much facility that it may be affirmed she is never more ingenious than in affliction But Passions disorder both they extend their oppressions beyond the Body they deal with the Soul as Men with their Slaves and without regard to Grandeur they exercise their
the feet of his captive Slave her Beauty ravisheth his Soul and stops in a Passage where a hundred thousand men durst not have attended his approach without terror From these two Examples it is not hard to conclude that Passions debase us that we cannot treat with them without becoming their slaves and that we must of necessity renounce our liberty when we obey such insolent Masters To prevent then this shameful servitude a wise man must take Reason into his Counsel he must stay till she has examined the Nature of the Objects that present themselves before he let in Love or Hatred and he must conclude nothing touching their perfections or defects till this Sun have inlightned his Will and have approved or forbidden the pursuite Discourse VII That a Wise man may live without Passions I Wonder not that man should be so miserable since he himself is a Conspirator against his own Felicity since he makes vanity of augmenting natures defects since he takes pride in his own miseries and emploies all her benefits to make himself unhappy or guilty Those that have exercised their Eloquence in decifering corrupted nature thought it sufficient to be the Sons of Adam to render us disobedient that the sin of that first revolter against his God was the spring of all our evils whereof Passions became the Children after they had been the Mother and that man never committed an unjust act but by the instigation of concupisence which becomes the chastisement thereof Although the Authors of this Doctrin be to me very venerable and though the opinion which they maintain be approved by all Christians nevertheless I perswade my self that they will not absolutely deny to allow me that we derive not all our defects from his crime that we may as well bewaile the perfections which we still retain as those we have lost and that we find orderly motions in our Bodies which are rather arguments of the Excellency of the Soul then the defection of nature Some men would be innocent if Heaven had not honoured them with favors their rare qualities occasion their misery they are poor because they are too rich they run themselves into dangers by being too much enlightened and they engage not in Error but by being more perfect then others What ever renders a wise man accomplisht makes them miserable they anticipate misfortune by their foresight their memories call to mind the injuries done them their wits are busied about useless or hazardous things and all their qualifications become pernicious or disadvantagious To augment their own miseries and add to natures defects voluntary errors they take counsel from the noise of the People they regulate their lives by their reports they act but by their example and they approve all for reasonable that hath many Approbators and not that wherein truth most consisteth Likewise they who have made so many invectives against the sin of our first Father have almost depraved the whole stock of man-kind by endeavouring to explain the most difficult Principle of our Religion and have taught them undesignedly to justify their defects and to form excuses for their lewdness For if that inhumane Father say they have bequeathed us death with our being if he have made us Slaves by the loss of his innocence if the Passions which arise in our Soul be the effects of his Rebellion if they be as inseparable as our members and if we cannot shun their Surprizals but by the aids of grace who shall resolve to labour their Conquest seeing they are born with us and proceed from the conjunction of the Soul with the Body since the seeds thereof are in us and that that grace to which they have recourse is a bounty which God only bestows upon his Favorites To avoid then all these complaints it must be owned that human nature is not so depraved as they describe her that she yet retains some remains of her purity and that man hath still a power to combat vice follow vertue and conquer his Passions When those famous men that laid the foundation of Romes Empire would instruct their Subjects by their precepts or reform them by their Laws they rather disordered then settled them they taught them crimes of which before they were ignorant and they made many guilty persons in designing to keep men innocent Parricides saith Seneca first began in Rome by the prohibition thereof the punishment threatned to those that should be found so monstrous inspired them with cruelty men became barbarians when they were forbidden to be inhumane and they feared not to murther them from whom they had received life after the Law had informed them that such a sin might be committed So that those men must be Enemies to nature who throw all their faults upon her infirmities and we must deny that we often employ our perfections to procure our own unhappiness This truth appears evidently in the Subject of this discourse We render Passions which are but the pure effects of opinion and the will to be the productions of nature we fancy that they are born with us and we conclude from our weakness that a wise man cannot defend himself from them but by a Miracle In fine we deem all things difficult which we fear to undertake and judging of other mens strength by our own we take all for impossibilities which we our selves cannot perform Also I am of Senecas judgment and do maintain with him that there is as much difference between the Stoicks and other Philosophers as between men and women and as these two sex are necessary for the building of Families and States the one is born to command and the other to obey For let Epicurus be commended let his Disciples protect him and let them ransack the Body of Morality to shape excuses for his opinions yet it must be owned that he has made no Scholars but Slaves and that when he designed to create Philosophers he innocently formed vicious and impious persons Aristotle Father of the Academia is not more vertuous then Epicurus though he seem more reasonable for he makes but Bastard wise men he moderates the violence of their inclinations to render their conduct easy and allowing them ordinary distempers he hath taught them that they cannot be healthy unless they have infirmities that they cannot become liberal without covetousness that to be valiant they must have the help of ambition and that vertue would be of no use to them if they had not Passions to execute what she projects This opinion seems so little generous to Zeno's Disciples that they cannot forbear vigorously to oppose it and Seneca has condemned it for so unreasonable a tenet that he thinks he pleads vertues cause so often as he is ingaged in the Combat Where replies he is the freedom of the wise man if he may not act but by the intermediation of his Passions If he be obliged to fly to their Counsels and if he must borrow of them
conclusion one Woman should have all men for Suitors or one Man should have all Women for Mistresses But because the inclinations of Men are different that one and the same object procures Love and Hatred to divers persons and that one views with indifference what another beholds not but with Admiration They infer that love is not natural that opinion is the Mother of this diversity of wills who represents us things other then indeed they are and makes us conceive a Love for that which is unworthy of it Those Faces to whom Heaven hath not been liberal in favors are not altogether freed from suspition some men fall in Love with Baboons in feminine habits Uncleanness is sometimes as ugly as shameful and it is not more ordinary for the deformed to love then common for the beautiful to be courted All the parts of the Body unite when they are employed in the work of Nature the senses that are uncapable of conduct constrain their assistance to succor or enlighten her and the faculties of the Soul are so subserviant to her that they always abandon their private differences to execute her orders But Love dispiseth all her Precepts weakens her vigor corrupts her inclinations opposeth her dictates and by a fury as blind as unjust poureth confusion into all her Dominions Never is man less reasonable then when he is seized by this Passion and he never appears more indiscreet then when he gives ear to his Counsels or admits his suggestions The most noble of his habitudes vanish at the appearance of this Tyrant his courage flags his Counsels are uncertain his strength transmutes into Temerity and having no thought for any thing but the Subject of his Passion he becomes as useless to his friends as burthensome to himself The Poets had some Reason to feign that their Jupiter intermitted his own felicity when he descended from Heaven to be a companion of women that the conversation of Creatures so little valuable debased his condition that the Empire of Love was incompatible with his Person and that he did necessarily cease to be a God so often as he subjected himself to his Slaves Although these wise Prattlers might think that their God was unchangable and that they had more in design to publish the power of Love then to make him a Soveraign of the Diety to whom they paid Divine adorations yet may it be said that this fable is become a real truth upon Earth and that the Passion which they feigned to prescribe Laws to their Gods swallows up mankind and guides the inclinations contrary to their Nature He is so powerful upon their minds that he changeth all their faculties he makes the fearful audacious he inspires the Niggard with liberality he engageth the most generous to serve in vile and ridiculous actions he abaseth the proud he makes wise men carry Fools baubles and by a new Metamorphosis he turns Dunces into Poets and Orators But as these are strained disguises which ought to be rather attributed to the force of Fancy then to the power of the thing loved they easily return to their first inclinations they renounce their Amours to pursue what is more suitable to their humors they become at last the Persecutors of those Beauties which before had made them Idolaters for as soon as the Sun of Reason begins to dart forth his Lights that the judgment examins his first decrees and that the will acknowledgeth his Errors then he learns without much preaching that Love is imperious that he cannot be obeyed without hazard of liberty that a man is a Slave so soon as he becomes subject to his Laws and that Kings ought to think of laying down their Crowns from the hower that they become Amorous Let Plato exercise his Oratory in favor of Love as much as he will let him make it the Governor of Arts and Sciences and let him give it if he please the glory of having submitted the whole Earth to his Empire he shall be constrained to acknowledg that it is the most sordid and the most blind of our Passions and that he must have lost both his sense and his Reason that becomes his advocate For what can be shewed us more unworthy of a Man then to subject him to a Woman to make him forsake his understanding to follow her fantastick humor and to creep so far into her Dominion as to have no desires but what are hers no resolutions but what proceed from her lips nor any Authority but what is confirmed by her decrees Sometimes as if the Beauty he adores were a Diety he grows pale in approaching her Person he trembles as often as he sees her his Tongue gets the Cramp when he would speak to her and his Soul distracted with excess of the Passion can form nothing but nonsensical and imperfect words We must truly say that Love is an Enemy to nature since it violates all her Laws changeth the constitution of the most noble part of her Workmanship and that leaving him in a condition where he hath no more the command of himself he can undertake nothing that is not ridiculous or irregular To avoid them all these disorders and to defend our Selves from the Tyranny of so malignant a Passion Reason must timely prevent his assaults and we must consider before we engage with such an Enemy that the object to which he would draw us is not in our Power that it is a benefit that cannot contribute to our felicity and that the greatest Beauties are Heavenly presents placed upon Womnes faces only to punish the folly of indiscreet and curious Persons That this delightful proportion of parts is an advantage of as small continuance as of great danger that it 's a flower that fades in few days and a favor of Nature to which all the accidents of life may prove injurious In fine that Beauty is but a Sun that borrows all his Vertue from our opinion and which would be void of light if it drew not it's splender from our blindness Indeed if Love had not found the way to put out mens eyes he had long since been a King without Subjects we should have been no more Souldiers listed under his command those who fight under his Banners would become his greatest Enemies and they would disdain to prostitute their affections to a Mistress whose chiefest excellence is nothing but what she hath borrowed from the vain esteem of foolish men But Love knows so well how to disguise her defects that he sees not any thing in her of which he raiseth not the price he makes her apparent blemishes to pass for currant perfections and though she be often endued but with ordinary Charms he forbears not to give her excessive praises He ravisheth the Lilly of her whiteness to colour her face he steals the Blush of Roses to embellish her Cheeks he dims the glistering of the stars to increase the brightness of her eyes and to hear him speak of
favour of the Stoicks and that a man cannot undertake to plead their Cause without attracting their hatred and censure I know that the severity of their principles is had in suspicion of many persons that their Sentiments are disliked by popular spirits that their Doctrine surpasseth the belief of Aristotle and Plato and that they both declare nothing more extravagant than that which we admire in their Writings those that side with these laugh at the others paradoxes and affirm that they are glorious but in shew that their words are fuller of ostentation than Reason that the world admires them because they understand them not and that learned men do not esteem them but because they raise their thoughts to a higher pitch of sublimity They protest they cannot comprehend that a wise man can be the only rich man of the world since he often falls into want since fortune reduceth him to Ambs-ace since he is often without things necessary and for the most part hath neither Clothes to cover him House to put his head in nor Servant to attend him that he can always enjoy himself since he is sometimes at a nonplus making vain eruptions forsaking his discretion in discourse and acting at certain times the part of mad men That he should be the Monarch of the World since he hath seldom any Subjects to command being often constrained to serve ignorant Masters and do such work for them as is opposite to that Soveraignty he pretendeth to have over them But amongst the absurdities wherewith they charge their Paradoxes they admire none so much as those which exempt him from opinions which disintangle him from the knowledg of uncertain things affirming that it is as impossible for him to doubt of a truth as to be ignorant of it What say they is a wise man infallible in his conjectures Can he not err in his Judgment Do we not see that he discourses of things he understandeth not And descending to particulars doth he not undertake to render an account of the influences of the Stars and Planets of which he comprehends as little the nature as the power Would you make a God of him after you have filled him with Pride And would you make him partaker of the Almighties secrets after you have assigned him the Knowledg of Angels the Power of Kings and the Government of the Creation But their astonishment will cease if they take the pains to examine the Sense of their Paradoxes and to learn from the explication which they give them that they are grounded upon Reason that they are not so much contrary to Truth as to their opinions and that they teach nothing but what may be received by the greatest Criticks of our Age For if they say that their wise man is the only man without want and make him Master of all that Wealth which causeth covetous men to be indigent it is for that he acknowledgeth no other Benefits but those of the Soul he expects nothing from Fortune what he hath he useth with discretion and judiciously dispising those forreign things he knows how to enjoy what he contemplates though he possess it not If they affirm that he is not deceived in what he doth it is because the Light is ever his Companion and because Reason is his Counsellor in all his enterprizes If they make him a King in this world and if without the load of a Scepter or Diadem they give him the charge of States and Empires it is for that he being in tranquillity knows how to regulate his Passions he is alone capable of commanding his equals and his integrity makes him not less in humane society than the Pilot in a Ship the Magistrate in a City the General in an Army the Soul in the Body and the Spirit and Reason in the Soul If in fine they banish opinions from his mind and if they will that his knowledg be as certain as himself judges it to be true it is because he rejects all doubtful propositions approves no conclusions but what are drawn from infallible principles and forms no Arguments but what he knoweth before hand bear a conformity to the matter whereof he discourseth Knowledg is the portion of the wise and he is simple or temerarious that perswades himself that he is Master of a Truth which he knoweth not For this cause it is that Seneca maintains so bloody a war against Fear and informed of the disorders with which she entertains her guests he gives her battel whereever he finds her For as she is but a doubtful knowledg and the opinion of an absent evil which threatens us he condemns her foresight he forbids her the Counsel of his wise man and he would think that he rob'd his Soul of tranquillity if he permitted him to entertain her in his service To speak truly nothing so much distracts our quiet as this Passion and nothing so much abaseth our Courage as her provident curiosity For as if she were ingenious at nothing but our destruction she assumes all imaginary forms to make us miserable One while she advanceth our disasters to make us feel them before they come anon she makes us look upon them through a magnifying Glass to render them less supportable to us another while she represents them inevitable to run us headlong into despair and already overwhelmed with the evils she gives us to expect she causeth us to wish for Death that we may be delivered from a Passion which constrains us to suffer it with tedious and divers repetitions she is of so timorous a nature that she is afrighted at every thing she fancies to be able to hurt her she formeth monsters that will never be brought forth she confoundeth imaginary with real evils and suffers her self to be so much surprized by the Senses that without knowing the cause either of the one or the other she is equally afraid of both Hatred in this particular seemeth more reasonable than Fear for if she resist an evil if she employ all her dexterity to oppose the violence thereof it is because it is real and its presence obligeth her to Revenge If audacity swell against her enemies and puts her self in a posture to oppose all their fury 't is for that they attack her and danger or honour constrains her to a self defence Sadness all melancholy as she is regards nothing but the evil that hurts her she complains of its rigors for that she feels them and sinks not under their weight but because it 's not in her power to avoid them But Fear multiplies our sorrows she sees them as soon as they threaten us she seeks them before they come and by an ambitious industry she makes use of the past and the future to torment us What greater folly saith Seneca can be observed in a man than to run to meet his disasters to feel them ere they touch him and lose the present by fear of that which is to come A man
of our life in his hands is able to condemn us to tortures as terrible as infamous Although that Diseases destroy the Body as well as Torments that the Pestilence be not less feared by us than punishments and that there be natural evils that exceed the cruelty of the most ingenious Tyrants yet is there not any thing which so much amazteh us as the sight of torments and nothing so much shakes our stability as the preparations made to deprive us of life or to make proof of our Faith Other evils which arise from our constitution seize us silently and their coming is so sudden that there is often no distance of time between their first arrivel and their violence Sickness overtakes us without warning it runs into our veins without noise and without shew of that which might trouble us it congeals our blood or burns up our entrails Poverty hath not so frightful an aspect she neither hurts our Eyes nor our Ears when she enters upon the ruines of Riches and Fortune changeth not her countenance in making us poor or in placing us in the midst of abundance But Tortures are terrible we are astonisht at their preparations the instruments of Death which they set out before us beat down our courage and that tumultuous noise which attends the ceremony throws horror into the minds of all that behold it There they set in order all the cruelties which the malice of Tyrants hath invented here they set up the Cross raise the Rack expose the boiling Cauldrons to view lay open the pitched Shirts and rowze the cruelty of savage Beasts to devour us all this attracting matter sends Terror into our Soul and it ought not to be thought strange if we are so much afraid of Torments since they are shewed us with so much addition and that they appear to our eies in such frightful shapes that the Executioner even redoubles our Fear by gradually exposing the instruments of Torture and causeth the most resolute to abate his Constancy by the preparation of things that are able to offend it Nothing so much abates our Spirit as the consideration of the evil that threatens us and experience lets us see that pain is always less rigorous than the apprehension we had of it It is not always the thing that wounds us but the opinion that we have conceived of it and we have found some persons that had endured Tortures with constancy had they not first been overcome by the ceremonies thereof A man is not miserable unless he think himself to be so his thoughts are the Regulators of his pains and to become a glorious Conqueror he need but perswade himself that the evil he suffereth is light Although these Arguments be peculiar they cease not to be true and it 's sufficient to observe the effects of opinion to make judgment of what she can say for her self For as she is the Child of the Body rather than of the Soul and borrows her activity from the Sense she takes her part in all the accidents that befall it she shares in his Joy and Grief and by a subtile craft she raiseth the price of what ever pleaseth it and augments the horror of what ever is odious to it From thence it comes that she represents Torments with so much frightfulness and enhauncing upon the evils which the Body suffers she gives them dreadful shapes which astonish us and which equally send their horror into the Soul of the Patient and of the Spectators She is so suspicious that she never represents evil nakedly and she is so little faithful in her reports that she is generally found a lyar If we float upon the Sea and the Winds swell her Waves or never so little toss our Vessel we become faint-hearted Reason and Light make their escape and as if we had already suffered shipwrack or were condemned to drink up the whole Sea we grow pale with Fear and fall into a sweat with fright If Earth tremble under our feet and if the houses that cover us do but shake or make shew of falling upon us what out-cries do we not make and what Deaths faces do we not shew in our countenances Cold takes possession of all our Limbs Fear summons the Blood to the Heart all objects astonish us and as if the whole house were to fall on our heads we are afraid of every part Yet we are not ignorant that a small quantity of water will choak us that a tyle from our house is sufficient to knock out our Brains and that we need but a Hole of three foot to do our business It is the same in matters of Torture of which we have so much apprehension the noise that attends it makes the greatest part of the pain Opinion enhaunceth its violence and the sight of so many instruments set out for shew fills us with more Grief than that Death we are to suffer yet we know that all those armed Soldiers that that Troop of Officers that the Executioner trimmed up in a Wastcoat can but remove us out of the World let out our Soul at the wound to be given us and not to affright our selves with the name of Murther separate our Soul from our Body In fine they can do but what a Worm doth among Children in a Chamber what the Gangreen causeth in the Hospitals and what the Feaver every day produceth in the Courts of Princes and Shepherds Huts An ordinary resolution will serve to endure evils that pass in a moment and which often terminate with the same stroak by which they began It is indeed a difficult thing to gain this power upon our selves we find at this day but few Scaevolas and Regulus's it appertaineth but to those great Souls of Antiquity to brave Tortures and bear them without disturbance We find no more men who dare burn their own hands to abate the confidence of their Persecutors who dare run to meet Death in derision of their tyrannical oppressors and whose Joys in professing their innocence are not interrupted under the hand of the Executioner Modern Philosophy hath made us too tender and the love of our Bodies is become too natural to us not to be afraid of so many evils as do conspire our destruction not to fear a Wedg of Iron which breaks our Bones wild Beasts which rip up our Bowels Engines by which Death is conveyed to us with tedious repetitions and moderate flames which reduce us not to ashes till after our patience is tyred out But as general Principles terminate in examples and that the living draw from them their principal Lights I think I may here propose the courage of a Heathen-Dame to the cowardise of our Christian Men and shew them in the History of her Life that pain is insupportable only to them that are defective in resolution Never was Empire more maligned than that of the first Cesar his Usurpation begat him the hatred of all the Nations of the Earth the Romans often
that the Sea hath swallowed up a whole Fleet of Infidels that the Turks have gained some Islands from the Christians and violently carried away a great number of innocent persons into miserable Captivitie all these evil tidings stir us not we hear them without disturbance and though Nature oblige us to love all men as our Brethren we are not much concerned whether they be miserable provided we are but out of danger the misfortunes of our Neighbours terrifie us not but in proportion to the love we bear them and we fear not their unhappiness but in as much as it may chance to concern our selves This was it that caused St. Austin to define Grief according to the Stoicks a Displeasure of the Soul caused by the opinion of an evil which befalls us contrary to our Will But as the humor of this Passion agrees not with that of its companions she bringeth forth effects that are different from theirs For if Love and Desire treat us with oppression Grief deals with us as a Tyrant and if Hope and Fear treat their guests as slaves Sorrow makes them Martyrs Her malignity extends into all their faculties she benumbs the Body with cold she extinguisheth the heat by which they subsist she dries up the radical moisture by which they live she obstructs the digestion of what they eat she embroils their memory she perverts their judgment she leaves not a member of their Bodies nor any power of their Soul uncorrupted or not weakened In fine if the other Passions be Diseases Grief is a Torment if Love be subject to discontents if Joy be ligh-theaded if Fear be accompanied with imbecillity Sorrow is attended at once with pining anguish and pain she beats down the Spirits with the Body and overthrowing the whole order of their Government puts them into a condition uncapable of acting any thing but what is fatal to their Rest Despair ceaseth to torment us when separated from Grief and our apprehensions are supportable when divided from that unquietness with which the faint-hearted are afflicted Discourse II. That Misfortunes make not a Wise Man sad and that they are equally advantageous to the innocent and the guilty ALbeit I have ever been perswaded that there was a God in Heaven that I know well all Creatures obeyed him and that that Religion which I profess obliged me to pay him reverence although I owned his Power to be infinite that he was equally just and merciful and that the least of his Perfections was as well beyond my expression as out of the reach of my thoughts nevertheless have I sometimes been unable to forbear lifting my head into Heaven to bring his Providence in question and to ask whether the Creator of the Universe were the Governor of the minutes and adventures of our Life It is true that my error lasted but a while and I changed my opinion as soon as I considered the Beauties of Nature when I contemplated these azure Vaults which hang over our heads when I admired the influences of the Stars when I observed the regular order of the Seasons when I examined how the Day succeeded the Night and how the Sun which caused both conveyed his Light and his Heat into all the quarters of the Earth All these wonders easily undeceived me in my misapprehension and wholly ashamed of my infidelity I confessed without difficulty that he who divided the Seas who caused the Fruits to come forth in their seasons who upheld the Earth by its own weight was the same who regulated our Actions who took notice of our Sufferings who assisted us in our warfare and made himself Arbitrator of our Defeat or our Victory But when afterwards I saw that all things were in disorder in the World when I observed in it the guilty happy and the innocent miserable when I considered there the vicious rewarded and the just afflicted I fell again into my first error I appealed from my last opinion and swayed by an injustice which to me seemed equitable I acknowledged no other Providence but that which the Ancients attributed to Destiny and Fortune my Faith lost her self by too great Curiosity and I became an Infidel by desiring too much Knowledg But the Chastisement that waiteth upon sin cured me of this Distemper the punishment of the wicked opened my Eies I complain now no more of the afflictions of the just nor of the felicity of the wicked I know that these are sufficiently miserable by being guilty and that it is not necessary that Divine Justice should abate their Pride since Vice contributeth to their Torment Indeed let a man be as vicious as he will he shall not avoid the Chastisement due to his sin his lewdness is his punishment and how insensible soever he be of his Crimes he cannot shun their punishment after he hath committed them There is no safety here upon Earth but that of innocence and nothing can give rest to our Souls but the justice of our Actions As it was the custom of the Romans to bear the Cross upon which they were to be crucified impious men carry their punishment about them the remorse of Conscience bears them company in all places and they feel themselves condemned before the Witnesses be called ere ever the Judg pass the Sentence and before the Executioner lay hands upon them Those Torments that are visible are not always the most sensible our Body is not at all times the theater of our pain that which wounds this is often offensive only to our imagination and if its violence make it short its modertaion is not insupportable but that which proceeds from our Crimes is eternal it is this only which is able to unite different qualities which is as lasting as cruel which endures longer than that which caused it which encreaseth by its silence and gains strength by its moderation It resembles that famous Tyrant who gave commandment to the Executioners to give their Patients a tedious Death to make them suffer their Torments with longer repetitions to lay on gently that their Death might be the more sensible to them and to send them into the other world by reiterated pains For sin gives us no respite it continues our whole life and by repeated torments conveys us to eternal Death But without spending more time in summing up the Calamities of the wicked it will not be hard for me to satisfie those complaints which most men make against Heaven if I shew that Fortune hath nothing dismal in her that her disgraces cannot make us unhappy that they are rather testimonials of Gods Bounty than of his Anger and that if they are the exercises of the innocent they serve also for remedies to the guilty It is adversity saith an ancient Orator that reforms our Wills that gives courage to the cowardly that constrains the obstinate that teacheth the proud modesty which instructeth the impious in vertue which crowneth the just and punisheth the wicked Seneca
a Brazen Sky Our Country is that place where we live contented our felicity depends on us and not on our habitation and it is to little purpose to drive us from the Land of our Nativity since into what Coast soever we are carried we bear about us our Vertue which ought to make all our Happiness A Prison seemeth to have something more vexations than Banishment For besides that this deprives us of the advantages of Nature that it is the general Residence of Darkness that it shuts out the Sun Beams and that the light enters not but at the Grates and sighing holes it debars us of Liberty it tumbleth us alive into the Grave and makes us as Exiles in the midst of our own Country The Lawyers confound Imprisonment with Exile and put no difference between the time that we spend in the Dungeon and that which is wasted in Banishment Mean while that which makes others unfortunate is no incommodity to a Wise man His mind never suffers restraint and as he lives content in Solitude he remains at liberty in Prison The Walls which enclose his Body the Chains by which he is fastned to a corner of the Goal cannot limit his Soul He is free whilest his Companion is a Slave and without clearing the Gates that enclose him he takes his advantage to escape into all parts of the World As in his freedom he loaths Voluptuousness he laughs at Pain in Servitude and he careth little into what place they put him since he demands not to have his Portion here upon Earth That which afflicts the weak and makes a Prison so odious to persons of honour is because it is infamous because it passeth in the conceit of Men for Satans habitation the abode of evil Spirits where his family recides and that letting the innocent go free they fancy that none but the unfortunate and miserable are there left behind But all these words ought not to affright us for if we be true Christians let us go in boldly let us prepare our selves to fight with a Tyrant even in his own house and to trample under foot an Usurper who is not less an Enemy to the Just than to the wicked If the hole into which we are thrust be the Possession of Darkness let our Vertue serve us for a Light let our Patience bruise the Fetters let our inward sweet smell expel the Stenches of the place and let our innocence triumph over the rigour of the Goalers We trade well when we gain by our Commerce when our profits exceed our losses and when adventuring some vain pleasures of this life we exchange them for solid and eternal Joys It is really true that the Guard about us those Fetters with which they load our Bodies and the Dungeons in which they bury us alive are advantageous to us they attract us from the Earth they are the Ladders by which our thoughts climbe into Heaven they give us there the contemplation of Divine things and insensibly pour into us Charity with knowledge They do what Providence daily performs in the World and as she gives cessation to the labours of Mortals by the sweet refreshments of night they allay our miseries by the consideration of the rewards they work for us In fine a Prison restoreth to the Soul that which by violence it takes from the Body The liberty of the one ariseth from the servitude of the other as it causeth our sufferings it begins our health and stripping us of the delights of the Earth it leaves us only the desires of Heaven But if the Prisoners be not attended with all comforts yet ought they not to be much afflicted A Prison hath nothing but what may be born with if it have its Shame it hath also its Glory and if it have incommodities that cause it to be hated it hath advantages which have rendred it desirable Some Philosophers have made it the habitation of the Muses they stiled it a Wise mans retirement there they composed the most Excellent of their Works and as if it had been a Schoole they there taught their Disciples Vertue unfortunate men Constancy and their Oppressors Mercy it was there that Anaxagoras studied the Square of the Circle by which he put the greatest Artists to a Nonplus and proved by Reason what they could never demonstrate by Experience It was there that Boetius writ his Consolations by which he shews that it is God that sends afflictions that Philosophy is a proper Remedy and that that which came from so just a Hand could not be offensive but to such as were without hope of reward It was there that St. Paul preached the Gospel that he writ the greatest part of his Epistles that he confuted both the Jews and the Gentiles and proved to all the World that we cannot enter into Glory but through the straight Gate of affliction In fine it is there that we may learn to be sober to be contented with what we have to retrench our selves of superfluous things to contemn Earthly benefits and by a generous violence to prepare for those Mansions where the unfortunate shall be happy the innocent at rest and the Captives free Discourse IV. That Pity and Envy are Enemies to Wisdom AS we see nothing in the world purely simple that all we find there hath a mixture that the Pleasure we tast in it is mingled with pain and that the highest of human Felicity is always attended with troubles and disquiet As there is hardly any compleat Vertue upon Earth as the most excellent have their defects the most enlightened their mists the most innocent their faults and the most couragious their weaknesses it must not be wondered that Vice doth so often deceive us in its appearance and that assuming a proportion of its contrary qualities it needs only a little outward shew to represent it self glorious we magnifie Ambition because she apeth Generosity because she despiseth Dangers affronteth Death and to gain a piece of Earth makes little of all those laborious toyls which give exercise to Valor We esteem Prodigality because it opposeth Covetousness because it claimeth kindred of Liberality and gives largely without hope of reward We pay reverence to the Dissimulation of Politicians because it hath an affinity with Prudence because it hides our Designs covers our Anger and waits for the day of Vengeance We honour Compassion because it resembles Charity because she takes the Prisoners out of the Dungeon comforts the distressed and without any consideration of their merits relieves equally the innocent and the guilty All the Orators have given her Elogies they make her the Vertue of Princes they have lifted up her head above her Companions and do assure us that if Valor and Justice made Kings great it was Compassion that rendred them worthy of our admiration Nothing likens you so much unto the Gods saith Cicero speaking to Cesar as your Compassion your Clemency makes you his Image and if your
spirits weakned the activity of their Bodies and if to be in health were to be happy it might be concluded that Wise Men are miserable the one half of their Lives Beauty is but a result of health and as subject to decay as the principle to alteration Yet have we some Philosophers that love her that present her with praises after vows of affection and by a blindness the more blamable for being voluntary fancy her to be the second part of their Felicity they call her the Mate of Vertue they describe her to be Divinely animated and will have it that she doth not less influence the Souls of Wise men then the imagination of Fools To hear them discourse She is the delight of all our Senses and although she be the most pleasing object of our sight yet is she the ravishment of our Eares in the recital of her perfections If we believe some Heathen the Gods themselves behold nothing here below more glorious then a face on which they have bestowed their favours and men draw not more vanity from any thing what ever then to find themselves inriched with a benefit that appears without difficulty and may be enjoyed without Envy For she exerciseth so absolute a Dominion upon humane conceit that she converts all that behold her into Lovers the persecutors of the innocent are friends to her and more happy then Vertue it self she hath not yet found an Enemy to make War against her nor envious persons to bespatter her perfections Do but see her and you love her when you have once seen her you cannot be her Enemy and her allurements are so potent that she takes us from our selves at her very first appearance to our Eyes But alas who is there that may not easily discern that so fading a perfection cannot make us happy and that a Benefit which hath all its glory from our opinion is too light to satisfy our desires too little Solid to stay our hopes for what can there be shewed us upon Earth more frail then Beauty or what is there more to be slighted then a Face whose Charms are only in the Eyes of them that are taken with it and which oweth the greatest part of its Dazling Flashes to the blindness of its Adorers Those Famous Beauties that have put the most ingenious of the Poets into a Sweat and suck't so many Praises from his Pen in excuse of the disorders which they have caused in the World are not so much the works of Nature as his witty Invenâ—ions and if the Love he bare to Corinna had not disturbed his mind Helena had been at this day without Admirers and Penelope without Gallants To be in love is to have sore Eyes and if Passion did not often cajolle mens Fancies in favour of them they adore it might be said that Love had long since had no buisiness in the World or that if he had made new Conquests the Fools head must have been the Seat of the War Beauty is so frail that she cannot be kept a few Years and what Art soever Women use to preserve her they must resolve to become ugly if they will grow old That Clearness which contributeth to her Splendor advanceth her Ruin the Sun which gives her a dazling quality disfigures her Time who is her Guardian is her mortal Enemy The Body that sustains her puts her to Death and if some times the strength of Constitution prolong her Ruin it is but to reserve the Spoils for the meanest of her Maladies To draw Reason from the Proud Mistresses of Beauty that Tyrannize the Spirits of indiscreet men and to be avenged of of the Evils wherewith they afflict their Martyrs it is not needful to Negotiate with death to cast pale Colors into their Faces to employ the Nails of a she Rival to deface their most curious Features or that some strange accident should carry away the Off-sets which they value more then their Lives 〈◊〉 of an Ague or Feaver hath force enough to overthrow these charming Adversaries their choicest Complexions yeild to disordered Seasons the Rose forsaketh their Cheaks when it feels the Cold and as there is no distemper that is not able to change their Comeliness there is not any Beauty but may become the scorn of her Slaves But if sickness did not attack these Beauties if the seasons were sufficiently constant not to alter their hew and if the injurious air had any respect for their perfections yet time which Periods Empires would not spare them in prolonging their days he would diminish their Beauty and by a strange but ordinary Metamorphosis he would change the proudest of Natures works into Monkees and Baboons The Sun when he sets hath charms that attract the consideration of the curious the pleasant raies which he sheddeth at bidding us good night are our Shepheards delights and Astrologers observe that his withdrawing lights are not less beneficial to us then when he apears again in our Horizon and rides triumphant over our heads The latter season hath her pleasures if she carry in commodities in one hand she brings equal advantages in the other She is the Expectation of the Husband-man and the reward of the Vine keeper and if she drive the people from the hills and open Countrey she fills their Cellars with Wines the Garners with Corn and the Barns with fruits of the Harvest But when Women look towards age when their hairs assume the Colour of Ashes when wrinckles furrow their foreheads when their Eyes betake themselves to the faculty of casting Pearls when their Cheeks incline to their Chin and when those two Milky Mountains become one double bag full of Blood they are no more desired by men then they seem horrible to their Lovers they which courted them before now hate them and as if all those lines in their foreheads were so many marks of their indiscretion they shun the sight of them as of the most frightful Monsters of Nature Also those that understand well the Nature of Beauty consider her as a remote advantage and esteem the fruit more then the possession they are content to see her on the Faces of their beloved and knowing that her quality is too inconstant to make them happy they give her freely up to those soft Ladies that seek only to be beautiful But of all that made so great accompt of the benefits of the Body I meet with none less reasonable then they who joyn them to voluptuousness and who believed that to live happily it was necessary that Pleasure should make the last perfection of their felicity For although health be but an even temper of the Body though the concord which proceedeth from the mixture of the Elements be a pure effect of their good understanding and that the vigor of the Body have its dependance on the heat and Humidity of the Blood yet the good offices which health rendereth unto her Land-Lord are considerable enough to gain some reputation