Mixts are compounded The Sun indeed is the Efficient Cause of all productions here below but being a celestial and incorruptible body cannot enter into the composition of any thing as a Material Cause Much less can our common Fire which devours every thing and continually destroyes its Subject But it must be that Elementary Fire which is every where potentially and actually in its own Sphere which is above that of the Air and below that of the Moon Moreover being the lightest or least heavy of all the Elements the Harmony of the Universe which consists chiefly in their situation requires that it be in the highest place towards which therefore all other Fires which are of the same Nature ascend in a point with the same violence that a stone descends towards its Centre those remaining here below being detain'd by some Matter whereof they have need by reason of the contraries environing them from which that Sublunary Fire being exempt hath nothing to do with Matter or nourishment and by reason of its great rarity and tenuity can neither burn nor heat any more then it can be perceiv'd by us The Second said That subtlety one of the principal conditions requisite to the conversion of Matter into Fire is so far from hindring that it encreases the violence and activity of Fire making it penetrate even the solidest bodies whence that pretended Fire not being mixt with extraneous things to allay its heat as that of Aqua Vitae is temper'd by its Phlegm or aqueous humidity but being all Fire in its own Sphere and natural place which heightens the Virtue and qualities of all Agents must there also heat shine burn and produce all its Actions which depend not upon density or rarity or such other accidents of Matter purely passive but upon its whole Form which constituting it what it is must also make it produce Effects sutable to its Nature Wherefore as Water condens'd into Ice or Crystal is no longer Water because it hath ceas'd to refrigerate and moisten so the Fire pretended to be above the Air invisible and insensible by reason of its rarity is not Fire but subtile Air. They who say its natural inclination to heat and burn is restrain'd by the Influences of the Heavens particularly of the cold Starrs as Saturn and the Moon speak with as little ground since the circular motion of the Heavens whereby this Fire is turn'd about should rather increase than diminish its heat And besides Fire being a necessary Agent its action can no more be hindred by such Influences than the descent of a stone downwards Whereunto add that the beams of all Stars have heat and were any cold yet those of Saturn are too remote and those of the Moon too weak in comparison of this Fire the extent whereof is about 90000. Leagues for the distance between the Earth and the Moon is almost as much namely 56. Semidiameters of the Earth from which substracting between 25. and 30. Leagues which they allot to the three Regions of the Air the rest must be occupy'd by the Fire which they make to extend from the Concave surface of the Moon to the convex surface of the Air which it would consume in less than a moment considering the great disproportion between them Moreover were there such a Fire it could not be own'd an Element because its levity would keep it from descending and entring into the Composition of mixts and were it not leight yet it would be hindred from descending by the extream coldness of the Middle Region of the Air accounted by some a barrier to the violence of that Chymerical Fire which ought rather to be reckon'd amongst their Entia Rationis than the Natural Elements whereunto Corporeity and Palpability are requisite For these Reasons I conceive with Pythagoras that the Sun is the true Elementary Fire plac'd for that purpose in the middle of the World whose Light and Heat enter into the Composition not onely of all living things but also of Stones and Metals all other Heat besides that of the Sun being destructive and consequently no-wise fit for Generation The Third said He confounds Heaven with Earth and destroyes the Nature of the Sun who takes it for an Element that is to say a thing alterable and corruptible by its contraries which it must have if it be an Element The Heat of his beams proves it not the Elementary Fire seeing commonly the nearer we are to Fire the more we feel the Heat of it but the Supream and Middle Regions of the Air are colder than ours Besides were our common fire deriv'd from the Sun it would not languish as it doth when the Sun shines upon it nor would the heat of dunghils and caves be greater in Winter than in Summer Wherefore I rather embrace the common Opinion which holds That the heaviest Element is in the lowest place and the leightest in the highest whose Action is hindred by the proportion requisite to the quantity of each Element The Fourth said That the qualities of Fire viz. Heat Dryness and Light concurring in the Sun in a supream degree argue it the Elementary Fire for Light being the Cause of Heat the Sun which is the prime Luminous Body must also be the prime Hot that is to say Fire For as the pretended one above the Air was never yet discover'd so 't is repugnant to the Order of the Universe for the leightest of Elements to be shut up in the Centre of the Earth where some place it We have but two wayes to know things Sense and Reason the latter of which is founded either upon Causes or Effects Now we know nothing of the Sun or any other Celestial Bodies otherwise then by its Effects and sensible qualities which being united in Spherical Burning-glasses as they are in the body of the Sun notifie to us by their Effects the Nature of their Cause The Fifth said That Fire being to the World what the Soul is to the Body as Life is in all the parts of the Body so also is Fire equally diffused throughout the whole World In the Air it makes Comets and other Igneous Meteors In the Earth it concocts Metals and appears plentifully in Volcanoes whose Fires would not continue alwayes if they were violently detained in those Concavities yea 't is in the Waters too whose saltness and production of Monsters cannot be without Heat Yet being the most active of all Elements it is therefore distributed in much less quantity than the rest Nature having observed the same proportion both in the greater and lesser World Man's Body in which there is less of Fire than of the other Elements Otherwise had the Fire been equal to the rest it would consume all living things to ashes Nevertheless as the fixed Heat of Animals requires reparation by the Influent Heat from the Heart the Soul 's principal seat in like manner the Elementary Fire dispersed in all part of this great body of the World needs the
Influence of the Sun's Rayes which produce and conserve it CONFERENCE CXXXIX Which is most desirable long or short Life NAture not contented to produce all things hath given them a desire of Self-preservation Even Inanimate Bodies redouble their activity at the approach of their destructive contraries whence proceeds Antiperistasis But this desire appears chiefly in Animals and above all in Man being grounded upon the Love he bears to himself Which extream Love instigating him to seek all good things contributary to his contentment makes him likewise desire long Life whereby he may continue his other enjoyments and consequently avoid all occasions of Death as that which interrupts the course of this Life and makes him cease to be Hence as by general consent Death is the most terrible of terribles so by the reason of Contraries Life is the most agreable and consequently most desirable and best thing in the World and not desirable only by all Men who are endued with Knowledg but also by all living things each after its mode and according as they are capable of desiring Plants attracting their nourishment and Animals seeking their Food with difficulty and carefully avoiding all dangers that lead to Death For though Nature loves change whereof she is the Principle yet 't is onely that of Generation or of a less into a more noble substance that of Corruption and Death she abhorrs being not further pleased in the vicissitudes of mutations than she gains by the change but she is a loser by Death which separates the Body from the Soul in the union whereof she hath all that she can wish She may disguise her self and changing of shape and countenance but can never light upon any more agreable than that which she makes appear in the Marriage of a Body with a Soul which are so perfectly united that after their dissolution our Souls alwayes retain an Inclination toward their ancient Mates which they once animated The Second said If the sentiment of Nature makes us conceive long Life desirable Reason which evinceth it full of Miseries and Calamities teaches us that the shortest is best and that we may justly wish either never to have been or to have dy'd as soon as we came into the World This was the Judgement not onely of the greatest Sages of Pagan Antiquity many of whom cheerfully quitted Life to escape its Miseries but the sometimes famous Republick of Marseilles gave Licence to the miserable to take Poyson which was kept in a publick Store Yea even the holiest Personages have been of the same Advice as Job amongst others who calls Man's Life a warfare upon Earth and curses the day of his Birth Moses and Elias who pray'd to God they might dye and Saint Paul who desires nothing so much as to be loos'd from this miserable Body in which as in a dark prison the Reasonable Soul is enclos'd and remains against its will since being of a Celestial Nature and so continually longing after the place of its extraction Death which delivers it from its fetters must be as desirable to it as contrary to the Body which having nought to hope for after this Life but to be the food of worms and corruption hath all reason to dread it and avoid the occasions of it as accordingly all such do who live onely for the Body resenting no other motions in themselves but of desire to live long Whereas Reason instructs us that here we never possess the Good whereof the Immortal Soul is capable by its two Powers the Understanding and the Will which never find any Truth or Goodness in the things of this World but what is sophisticate it makes us also conceive Life as a violent state and contrary to the Felicity of our better part The Third said Since Life is the duration of Being which undoubtedly is the greatest of all Goods Entity and Good being convertible that must be the most desirable which is of greatest continuance because it comes nearest infinity and eternity under which all Perfection is compris'd and which being therefore passionately desir'd by all Men but not attainable by any they endeavor to partake as much of it as they can by prolongation of Life which is the foundation not onely of the Goods of the Body and Fortune whose sweetness makes amends for some Evils of Life but also of the Mind in which Natural Felicity consists whereunto amongst other conditions long Life is requisite both for attaining of Knowledge and Virtue not to be gotten without long time which renders Men knowing and prudent as for making others taste the fruits of an exemplary Life The Fourth said That Beasts and even Stones having the good of Existence as well as we that alone is not sufficient to render Life desirable in regard Non-existence is much rather to be wisht than a Being alwayes miserable what ever some say to the contrary since even our Saviour saith It had been better for Judas never to have been born then to have fallen into the crime of Treason Moreover Seneca saith No person would accept of Life if he knew how dear it must cost him Hence we enter into the World weeping as if it were against our consent and as our Lives begin with tears so they are continu'd with labor and ended with pain Nor have we more reason to desire long Life for the Goods of the Mind which consist in Virtue alone For if we be vicious 't is expedient both for our selves and the Publick that we live but little for fear of corrupting others by our evil Examples If virtuous 't is much to be fear'd lest we be corrupted by the converse of the wicked who are very numerous which was the cause why God by a special favour took away Enoch in the midst of the course of his Life and transported him into the Terrestrial Paradise The fifth said If a long Life were less desirable than a short God should have deceiv'd those that honour their Parents by promising them a bad salary in recompence of a good Action Nor ought Physick to trouble it self and those that use it by so many Rules and Receipts were a short Life that is to say a speedy death so desirable nor would the Laws punish Criminals with Death if what they give them were better than what they take from them Moreover as the long-liv'd Oak and Palm-Tree are more excellent than the Mushrome Hysop and the Rose Stags Elephants Eagles Ravens and the Phoenix more perfect than Butterflies and those Insects which they call Ephemera because they live but one day so amongst Men those that live long seem to have some advantage above those that are of a short Life having the Principles of their Generation more vigorous wherein nevertheless the Sex Temperament Climate Habitation and manner of living make a notable difference Sanguine Men and the Inhabitants of Temperate Regions commonly living longer than Women cholerick Persons and such as live under intemperate Climates The Sixth
remov'd from the place the very next day a great Fire happened in the same City For if every thing below is as that which is above and the effects of inferiour things proceed from the various configuration of the Celestial Bodies as of the different combinations of the Letters of the Alphabet are compos'd infinite Books there may be some proportion and correspondence between those Celestial Figures and such as are made upon fit and suitable materials the knowledg of which sympathetical Correspondences is the true Magick which is by the testimony of J. Picus Mirandula the highest point of humane Knowledg marrying Heaven with Earth as black Magick is detestable shameful and ridiculous The Fifth said That every thing acts in the World by the first or second Qualities or by its Substance whence proceed occult Properties and Sympathies But Talismanical Figures cannot act by any of these ways for 't is certain that they act neither by heat cold hardness softness or such other first or second Quality no more than by their Substance which is different in Talismans of Copper Iron Stone c. Although the Authors of this Art ascribe the same virtue to all provided they be graven with the same Figures and under the same Constellations and Aspects of the Starrs from whom alone they make them derive their strange virtues alledging as a Principle That there is nothing in the World but hath both its Contrary and its Like as well in Heaven as on Earth where we see not only the Marigold and the Sun-flower follow the motion of the Sun the Selenotrope that of the Moon the Cock proclaims the approach of the Sun As also on the contrary Dogs commonly run mad in the Dog-days and Lions under the Sign Leo But also some Persons beheld with an evil eye by some Planets others being propitious So to cure hot and dry Diseases they engrave their Talismans under a Constellation contrary to the Evil as cold and moist having regard to the Signs whereunto every Malady and diseas'd Part is referr'd which is an Invention of Paracelsus who fancies Poles a Zenith a Nadir an Equator a Zodiack and other phantastical Figures in our Bodies answering to those of Heaven without the least proof of his sayings Upon the Second Point it was said Since Man is compos'd of Body and Soul the best Life he can lead is that which is most proper for the perfection and good of both Such is the Country-life being accompanied with the Goods of the Body Fortune and the Mind Those of the Body as Health and Strength are possess'd with advantage by Rusticks who know not so much as the Names of Diseases the cause whereof is their Exercise and Labour which dissipates and resolves the humours that produce most Diseases as also the purity of the Air they breathe which is the more healthful in that it hath free motion and is less confin'd for which reason Physitians send their recovering Patients to confirm their Health in the Air of the Country Which also supplies the Goods of Fortune the true and natural Riches to wit the Fruits of the Earth and the Spoils of Animals Gold Silver and other artificial Goods being but imaginary and useless without those first whereunto they are subservient But above all the Goods of the Mind which consist in Knowledg and Virtue the two Ornaments of its two chief Faculties the Understanding and the Will may be acquir'd much more easily in a Country-life in regard of the purer Air which begets like Spirits as these frame purer Species and Phantasms on which depend the actions of the Understanding which besides cannot meditate nor improve without rest and silence scarce found in a civil and tumultuary Life as that in Cities is which hold our Minds as well as Bodies in captivity depriving us of the free aspect of Heaven the rising and setting of the Sun and Stars and of the means of considering the Wonders of God in the production of Flowers Fruits and Plants Hence the Poets feign'd the Muses the Goddesses of the Sciences living in the Mountains of Helicon and in Woods not in the inclosure of Cities where Virtues are also more difficultly practis'd than the Sciences nothing of them being left there but shadows and phantasms which under veils of Dissimulation Hypocrisie Complements and other testimonies of Virtue cover Injustices Sacriledges Impieties and other Crimes unknown in the Country where Simplicity and Innocence are sure tokens of true Virtue which is also better retain'd amongst the Thorns and Sweats of the Country than in the Luxury and Idleness of Cities And if things may be judg'd of by their beginnings the Sacred History tells That Cain the first Murtherer was the first that built a City named Henoch after the Name of his Son as a little after did the first Tyrant of the World Nimrod who built Niniveh On the contrary all holy Personages have lead a Country-life Adam was a Husband-man and so was Cain as long as he continu'd in the state of Innocence which as soon as he lost he desir'd to become a Burgess Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs his Sons were Shepherds as also the Kings Saul and David and the Prophets Amos Elisha and many others in imitating whose example we cannot erre The Second said That Man being a sociable and political Animal the habitation of Cities is as consentaneous to his Nature as the Country-life is repugnant to the same And therefore Men had no sooner discover'd the inconveniences of the Rustick-life but they unanimously conspir'd to build Cities to the end to supply one anothers Necessities and defend themselves from wild Beasts and their Enemies to whose fury they were expos'd before they liv'd in some Town which is a Sacred Society or Unity of Citizens all aspiring to the conservation of the State to the maintaining of the Laws and Justice and to the publick Ornament and Glory making Arts and Disciplines flourish and procuring Safety to all People by the distribution of Rewards to Virtue and Punishment to Vices which have not their effect but in publick For our Lives would not differ from those of Brutes if we were oblig'd to dwell in Dens or wander up and down Woods as the Barbarians of the new World do whose Brutality Irreligion Cruelty Ignorance and Misery compar'd with the Politeness Devotion Humanity Knowledg and Happiness of others sufficiently manifest what difference there is between a City and a Country-life CONFERENCE CIX I. Of Volcano's or Subterranean Fires II. Which Age is most desirable THe effects of Volcano's and Subterranean Fires are no less manifest than their cause is unknown although the desire of teaching us the same occasion'd the death of Pliny by haying too neer approach'd the Fires of Mont Gibel or Aetna and made Empedocles cast himself head-long into them But the former did not attain it and the latter left us nothing but his Pantofles The Artifice of Man hath indeed excavated the
which are turn'd into the substance of Animals whose bodies are again reduc'd into Earth The fifth maintain'd the opinion of Albert the Great who is for the Generation of things which the preceding opinion over throws holding nothing to be new generated He said that Forms are indeed in the Matter yet not entire and perfect but only by halves and begun according to their essence not according to their existence which they acquire by the Agents which educe things out of their causes The Sixth said If it were so then there would be no substantial Generation because Existence is nothing but a Manner of Being adding nothing to Essence nor really distinguish'd from it Wherefore I embrace Aristotle's opinion that Forms are in the Matter but only potentially and as the Matter is capable of them just as Wax is potentially Caesar's Statue because capable of receiving that form This he calls to be drawn and educ'd out of the power or bosom of the Matter which is not to be receiv'd in it or to depend of its dispositions since this belongs also to the Rational soul which is not receiv'd in the body till the previous dispositions necessary for its reception be introduc'd therein but the Matter it self concurrs though in a passive way not only to dispose it self but also to produce the Form and consequently to preserve it Which is not applicable to the Rational soul whose Being depends not anywise upon the Matter The Seventh said Matter being a Principle purely passive and incapable of all action cannot produce any thing much less Forms the noblest Entities in the world 'T is the principle of impotence and imperfection and consequently the ugliness deformity contrary to the Form whereof it should partake if it contain'd the same in power as Wine and Pepper do Heat which becomes actual and sensible when reduc'd into act by our Natural Heat which loosens it from the parts which confin'd it Wherefore Forms come from without namely from Heaven and its noblest part the Sun the Father of Forms which are nothing but Beams of light deriv'd from him as their Fountain whose heat and influences give motion and life which is the abode of Heat in Humidity not Elementary Heat for then Arsenic Sulphur and other Mixts abounding with this Heat should have life but Serpents Salamanders Fishes Hemlock Poppies and other excessively cold Plants and Animals should not Moreover in whatever manner the Elements and their Qualities be mix'd they are still Elements and can produce nothing above their own Nature which is to calefie refrigerate attenuate rarefie condense but not the internal and external senses the various motions and other actions of life which can proceed only from a Celestial Heat such as that is which preserves a Plant amidst the rigours of Winter whose coldness would soon destroy the Plant's heat if it were of the same nature Hence Vegetative and Sensitive Souls having no Contraries because Contraries are plac'd under the same Genus but the Celestial matter whereof these souls are constituted and the Elements are not therefore they are not corruptible after the manner of other Mixts but like light cease to exist upon the cessation of the dispositions which maintain'd them For such is the order of Nature that when a Subject is possest of all the dispositions requisite for introduction of a Form the Author of Nature or according to Plato the Idea or that Soul of the World which Avicenna held to be an Intelligence destinated to the generation of substantial Forms concurrs to the production of the Form as also this concourse ceases when those dispositions are abolisht CONFERENCE CXXIII Whether Lean people are more healthy and long-liv'd then Fat THe Immortality of our souls having an absolute disposition to length of Life it depends only upon that of the Body that we do not live Ages as our first Fathers did For 't is from some defect in these bodies that the differences of life even in Animals and Plants proceed whence some less perfect souls as those of Oaks are yet more long-liv'd then those of Beasts The signs of long and short life are either simply such or also causes and effects Such is the conformation of the parts of our body A great number of Teeth is held a sign of longaevity as well because 't is an effect of the strength of the Formative Faculty and Natural Heat as that thereby the food is better masticated and prepar'd and the other concoctions and functions more perfectly perform'd whence comes health and long life So also the Habit of the body is not simply a sign but likewise an effect of health and cause of long life namely when the same is moderate that is neither fat nor lean which two though comprisable within the latitude of health which admits a a great latitude are yet so much less perfect as they decline from that laudable disposition which is the rule and square of all others Now to make a just comparison we must consider the Fat and the Lean in the same degree of excess or defect from this Mediocrity and compare Philetas the Poet who was so dry and lean that he was fain to fasten leaden soles to his shoos for fear the wind should carry him away with Dionysius of Heraclea who was choakt with fat unless his body were continually beset with Leeches Or else we must observe in both an equality of Vigour in the Principles of Life to wit the Radical Heat and Moisture in the same proportion the same age under the same climate regiment and exercises otherwise the comparison will be unequal and lastly we must distinguish the fleshy great-limb'd and musculous from the fat This premis'd I am of Hippocrates's Opinion Aph. 44. Sect. 2. that such as are gross and fat naturally die sooner then the lean and slender because the Vessels of the latter especially the Veins are larger and consequently fuller of Blood and Spirits which are the Architects and principal Organs of Life on the contrary the Fat have smaller Vessels by reason of their coldness which constringes them as is seen in Women Eunuchs and Children whose voices are therefore more shrill and who have also less health and life The Second said Nature hath furnisht Animals with Fat to the end to preserve them from external injuries and therefore the Lean who are unprovided thereof must be of shorter life for not many besides decrepit old people die of a natural death that is proceeding from causes within whereas most diseases arise from external causes wherewith the Fat are less incommoded especially with cold the sworn enemy of life the smallness of their pores and the fat which environs them excluding all qualities contrary to life and withall hindring the dissipation of the Natural Heat which becomes more vigorous by the confinement just as the Bowels are hotter in Winter because the cold air hinders the efflux of the heat and spirits caus'd in Summer and in lean bodies whose
it to the Voluptuous to say whether it be the Cock the Sparrow or the amorous Dove those that love Musick to determine whether 't is the Nightingal and to those that esteem the sight the most ravishing of all the Senses whether it be the Eagle whose eye discovers the remotest objects and turns not aside even from the beams of the Sun The Second said That since nothing is intirely happy in the World the Question should rather be put Which is the least unhappy of all Animals Man the only competent judge acknowledges 't is not himself for he seems to be the Butt of all the miseries in the World of which also he is so much more sensible then Beasts by how much he hath a mind more qualified to apprehend and resent them For whereas they say he alone is capable of felicity 't is true indeed in reference to the future not the present life no age whereof is capable of relishing an intire contentment and if one drop of Gall mingled with a good quantity of Milk denominates the same bitter certainly we cannot term mans life pleasant whilst it hath abundantly more pain then delight He comes into the World weeping and naked without any Arms or defence wherein he is more unhappy then Beasts whom nature hath guarded with covertures against the injuries of the air His first Child-hood is not yet capable of any sort of pleasure Adolescence would taste thereof indeed but is denied liberty by its Pedagogues Youth precipitates it self into more kind of evils then it tastes of good besides that it sees most pleasures forbidden by Divines Physicians and Civilians who seem to have endeavoured to take from us all contentment in this World which if old age makes us the less loth to part with yet there is no so great resignation of spirit but is thwarted by temptations of the flesh nor security so carnal but is startled with the records of conscience Moreover the true mark of felicity being the satisfaction and contentment of him that possesses it no person can be happy in this world since none is contented For man being design'd to a more perfect life then this naturally desires the Supream Good and all that is below it displeases him as uncapable to satisfie him and because he cannot find it here therefore neither can he find contentment which consists in satisfying the Appetite Beasts on the contrary having no other knowledg but that of Sensual and Delectable Good desire no other but are fully satisfi'd and contented therewith and consequently more happy in this World then men The Third said If Felicity consist in action that Animal must be most happy which acts most perfectly So doth man whether you consider him as to the Body or the Soul For to say nothing of the divine functions of his Understanding and Will the sole structure of his Body which was made erect that he might behold Heaven whereof he is capable and which alone is indu'd with beauty one of the effects of Health sufficiently proves it For though some Animals possibly surpass him in some one sense yet he alone excells equally in all and knows the differences of colours sounds odours sapours and tactile qualities in the participation of which he finds pleasure whereof beasts are incapable The Fourth said That to believe Man can be happy here is to contradict the opinion of all the Sages of Antiquity who have acknowledg'd Man the weakest and pitifullest of all Creatures and the Scripture it self which terms his life full of sorrows and this World his banishment And indeed if we place Felicity in the knowledg of possessing it Misery must also consist in the knowledg or opinion we have of being miserable of which reflection Man alone being capable he must be also more too of unhappiness then felicity and the more inasmuch as there are more things that can afflict then content him some always bringing present inconvenience with them others leaving somewhat to be desir'd after them and never satiating our Appetite For the Reasonable Soul which is held the subject of Mans happiness is the principal obstacle to attaining it since having for its object a more perfect and absolute Good then it can possess in this life it cannot establish a true Felicity which of its own nature must be as lasting as the Existence of him who enjoys it upon things acknowledg'd frail and perishing as Natural and Sensible goods are which being sutable to the duration and appetite of other Animals their enjoyment thereof fills them with perfect happiness But amongst these Fishes seem to me most happy whether you measure their happiness by the largeness of their habitation which is the vast Ocean of far greater extent then the Earth from which being more severed then Birds who are forced to descend thither for their food and rest they are also less subject to the ambushes of men and in this regard more happy or whether you consider corporal health the foundation of all felicity of which Fishes are so well provided that it hath occasion'd the Proverb As sound as a Fish or lastly whether you place felicity in the privation of pain which resides chiefly in the sense of Touching which being more dull in them then in other Animals they are also less sensible of inconveniences and for this reason were made mute by nature which hath given a voice to Animals chiefly to testifie thereby the grief which they resent The Fifth said If there be so great a number of opinions wherein the felicity of one single Animal Man consists there may justly be great variety of judgments concerning which is the happiest of all Animals To determine which we must imitate Painters who before they couch their Colours propose a perfect Idea of their work which the nearer it approaches the more excellent it is reputed In like manner we must first form an Idea of this felicity and then see which Animal comes nearest it whether the Servant or the Master the brute Beast or Man whose mind whereby he infinitely surpasses all the rest of the Creatures seems to be ingenious to its own loss not imploying it self but to find out reasons to prove him unhappy since in favour of other Animals we lay aside that ambition which is so natural to us and are willing to yield to the vilest of them what we would dispute with the most perfect of men Now that which makes most people mistaken in their judgment is that being no person injoys an intire felicity they imagine that all happiness lyes in that thing which is wanting and so esteem him alone happy that possesses it Thus a poor spirit perswaded that all happiness consists in strength and courage will say that the Lyon is the happiest of all Animals since his courage gives him empire over all those of his condition The sick person accounting health the most desirable of all goods prefers Beasts before Man whom his exact tempers renders more
said Reason having been given Man to correct the Inclinations of the Sensitive Appetite 't is that alone must judge whether it be expedient for him to live long not Sense which makes us judge like beasts That nothing is dearer than Life But Reason illuminated either by Faith or by Philosophy teaches us that this World is the place of our banishment the Body the Soul's Prison which she alwayes carryes about with her Life a continual suffering and War and therefore he fights against Natural Light who maintaines it expedient to prolong so miserable a State For besides the incommodities attending a long Life which after 70. years as David testifies is onely labour and sorrow long Life is equally unprofitable towards attaining Knowlege and Virtue He that lives long can learn nothing new in the World which is but a Revolution and Repetition of the same Effects produc'd alwayes by the same Causes not onely in Nature whose course and changes may be seen in the Revolution of the Four Seasons of the Year but even in Affairs of State and Private Matters wherein nothing is said or done but what hath been practis'd before And as for Virtue the further we are from Childhod the less Innocence and Sanctity we have and Vices ordinarily increase with years The long Life of the first Men having according to some been the probable Cause of the depravation of those Ages CONFERENCE CXL Of the Lethargy AS the Brain is the most eminent and noble of all the parts being the Seat of the Understanding and the Throne of the Reasonable Soul so its diseases are very considerable and the more in that they do not attaque that alone but are communicated to all the other parts which have a notable interest in the offence of their Chief ceasing to diffuse its Animal Spirits destinated to Motion Sense and the Function of the Inferior Members Which Functions are hurt by the Lethargy which deprives a Man of every other Inclination but that to sleep and renders him so forgetful and slothful whence it took its Greek name which signifies sluggish oblivion that he remembers nothing at all being possess'd with such contumacious sleepiness that she shuts his Eyes as soon as he ha's open'd them besides that his Phansie and Reasoning is hurt with a continual gentle Fever Which differences this Symptom from both the sleeping and waking Coma call'd Typhomania the former of which commonly begins in the Fits of Fevers and ends or diminishes at their declination but the Lethargick sleeps soundly and being wak'd by force presently falls a sleep again The latter makes the Patient inclin'd to sleep but he cannot by reason of the variety of Species represented to him in his Phansie The signes of this Malady are deliration heaviness of the Head and pain of the Neck after waking the Matter taking its course along the spine of the back frequent oscitation trembling of the Hands and Head a palish Complexion Eyes and Face pufft up sweatings troubled Urine like that of Cattle a great Pulse languishing and fluctuating Respiration rare with sighing and so great forgetfulness as sometimes not to remember to shut their Mouths after they have open'd nor even to take breath were they not forc'd to it by the danger of suffocation The Conjunct and next Cause of this Malady is a putrid Phlegm whose natural coldness moistens and refrigerates the Brain whilst it s put refactive heat kindles a Fever by the vapors carry'd from the Brain to the Heart and from thence about the whole Now this Phlegmatick Humor is not detained in the Ventricles of the Brain for then it would cause an Apoplexy if the obstruction were total and if partial an Epilepsie wherein the Nerves contract themselves towards their original for discharging of that Matter But 't is onely in the sinuosities and folds of the Brain which imbibing that excessive humidity acquires a cold and moist intemperature from whence proceeds dulness and listelesness to all Actions For as Heat is the Principle of Motion especially when quickned by Dryness so is Cold the Cause of stupidity and sluggishness especially when accompanied with humidity which relaxes the parts and chills their Action In like manner Heat or Dryness inflaming our Spirits the Tunicles of the Brain produce the irregular Motions of Frenzy which is quite contrary to the Lethargy although it produce the same sometimes namely when the Brain after great evacuations acquires a cold and moist intemperature in which case the Lethargy is incurable because it testifies Lesion of the Faculty and abolition of strength But on the contrary a Frensie after a Lethargy is a good sign resolving by its Heat and dissipating the cold humors which produce the same The Second said That coldness being contrary to put refaction Phlegm the coldest of all humors cannot easily putrifie in the Brain which is cold too of its own nature much less acquire a Heat sufficient to communicate it self to the Heart and there excite a Fever it being more likely for such adventitious Heat to cause in the Brain rather the impetuous motions of a Frenzy than the dulness and languor of a Lethargy Nor is it less then absurd to place two enemy-qualities in the same Subject to wit Cold and Heat whereof the one causes sleep the other a Fever which I conceive to precede not to follow the Lethargy and which having raised from the Hypochondres to the Brain a Phlegmatick blood mixt with gross vapors there causeth that obscuration of Reason and sluggishness of the whole Body but especially the abolition of the Memory the sutable temperament for which is totally destroyed by excessive humidity Indeed the troubled Urine liquid Digestions Tumors and pains of the Neck bloated Flesh and other such signs accompanying this disease argue that its matter is more in the rest of the Body than in the Brain which suffers onely by Sympathie The Third said If it be true that sleep is the Brother of Death then the Lethargy which is a continual drowsiness with a Fever and Delirium seemes to be a middle Estate between Life and Death which is known by the cessation of Actions most of which fail in those afflicted with this Evil which nevertheless is less then the Carus wherein the sleep is so profound that the Patient feels not when he is prickt or call'd by name but is depriv'd of all Sense and Motion saving that of Respiration which scarce appears in the Catoche or Catalepsie a stranger symptom than any of the former wherein the Eyes remain wide open the whole Body stiff and in the same state and posture wherein it hapned to be when it first seiz'd the same The Cause whereof most say is a cold and moist humor obstructing the hinder part of the Brain but I rather ascribe it to a sudden Congelation of the Animal Spirits as I do the Lethargy to narcotick and somniferous vapors which are the sole Causes of Inclination to sleep which cannot
by the Sensitive Actions which may also have another cause For the infusion of the Reasonable Soul after forty days cannot be proved by actions proper to it for it reasons not till long after nor by the actions of a Soul simply for then you must grant that it is there before Organization which is an action proper to animated things Moreover the Soul must be admitted in the Body as soon as it may be there which is at the beginning of conception because even then there wants no fit disposition to this Soul which needs not any different Organs for the barely Vegetative Actions which she then performs no more then Plants do nor are different Organs necessary to her absolute exsisting since God hath created her immaterial and without any dependance and we see the similary parts of the Body are animated so that the dispositions wherewith the Soul can subsist and which suffice to retain her in the Body are also sufficient to introduce her thereinto Now these dispositions are no other then the same which are requisite for the actions of the Vegetative Soul For whatever indisposition happen to the Organs of Sense and Motion the Soul abides in the Body till the heat be dissipated or extinguished the Organs of Sense and Motion being not necessary to retain the Soul in the Body saving in as much as they contribute to respiration Even the Apoplexie which abolishes all the noble dispositions which the Philosophers hold necessary to the Soul never drives her away unless it be by accident since a Child in his Mothers belly may have that disease without incommodity saving when it comes to need respiration Now though Organization be not a disposition requisite to the introduction of the Soul yet she requires certain others some whereof we know not as that unexplicable character imprinted in the Seed besides the temperament which suffices perfectly to determine the matter for introdudion of this form and exclusion of all other The conformation of Organs being not a disposition which determines necessarily seeing amongst humane bodies some differ more from the generality of men in respect of the principal parts then they do from certain other Animals but 't is the temperament alone which arising in the first days after the mixture of the two seeds and according to Hippocrates the foetus having in the first seven days all that he ought to have this opinion is more pious and expedient for repressing the criminal license of those who without scruple procure abortion within the first forty days The Third said Though the Reasonable Soul be of a much sublimer nature then the souls of other Creatures yet being created with reference to the Body 't is not introduced thereinto till the same be fitted for its reception as no other natural form is ever received into a subject not previously fitted with all due dispositions And since the Soul is the principle of all actions hence she needs Organs and Instruments for performing them and the more sublime she is the greater preparation doth she require then the Sensitive Soul as this also doth then the Vegetative which demands only a certain mixture of the first qualities besides which the sensitive requires a more exquisite temperament of the two Principles of Generation Seed and Blood endued with a vital Spirit capable of producing Sense and Motion So that the Reasonable Soul ought not to be infused till after the conformation is in all points completed The Fourth said Since there is no proportion but between things of the same nature the Immortal Reasonable Soul cannot have any with the corruptible Body and so not depend more on the matter in its infusion then in its creation which is probably the third day after conception at which time the actions of life appear in nutrition growth alteration and configuration of the parts Which actions must proceed from some internal and animated principle which cannot be the Soul either of Father or Mother since they act not where they are not inherently nor yet the spirit of the Seed which is not a principal agent but only the instrument of a Soul nor the formative vertue which is only an accident or temper of qualities and in like manner the instrument of some more noble agent 'T is therefore the Soul contained in the bosom of the matter which produces all these actions therein They who hold the Reasonable Soul not introduced till after the two others consider not that Forms receiving no degrees of more or less cannot be perfected or changed one into another much less annihilated seeing corruption is caused only by contraries and Forms have none It follows therefore that the Reasonable Soul is the principle of all these functions which she performs according to the dispositions she meets with and that she is the architect of her own habitation CONFERENCE CXLIII Of Metempsychosis or Transmigration of Souls THough Metemphychosis or the Transmigration of Souls be rather imaginary then true yet because there is nothing which more inriches the Field of Philosophy then liberty of reasoning we shall here inquire whether the Heathen guided only by the light of Nature had any reason to maintain this extravagance which was first taught in Greece by Pythagoras who had learn'd it of the Egyptians by whom and most other Nations of antiquity it was believ'd not only that souls departed out of some bodies re-entered and animated others but also that all things after a certain revolution of Ages should resume the same state wherein they had formerly been This was also the opinion of Plato saving that he was more rational then Pythagoras who making three Souls of the same quality said that those of men after death went to animate the bodies of Men Beasts or Plants for which reason he abstained from the flesh of Animals and could hardly resolve to eat Beans for fear of biting his Fathers head But Plato held the Transmigration of Rational Souls only into humane Bodies Which opinion though less absurd then the former which destroys it self by the confusion it introduces amongst all natural beings yet it hath its inconveniences too since the Soul being an incompleat form making one whole with its other half the Body it can never meet with one in all points like the first besides that were it in another it would have an inclination towards the first and so would not be in such body in quality of a form but in a state of constraint and violence The Second said That the Pythagorical Metemphychosis is not more absurd in regard that being the form gives a determinate and specifical being to every thing if humane souls past into the bodies of Beasts or Plants these Creatures would be Men then that of Plato seems probable nothing hindring but that a humane soul may enter into another humane body after the dissolution and ruine of the former For if there be any thing to hinder it it must be because there is no return
from privation to habit That which hath sometimes been can no more be such as it was and 't is impossible for a soul which hath once informed a body to re-enter it again and there exercise the functions of life after having been once totally thence expelled But these Reasons hinder not seeing the soul may be introduced anew into some body wherein it is not now but hath been formerly as Gangraenous and wholly mortified members may be again vivified by a powerful effect of the soul and the goodness of temperament Moreover it is not less possible for that which never was to begin to be then for that which hath formerly been to exsist again in nature seeing both being equally pure nothing they are objects sufficient to be created by God as the first matter which is almost nothing is the object of Nature his inferior and natural bodies are the objects of Art which is below Nature So that not only souls after having informed one body may pass into an another by Metempsychosis but which seems more difficult the same soul may again inform the same body The Third said 'T is impossible for one and the same thing which hath been to be a new for then it should be twice and have two durations and consequently two existences and so not be one and the same thing seeing singularity depends upon existence So neither can the same soul return into the totally deserted body although it may re-animate some parcels of it nor yet into other bodies For in the first place as for the souls of Plants and Beasts there is no more reason to believe that these forms disappearing upon destruction of the Organs whereby they exercise their functions go to animate other bodies of the same species then that when my wood is burnt the same form of fire goes to seek another faggot and kindle the same as soon as fit dispositions thereunto arise if it were so the Woodmongers should have a very dangerous Trade Moreover this transmigration of souls is either absolutely necessary that is bodies are animated no other way but this and so there will be no other new generation but the supernumerary souls must wait till their turn come according as the Platonick poet Virgil represents them in the sixth Book of his Aeneis for if there be more bodies then souls there will be no production whatever disposition be found in the matter and then though we sow the Ground never so much with Corn nothing will come of it in case more be sown then there are Vegetative Souls to animate it whence we should be in great danger of Famine As for the Reasonable Soul since there is no animated body whose outward figure is not an Index of its inward form were there such a thing as Metempsychosis the soul of a Horse should be under the outward form of a Man and so all knowledg from external shape should be deceit and delusions far from serving for Physiogmony Moreover the Ancients introduced this Opinion partly to frighten the wicked by making them believe that after death their souls should do penance in the bodies of Beasts whose manners they had imitated Cowards becoming Hares and cruel persons Wolves till after repurgation by the River Lethe they should again become men and partly to excite the good with hopes that their souls should be received into the bodies of Heroes and Demi-gods such fabulous stories serving to keep the more ignorant sort within their duty The Fourth said That the separated soul carries along with her only three powers the Understanding Will and the Motive Faculty by means whereof she is carried towards what she desires by a real local-motion whereof she is as well capable without as within the body Now she desires nothing so much as to be united to the body with whom she hath formerly been conjoyned And consequently she cannot but return thither of her own accord seeing when the desire and power meet the effect must necessarily follow especially when the desiring is in a violent state contrary to its own Nature as that of the separated Soul is and therefore since nothing violent is of long duration the Soul's separation from her Body cannot be perpetual The Fifth said If it be true that nothing is made which hath not already been and that according to Origen there was a certain number of Souls produced in the beginning of the Creation after which it is said That God rested from all his Works and that he creates nothing since he put the last hand to the perfection of the World which it borrows from the forms or beauties which it contains it may seem consentaneous to the ornament of the Universe to say that it was at first stor'd with all the forms where-with the Matter is informed according as it comes to have fit dispositions thereunto And that these forms having no contraries and consequently being incorruptible upon forsaking their first Subject through default of fit dispositions to maintain them are received into other Subjects like the first and consequently as capable of receiving such form which of it self is indifferent to one Subject as well as to another but since the Rational Soul cannot have any particular Inclination towards the Body it formerly animated which after Death being no longer Organical nor capable of being so but onely Dust and Ashes 't is more probable that when separated it resents motions if it have any towards some Body duly organized and not yet furnished with a form there being besides less incovenience in saying that one and the same Soul can animate divers Bodies one after another than that it can animate divers at the same time and in divers places which nevertheless is the Opinion of most Philosophers For when it is separated it remains still an Act and a Form capable of informing any sort of well disposed Body without affecting any in particular into which it enters not ignorant since Knowledge follows Immaterality and the Species and Notions being to the Soul what accidents are to their Subjects from which they are inseparable they must accompany her where-ever she goes although by reason of the Clouds and humidities of the Body which she informes she is not actually knowing in Infancy but onely proportionably as in time the Body comes to be dried and the humidities absumed the Species which were ingraven in the Soul begin to appear and as it were to be produced a new by Reminiscence which necessarily follows Metempsychosis CONFERENCE CXLIV Whether there were braver Men in any preceding Age than in the present ALthough this Question being rather of Fact than of Right might best be discuss'd by comparing all the great Men of every Age between themselves or those of each Age with ours yet that way would be too long by reason of the great number of Illustrious Men who have flourish'd downwards to our Age which is the fifty seventh since the Creation of the World the duration whereof
Faculty the Chirurgion the Animal and the Apothecary the tal so that to divide them is as much as to separate the Liver Heart and Brain of one and the same Man and Theory being never well understood without practice 't is no wonder if their dis-union hath occasion'd the setting up many Ignorants and Empericks The Second said If Man's Life be short in respect of the Art of Physick according to the saying of Hippocrates the Prince thereof then 't is the way to shorten it more even by two thirds to assign it three Arts and Exercises each of which requires the whole Man The Egyptians were of another Judgment not only distinguishing Physicians from Operators and Preparers of Medicaments but also having particular Physicians for each considerable part of Man as for the Eye Ear c. which render them more expert because we do nothing well but what we do often and what difference there is between one that exercises more Arts and him that is contented with one appears by comparing Country-Apothecaries and Chirurgians who practise all three parts of Physick and those of great Cities Moreover the alliance between the Body and the Soul is such that while the one is employ'd about some work the other cannot intend its cogitations else-where as it ought to do in this Case And therefore to require a Physician to let blood set a bone or prepare a medicine is all one as to expect that a General should both give Orders and perform the Office of a common Souldier For if the Mind that is at rest be esteem'd the more wise and capable of reasoning whence our Judges sit Physicians consult and the Greeks would have adoration perform'd in that posture what good advice can be expected from a Physician who is always out of breath with his preparations and operations Besides 't is not seemly for a Physician to visit his Patient with his Hands smelling and dy'd with drugs and the confidence of the Patient in him being much conducive to the Cure it cannot but be better trusting to three persons than to one And indeed supposing a Physician were so wicked as to have ill intentions against his Patient's Life which yet is hard to imagine and there are very few Examples of such it would be harder for him to execute them when others prepare his remedies than when he prepares them himself As likewise the Apothecary may play the Villain more securely when he hath not the inspection of the Physician over him Wherefore 't is best that Physick remain distributed into three Professions which like an Harmonious Trade assist and uphold each other the Physician being as the Head and the other two as his two Hands All the business is that this Harmony and Proportion be so well observ'd that the Hands think not themselves to be the Head which happens but too frequently to the great dishonor of Physick and damage of the sick CONFERENCE CLXXXI Whether there be any Real Evil besides Pain THings have either an absolute Essence or a Relative the former are Real as to be a Man the latter which have no Being but from the Respect they have to our Phansie depend upon the same as to be glad or troubled at certain News These two Heads contain all Entities but because the weakness of Humane Judgement often confounds them taking an imaginary thing for a real hence the inquisition of their difference hath furnish'd the Schools with various Questions That of the Stoicks was so far from admitting any other Real Evil besides Pain that it allow'd not Pain it self to be an Evil. On the contrary Epicurus held there was no other Evil but Pain nor any other Good but Pleasure its opposite Indeed by adjoyning Vertue to that Pleasure and assigning the pre-eminence to the pleasure of the Mind it will be easie to make Good and Pleasure convertible whence it will also follow that Evil and Pain must be reciprocal The Third said That Evil being the Privation of Good and Privation no real Entity to enquire whether there be any real Evil is the same as to ask whether a Privation be a Habit. But to comply with the terms of the Question which seems to be Whether there be any other sufferings of that kind which the Vulgar calls Evils causing sensible displeasure in us as necessarily as bodily Pain doth In answer whereunto I say First that there is both a spiritual and a corporeal grief or pain of either of which some persons are more or less sensible then others Secondly That all people desire pleasure as a good and shun pain as an evil for even the inflictions of some Religious persons upon themselves are done in hope of a future good and lastly that both the one and the other are excited by several and oft-times contrary ways and means For as the bitterness of Succhory hurts and displeases some but is agreeable to others so also the same accident may cause pleasure in some minds and sadness in others this variety proceeding from the different temper of Minds Besides corporeal and spiritual pain differ in that every one is a capable judge of the former but not of the latter whence as Aristotle saith all run after pleasures of the Body because they ignore those of the Soul and so likewise most only reckon their bodily pains true Evils because they have no experience of griefs of the Mind But he that well weighs how infinitely the Intellect excels the Body easily finds that the evils that attaque the same are also far greater since 't is that by which the Body is render'd susceptible both of pain and pleasure and receives impressions of both upon the countenance wherein particularly the Eye is term'd the Mirror of the Soul for no other reason but because it represents her Passions and Affections And to shew how much grief and displeasure of Mind surpasseth that of the Body we see some redeem the loss of their Honour with that of their Lives which cannot be without suffering the pain of death The Third said 'T is not the Question whether the griefs of the Body or the Mind be greatest since every one judges variously thereof according to his humor As the Miser prefers his profit before the pains of Hunger and Thirst and the Ambitious person ventures his life in the Field rather than endure the Lye But the Question is Whether there be any reality in the Evils which the Mind of man undergoes besides Pain of which alone we see all other Animals are sensible Nature teaching Man thereby that she hath left it to his own conduct how much his natural condition is worse then theirs whilst he is not only lyable to the same bodily evils but becomes ingenious to his own hurt and an expert Artificer of his own bad fortune An instance whereof we have in the Swine that was eating his food peaceably in a Tempest whilst all the Passengers fearing every moment to split against the Rocks dy'd
which displease the more judicious So that as there is one beauty absolutely such and another respective and in comparison of those who judge differently thereof according as they find it in themselves whence the Africans paint the Devil white because themselves are black and the Northern people paint him black because themselves are white so there are Gestures and Motions purely and simply becoming honest and agreeable others such only by opinion of the beholders as are the Modes of Salutation and lastly others absolutely bad as Frowning Winking biting the Lip putting out the Tongue holding the Head too upright or crooked beating of measures with the Fingers in short making any other disorderly Gesture All which defects as they are opposite to perfections which consist in a right situation of all the parts without affectation proceed from the Phansie either sound or depraved Which happens either naturally or through imitation The first case hath place in Children who from their birth are inclined to some motions and distortions of their Muscles which being double if one become weaker and its Antagonist too short it draws the part whereto it gives motion out of its natural seat as is seen in those that squint The second is observed in Children somewhat bigger who beholding some Gesture repeated render the same so familiar to themselves that at length it becomes natural to them Hence the prohibition of Mothers give their Children not to counterfeit the vices their companions bodies is not void even of natural reason because the Phansie is stronger in a weak Mind and when the Memory is unfurnished or other species whence the Phansies of Women are more powerful then those of Men. The Minds of Children being weak and residing in soft pliant Bodies more easily admit any idea's once conceiv'd And as a Language is more easily learn'd by Use then by Precepts so example is Extreamly prevalent and sweetly insinuating into the Phansie by the Senses diffuses its influence over the whole Body The Third said That if the Soul be an harmony as the pleasure it takes therein seems to intimate we need seek no other cause of the several motions and cadences of the Body which it animates 'T is the Soul which moves all the Nerves of the Body and carries to all the parts such portion as she pleases of Spirits proper to move them whereby like a player upon a Lute or some other Instrument she makes what string sound she pleases stretching one and loosening another And as Musick is such as the Quirrester pleases to make it delighting the Ear if it be proportionate thereunto and procuring the Musitian the repute of skilfulness if not the contrary happens so the Soul imprints upon the Body one figure or another which make a good or bad grace insomuch that oftentimes gracefulness is more esteemed than Beauty unless it may be better said to be part thereof for want of which beautiful persons resemble inanimate Statues or Pictures But as true Beauty is wholly natural and an Enemy to Artifice so the Soul ows to its original and first temper the good or posture which it gives its Body and there is as much difference between natural gracefulness and affected postures as between the Life and the Picture truth and appearance yea the sole suspicion of affectation offends us Moreover a Clown seldom becomes Courtly and whatever pains be bestowed in teaching him good Carriage yet still his defects appear through his constraint as on the contrary amongst Shepherds most remote from the civilities of the Court we see gentileness and dexterities which manifest that good carriage or Gestures are purely natural The Fourth said That in the Gestures and Motions of the Body two principles must be acknowledged one natural and the other accidental The former is founded in the structure and composition of every one's Body the diversity whereof produceth with that of the spirits humors and manners all the Actions and Passions which depend thereon the true motive causes of our Gestures and Carriages Hence he that suffers pain frowns he that repents bites his Lip or Fingers he that admires something and dares not express it shrugs his shoulders he that muses deeply turns his Eyes inward and bites the end of his Pen or Nails The accidental principle is imitation which next to Nature is the most efficacious cause and acts most in us Man being born for imitation more than any other Creatures as appears in that scarce five or six Species of Birds imitate our Language the Ape alone our Gestures we on the contrary imitate not only the voices of all Animals but also all their Actions And therefore as it cannot be denied that Nature contributes to our Gestures so neither can it be doubted that Imitation hath a power therein CONFERENCE CXCI. Which is most proper for Study the Evening or the Morning IF Antiquity had not had Errors the cause of those who prefer the study of the Evening before that of the Morning would be very desperate But Reasons having more force here than the Authorities of Pedagogues who hold Aurora the friend of the Muses only to the end that their Scholars rising betimes in the Morning themselves may have the more time left after their exercises I conceive the Evening much more fit for any Employment of the Mind than any other part of the day the Morning leaving not only the first and more common wayes full of Excrements but also all the Ventricles of the Brain wherein the Spirits are elaborated and also the Arteries and Interstices of the Muscles full of vapors whence proceed the frequent oscitations contortions and extension of the members upon our awaking to force out the vapors which incommode them On the contrary the Evening even after repast finds those first wayes full of good Aliments which send up benigne and laudable vapors which allay and temper the acrimony of other more sharp and biting found by experience in Men fasting who for that reason are more prone to Choler Moreover Study consisting in Meditation and this in reflection upon the Species received into the Phansie 't is certain that the report of these introduced all the day long serves for an efficacious Lesson to the Mind when it comes to make review of the things offered to the Intellect for it to draw consequences from the same and make a convenient choice but in the Morning all the species of the preceding day are either totally effaced or greatly decayed Moreover the melancholy humor which is most proper for Study requires constancy and assiduity which ordinarily accompanies this humor and it is predominant in the Evening as Bloud is in the Morning according as Physicians allot the four humors to the four parts of the natural day as therefore the Sanguine are less proper for Study than the Melancholy so is the Morning than the Evening Hence the good Father Ennius never versified so well as after he had drunk which seldom happens in
no great road between the highest wisdom and the greatest extravagance it may be further inferr'd that those who are of a more dry Temperament whereof it is as likely that fools as well as wise men may be frequently have such visions and fall into those Ecstacies and upon this account that they mind not their own thoughts are easily susceptible of external impressions and the first objects which present themselves to them So that we may make a distinction of Ecstacies into two kinds The former is to be attributed only to great and contemplative persons and may be said to be only a disengagement of the mind which is so taken up with the apprehension of an object that it quite forgets all its other functions For the case is the same with the Vnderstanding in reference to its object which is Truth as it is with the Will in respect of its proper object to wit Good which it so passionately affects that it is not so much where it lives as where it loves In like manner the Understanding being forcibly engag'd to a taking object whereof it makes a particular observation of all the differences is so transform'd into it that it ceases to act any where else Now the reason of this is that knowledge or apprehension as well as all the other functions is wrought by a concourse of spirits which being by that means in a manner all employ'd in that transcendent action there are not enough remaining for the performance of other actions the small portion that is being wholly employ'd about respiration nourishment and the other actions necessary for the Conservation of Life Accordingly this kind of Ecstacy or cessation of the functions is not only observ'd to happen in that conflict and contention of the mind when it is wholly bent upon the examination of some object but also in all the other actions which are perform'd with excess such as for example the Passions are the extraordinary violences whereof occasion Ecstacies an extream grief casting a man down so much that he becomes as it were stupid and insensible The same thing happens also through joy by a contrary effect as well as in Anger Fear Audacity and the other perturbations of the irascible and concupiscible Appetites by reason of the great diffusion or concentration of the spirits Whence it follows that it is not more strange to see a man ravish'd and fallen into an Ecstacy as it were out of himself in the contemplation of some object than to see some persons so over-joy'd as to die out of pure joy For Knowledge being an action of the Understanding whereby it raises and elevates to a spiritual and incorporeal Being things that are most material which are advanc'd in the Understanding to a new and more perfect Being than that which they had of their own Nature the Understanding renders them like it self and is so united to them that there cannot be a greater conformity than what is between the object and the power whereby it is known When therefore that object is of its own Nature spiritual and immaterial the Understanding having disengag'd it self from every other Subject is so over-joy'd at its own knowledge that it forgets all other actions of less consequence The other Ecstacy is properly attributed to Lunaticks and distracted persons and is by Physicians plac'd among the highest irregularities caused by black Choler in the minds of such as are much inclin'd to Melancholy in whom it causes an alienation of Spirit which inclines them to imagine speak or do things that are ridiculous and extravagant sometimes with fury and rage when that humor is enflam'd and converted into black Choler and sometimes with a stupid sadness when it continues cold and dry The Second said That the Greek word signifying an Ecstacy is ordinarily taken for every change of condition whatever it may be sometimes for a transportation and elevation of mind whereby a man comes to know things absent as it was explicated in the precedent part of this discourse Such peradventure was the taking up of Saint Paul even while he liv'd into that blisful Seat of the Blessed which he calls the Third Heaven allowing the Air to be one and the starry-sky to be another And that of Saint John the Evangelist which he speaks of in the Revelation Nay before them such were those of the Prophets and after them those of many other persons if we may give any credit to Historians Such was that of the Abbot Romuald who finding a great difficulty to read the Psalms of David became in an Ecstacy he had as he was saying Mass so learned that he was able to interpret the most intricate passages of them Such was that of Saint Francis the Founder of the Order of Franciscans who in a ravishment receiv'd upon his body the marks of our Saviour's Passion Such was Saint Thomas Aquinas who frequently fell into such an Ecstacy that he seem'd dead to all that were about him Such was John Scot commonly known by the name of the subtle Doctor to whom the same thing happen'd so often that his most familiar friends seeing him as he sate reading or writing found him many times immoveable and without sentiment insomuch that he was carry'd away from the place for dead and yet these two last were rais'd up so illuminated from that Philosophical Death that they have left but few imitators of their great Learning The same thing is affirmed of a certain Virgin nam'd Elizabeth whose Senses were sometimes so stupifi'd that she continu'd a long time in a manner dead from which kind of Trance being come to her self she fore-told some things which afterwards came to pass according to her predictions To be short there are few Monasteries of either Men or Women but affirm as much of their Founders And that it may not be imagin'd that such a separation of Body and Soul happened during this Life only to Enthusiasm or a highly-contemplative meditation of divine things which nevertheless must be acknowledg'd the common cause of it we read of Epimenides of Creet and Aristeas the Proconnesian eminent Poets and Philosophers that sometimes they left their Bodies without Souls which having taken their progress about the world return'd after a certain time and re-animated their Bodies Nay Pliny hath a pretty remarkable Story how that the Soul of this Aristeas was many times perceiv'd to take her flight out of his Body under the form of a Crow and that his Enemies having observ'd it and on a time met with his Body in that posture burnt it and by that means disappointed the Bird of her nest Apollonius relates a Story yet much more prodigious of Hermotimus the Clazomenian to wit that his Soul made Voyages of several years having left his Body during that time without any sentiment while she went up and down into divers parts of the world fore-telling Earth-quakes great Droughts Deluges and such other remarkable Accidents And further that this
regard no other Creature besides becomes weary in its Operations For all Animals even the lowest degree of Insects sleep although such who have hard eyes and scales sleep more obscurely then the rest and Birds more lightly then four-footed Beasts which suck because they have a less and dryer Brain and consequently less need sleep whose use is to moisten and refresh that part Hence Man having of all Animals the largest Brain hath also need of the longest sleep which ought to be about seven hours Wherefore I cannot but wonder that Plato in his first Book of Laws would have his Citizens rise in the night to fall to their ordinary employments for this disturbing of their rest were the way to make a Common-wealth of Fools the Brain by watchings acquiring a hot and dry intemperature which begets igneous spirits whose mobility not permitting the Mind to consider the species impress'd upon them is the cause of unsteady and impetuous sallies of the Mind as on the contrary sleep too excessive fills the ventricles of the Brain wherein the Soul exercises her Faculties with abundance of vapours and humidities which offuscating and troubling the species the Mind thereby becomes slothful and dull The second said That Privations are understood by their Habits and therefore Sleep which is a privation of Sense cannot be better known than by the functions of the outward Senses which so long as an Animal exercises it is said to be awake and to sleep when it ceases to employ the same And being Sensation is perform'd by means of the animal Spirits refin'd out of the natural and vital and sent from the Brain into the Sensories which Spirits receive the species of the sensible object and carry it to the Inward Sense the common Arbiter and Judg of all external objects hence when those Spirits happen to fail or the Common Sense is bound up the other external Senses cannot discharge their offices Upon which account the Philosophers have defin'd Sleep The ligation of the First Sense or The rest of the Spirits and Blood And the Physitians The cessation of all outward Senses for the health and repose of an Animal hereby distinguishing it from the cessation of the outward Senses in Swoonings Falling-sickness Apoplexie Lethargy Carus Coma and such sorts of morbifick and praeternatural sleep produc'd by causes acting rather by an occult and somniferous property then by excess of cold or moisture otherwise Winter Ice and the coldest things should cause sleep Wine Annis Opium Henbane and abundance of hot Medicaments should not be Narcotick as experience evinces them to be But natural sleep is produc'd by vapours elevated from the aliments into the brain which moreover performing in us the office of a Ventose or Cupping-glass draws to it self those humid vapours condenses them by its coldness and resolves them into a gentle dew which falling upon the rise or beginning of the Nerves obstructs the passage to the animal Spirits the instruments of Sensation and voluntary Motion which it hinders though not Motion so much as Sensation because the Nerves of the hinder part of the Brain destinated to Motion being harder do not so easily imbibe those vapours as those of the fore-part destinated to Sensation But when the Heat and Spirits whereof there had been an absumption are again sufficiently repair'd they move anew toward the Brain where they resolve those dews which stopp'd the passage and hindred the commerce of the vital Spirits with the animal whereupon we naturally and without violence awake So likewise the violence of an extrinsecal object importunately striking the external Senses obliges the Soul to send other Spirits to the assistance of the few remaining therein and which before this supply apprehend objects only confusedly The Third said Sleep is not the Quiescence of the animal Spirits for these are active and form Dreams whilst we sleep nor of the vital which have no relaxation or rest so long as the Animal hath life much less of the natural Nutrition being perform'd best during sleep which is the cause why sleeping fattens Neither is the Brain 's humidity the cause of sleep as 't is commonly held but the defect of vital heat in the Heart in a sufficient degree for performing the functions of the outward Senses Moreover the sudden seizing and abruption of sleep which we observe cannot be produc'd but by a very movable cause such as the gross vapour of aliments is not but the vital heat is being carried into all parts of the body in an instant Whence it is that we observe the same to be more pale during sleep as having less of the said heat than during Evigilation The Fourth said That indeed the adequate cause of sleep is not a vapour arising from the aliments since it is procur'd by abundance of other causes which produce no evaporation as Weariness Musique Silence and Darkness Neither is it the above-mentioned deficience of Viâ—â—l Heat which indeed is necessary to the Organs inasmuch as they are endu'd with life but not to make them capable of sense there being sufficient in them even during sleep when the parts are found hot enough for Sensation if heat were the cause thereof as it is not But the right cause consists in the Animal Spirits for which as being the noblest instruments of the Body I conceive there is a particular faculty in the Brain which administers and governs them sending them to the Organs when there is need of them and causing them to return back in order to be restor'd and suppli'd As there is a particular faculty in the Heart over-ruling and moving the Vital Spirits as it pleases sometimes diffusing them outwards in Joy Anger and Shame sometimes causing them to retreat in order to succour the Heart in Sadness Grief and Fear The Fifth said The Empire of Sleep whom Orpheus calls King of Gods and Men is so sweet that Not to be of its party is to be an enemy to Nature 'T is the charm of all griefs both of body and mind and was given to man not only for the refreshment of both but chiefly for the liberty of the Soul because it makes both the Master and the Slave the poor and the rich equal 'T is a sign of health in young people and causes a good constitution of Brain strengthning the same and rendring all the functions of the mind more vigorous whence came the saying That the Night gives counsels because then the Mind is freed from the tyranny of the Senses it reasons more solidly and its operations are so much the more perfect as they are more independent on matter and 't was during the repose of sleep that most of the Extasies and prophetical Visions happened to the Saints Moreover frequent sleep is a sign of a very good nature For being conciliated only by the benignity of a temper moderately hot and moist the Sanguine and Phlegmatick whose humour is most agreeable are more inclined thereunto than the Bilious and
the second Book of his Deipnosophists which lasted twenty years and afflicted two thirds of Men Women and Beasts although some attributed it to the want of Mulberries which fail'd during those twenty years and which they say are good against the Gowt because they loosen the Belly and correct the heat of the Stomach Women as Hippocrates saith are exempt from the Gowt saving in the suppression of their Evacuations Children before the use of Venery and Eunuchs always although the intemperance and luxury of all of them hath produc'd contrary experiences as well in this Age as in that of Seneca which made the Poets say That the Gowt was the Daughter of Bacchus and Venus the first engendring plenty of crude humours the second debilitating the heat and cooling the Body which being render'd laxe the humours fall more easily upon the Joints And to shew the oddness of this Disease Anger Fear and Joy have oftentimes both given and cured it the Humours being extreamly agitated by those Passions Upon the Second Point it was said That Wisedom being a Habit mix'd of Science and Virtue Poverty gives much more disposition to either than Riches the Mind of a Poor Man being more capable of Knowledg than that of a Rich either for that Nature compensates the want of the Goods of Fortune with those of Nature or because Necessity and Hunger sharpens and renders them more subtile or else because being free from the cares and pains caus'd by the conservation or acquisition of Riches they have a more calm Spirit and more capable of the Sciences which require quiet and tranquillity of Mind And as for Virtue whose paths are so thorny Poverty hath also many more accesses thereunto than Riches not only in the Law of Grace in which our Lord saith That 't is easier for a Cammel or a Cable to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven whereof nevertheless the gate is the practice of Virtues but likewise in the moral sense of this present life in which Poverty and affliction according to the Scripture gives Understanding and Prudence teaches Temperance Sobriety and Chastity its inseparable companion disciplines us to Patience and to suffer couragiously the miseries of Life the frequency whereof renders the Mind invincible On the contrary Riches are amost always accompanied with Vices most repugnant to Wisedom as amongst others with Presumption Vanity Voluptuousness and Delicacy the first of which is opposite to Science for Pride proceeds only from Ignorance the second to Virtue which the Poet calls masculine and laborious Moreover Nature shews us of what quality Riches are for the sand that produces Gold is always extreamly barren and naked of all sorts of Fruits and so are the Minds of those that possess it and 't is observ'd That rich Nations and such as live in a good soil are the most vicious lazy and dull whereas those who are in an unkind Land are ordinarily more virtuous addicted to Industry The Second said That as the Goods of Fortune no less than those of the Body are referr'd to those of the Mind as the Means to their End in like sort the inconveniences both of Fortune and Body are hinderances in acquiring those Goods of the Soul which are the perfection of its two principal Faculties the Understanding and the Will namely Knowledg and Virtue For Knowledg and the Arts call'd Liberal require a generous and liberal not a sordid and low Soul like that of a Poor Man whom Alciat's Embleme very well represents by a Lad with one hand stretch'd up into the Air with Wings fastened to it intimating a desire to fly higher but the other hand fastened to a heavy Stone hinders him For their Spirit being loaden with misery thinks of nothing but of the means how to live and to be deliver'd from the heavy yoak of Necessity which deprives them of the means of having either living or dumb Teachers yea makes them despise all the rigours of Laws and oft-times abandons them to Rage and Despair which makes them hate their miserable life and renders them masters of those of others Hence not only Mutinies Seditions and Revolts are commonly made by the Poor and Miserable lovers of Innovation wherein they are sure to lose nothing and may possibly gain but also are almost the sole Authors of Thefts Murders and Sacriledges Whereas Rich Persons having from their birth receiv'd such good Instruction as the poor want are more stay'd in their Actions and better inclin'd to Honesty and Virtue which without Fortunes or Estates can never produce any thing great and considerable whence in our Language Riches are justly stiled Means without assistance whereof Justice can neither render to every one what belongs to him nor repel the Enemies of the State by a just War whereof Money is the Sinew and principal Strength Upon this account they are sought after by all the World and are not only the end of the noblest part of Morality and Oeconomy Families which are the Pillars of a State not being preserv'd but by the lawful acquisition of Wealth in which for this reason some Politicians place Nobility but all agree that they serve for an Ornament thereunto and heighten its lustre but those who have parted with them cannot live without them but are constrained to beg of others And in Policy whether Riches be acquired or come by succession they are always in esteem as on the contrary Poverty is disparag'd with reproach and is a sign either of baseness of Extraction or of Negligence and profusion Hence a Poor Man is as unfit to be trusted with a Publick Charge as with a sum of Money and 't is not without reason that he who is distress'd with Poverty is extreamly asham'd of it this defect hindring and being a remora to all his designs Whereas Riches raise the Courage incite to great Attempts and serve for a spur to Virtue which thrives by Praise and Glory but freezes and languishes by the Contempt and Derision inseparable from Poverty which indeed hath been commended by the same Sacred Mouth which requires us to turn the other cheek to him that strikes us upon the one yet this hinders not but that speaking naturally as we do here 't is better to defend ones self than to be beaten patiently The Third said That in matter of Wisedom we ought to refer our selves to the wisest of all Men Solomon who prays God to give him neither Riches for fear of Pride nor Poverty for fear of becoming a Thief but a middle Estate For as too great Plenitude and an Atrophy are equally contrary to Health which consists in a moderation and temper of qualities so the condition of Persons extreamly Rich and that of Begger the degree here under consideration is equally an enemy to Wisedom And if in any case we ought to desire the Golden Mediocrity 't is in the acquisition of Wisedom especially of Virtue
Glass are no sooner arriv'd to the point of their perfection but they are most subject to be corrupted so Fragility is inseparable from Glass arriv'd to that high degree which proceeds from the connexion of the Fix'd and the Volatil which cannot but be brittle between two bodies extreamly arid as the ashes of Glass-wort and Fern are with Sand. The Fourth said That as Gold is the Master-piece of Nature so is Glass of Art which cannot produce any thing more noble Hence in France the making of it is permitted only to the Nobless or Gentry as a mark of the nobleness of Glass the fairest and cleanest of all Bodies as partaking the most of Light the noblest and divinest of all sublunary Bodies to which alone its affords passage through its imperceptible pores being by that means the most useful and delightful piece of Architecture the beauties and proportions whereof cannot be seen but by Light half of which Lattices intercept but Glass communicates intire serving moreover to correct the defects of sight in old men by Spectacles and of the Countenance in Looking-glasses by means of which Man perfectly knows himself But to judg how Glass may be malleable we must know that it is compos'd of two Substances the one Earthy the other Gummous serving for cement to unite those dry parts whose connexion in any Body whatsoever is impossible but by aerious humidity without which the Earthy parts would fall to dust Now to remedy the brittleness of Glass 't were expedient to find out two Matters whose union might be closer or to link them together better by some more humid and oleaginous Matter than the ordinary which would no more hinder the transparence of Glass than it doth that of Talk which is wholly oleaginous in its substance and nevertheless diaphanous and flexible The Fire likewise being very sharp and violent consumes almost all the moisture of Glass and makes it more brittle for which reason it ought to be moderated Upon the Second Point it was said As Beauty is the most excellent quality of the Body and the most apparent token of the Beauty and Goodness of the Soul so is it the most desired Love the transcendent of all concupiscible Powers being it self nothing else but a desire of Beauty and Good the object of the Will being nothing else but the same with Fair. But this Passion is most conspicuous in Women who have receiv'd Beauty as all their portion from Nature and that wherein all their power and authority over Men consists Now Beauty being subject to the destiny of all other things 't is reason that Art supply the defects of Nature for preserving that rich treasure from the injuries of Time and Years by variety of Paints as inseparable from the persons of Women as the desire of being fair is natural to them Moreover Vlpian in Lib. 25. Sect. 4. ff De auro argento legato has given them a more particular property in their Cosmeticks than in their Cloaths and Jewels reckoning these only amongst external Ornaments but Paints and Pomatums in the Inventory of their Feminine Accoutrements as things annex'd to their Bodies and making up part of its shape and essence These Cosmeticks besides Contentment and good Nourishment the natural and internal Principles of Beauty amongst the species of which Nourishment Asses milk was us'd by Nero's Mistress may be divided into such as only cleanse the spots and obscurities of the skin such as polish it give it lustre take away wrincles soften and smooth it and such as colour it The first are the most innocent being nothing but simple Waters distill'd of Flowers as Lillies Nenufar Bean-flowers Primrose seeds of Cucumber and Melon roots of Dock Serpentine Cuckow-pint Solomon's-Seal Gladon Kidney-beans Lupines the Liquor distilling from the branch of a Vine wounded Juice of Limons distill'd in Balneo-Mariae and May-dew Of the second sort the gentlest are Whites of Eggs Consummates of Veal Sheeps-marrow Snail-water the Oyls of Almonds Seeds of Gourd Myrrh and Camphire and above all the no less famous than rare Oyl of Talk the Philosophers Stone of all Cosmeticks As for colouring materials there are but two sorts in Europe where Beauty consists in a lively Whiteness namely Whites and Reds Reds are made of Sanders temper'd in Vinegar the shavings of Brasil or Alkanet in Allum-water or of Vermillion Whites are made commonly of Sublimate Ceruse or Spanish-white wash'd in the water of wild Tansey or of Pearls calcin'd and apply'd as Vermillion by those who account nothing in Nature more precious than Beauty The Teeth Hair and Hands as they contribute to Handsomness so they have their peculiar Cosmeticks The Teeth are polish'd by Powders and Opiates especially by Acidum of Sulphur and the Spirit of Vitriol mingled with common Water The Hair receives such colour as is most agreeable in each Country In Italy most Women guild theirs with an ounce of Honey a drachm of Saffron and the yolk of an Egg mingl'd in Barbers-suds or else they rub the Comb well with Oyl of Mastick and Tartar On the contrary at Ragusa they black the Hair with Litharge Black-lead or with leaden Combs In France they powder them to make them white At Tunis and throughout all Barbary the Women black the ends of their Fingers Nails and Lips with green Walnut-shells as our Ladies and Courtiers lay black patches upon their Faces to heighten or set off its whiteness the more In fine there is no part of the Body but receives its Fucus and Colour only the Eye like the Soul whose Mirror it is is subject to no alteration of colour from which Nature hath with good reason left it exempt that being unprepossess'd of any it might be the judg of true Beauty The Second said 'T is injurious to blame the Artificial Handsomness of Ladies since nothing can please us in any other things without it Natural Beauty being like a rough Diamond unless Art polish it and give it a foil That we differ one from another we owe to Artifice being all equal by Nature The goodliest Palaces appear so only by reason of their incrustations of Marble Guildings and Pictures and Painting it self whose excellence is nothing but the cunning mixture of Colours is heighten'd and preserv'd by the superinduction of Varnish Musick is flat without Quavers and Sharps which are disguisings of the Voice All the Arts serve for nothing but the ornament and embelishment of Man What is Eloquence with all its flowers and colours of Rhetorick but a Fucus of natural Discourse or Pleading but the Art of setting off a Fact well and rendring it plausible The Complements and Civilities of Courts what are they else but a cloaking and disguising of the thoughts The truth is Life being nothing but a Comedy wherein the habits actions and discourses are only disguises are we to think it strange that Women who allways play one of the principal parts in it sometimes borrow Masks to disguise their
Countenances And if the insinuations and praises made use of by Men to caress them are nothing but flatteries why should not they too reciprocally endeavour to deceive Men whilst they represent for the object of their Lies only the Image of Artificial Beauty The Third said That the Countenance being the Tablet and Mirror of the Soul as Hypocrisie and Lying in the Soul is contrary to Candour and Sincerity without which there would be no confidence nor true Friendship in the World but perpetual dissimulations and diffidences so a Fucus upon the Face is unlawful and the more pernicious in that it is a speaking Lye For as a Liar speaks otherwise than he thinks and hath another thing in his Mind than upon his Tongue so a painted Face appears outwardly wholly other then what it really is unjustly covering under the plaister and tincture of a Fucus its natural imperfections and defects which to go about to mend is to resist the Wisedom of God the Author thereof who disposing all things wisely hath perhaps deny'd the advantage of Beauty to certain Persons out of fore-sight that they would abuse it and who otherwise having imprinted the Character of his Divinity upon our Countenances the Person that paints and disguises the same seems to be ingrateful and unworthy of such a favour yea to deprive himself of all credit among honest men For who will give belief to the Words of one that wears a Lye upon his Fore-head Besides that in time those Mixtures alter and destroy the health of the whole Body Sublimate amongst the rest the commonest of all Cosmeticks Not to mention the danger of letting it get into the eyes and more of swallowing it down it wrinkles the skin renders the eyes hollow blacks the teeth and corrupts the breath The Fourth said since Beauty is one of the four gifts of the Body it ought not to be of worse condition than the other three Health Strength and Goodness of the Senses but 't is lawful to preserve and encrease the same so far as we can especially that of the Visage which being the Mirror of the Deity should be carefully adorn'd and embellish'd considering too that our Lord commands us in the Gospel to wash our Faces and suffer'd his own Feet to be annointed with precious Unguents the use whereof was common among the Ancients who annointed the Head and all the rest of the Body with Aromatick Oyls and Compositions more for Beauty than for Health And Physick in one of its parts call'd Cosmetica treats of Fucusses and Ornaments of the Body and Face which the Law approves in L. 21. ff De Auro Mundo making four sorts of Fucus namely for Pleasure Health Ornament and Cleanness Moreover 't would seem a contempt of that Divine Gift of Heaven Beauty not to preserve it And as no man being to chuse a dwelling-house but prefers a handsom and agreeable one before another so if Souls had the choice of their Bodies when they come into the World they would undoubtedly take the fairest and best shap'd because they might exercise their operations best therein And indeed the Soul is so curious of this Beauty that as soon as any stroke or other external injury deforms the Body it ceases not to repair the ruines thereof and without the continual industry which she imploys not only to re-establish the perpetual deperdition of our triple substance but also to cause re-generation of the consumed flesh the re-union of parts disjoyn'd by solution of continuity and to reduce to a better conformation the depravations thereof there would be more Monsters than Men. Why then should it be a crime for Art which perfects Nature to assist her in this work by taking away what is superfluous or adding what is deficient which are also the two parts of Physick CONFERENCE CIV I. Of Tobacco II. Whether the Invention of Guns hath done more hurt than good THe Herb call'd by the Spaniards Tobacco from an Island of the same name in the West-Indies wherein it grows in abundance is nam'd by the Indians Petun by others for its great virtues Herba Sancta and Jean Nicot Embassador of Francis II. having first brought out of Portugal into France some of the seed of it to Queen Catherine de Medicis with the description of its virtues it became denominated from him in French Nicotiane or Herbe a la Reine the Queens Herb as in Italy it was term'd Herbe de Santa Croce of Holy Cross because a Cardinal of that name was the first that brought it to Rome Some others still call it Antarctical Buglosse Henbane of Peru and Indian Wound-wort It grows many times to the height of three Cubits with a straight and thick stalk so fat that it seems annointed with Honey it sends forth sundry large branches with many leaves long and broad rounder than those of great Comfrey somewhat like those of great Personata or Bur-dock fleshy fat and little rough of a pale green unpleasing smell and biting taste On the top of the stalk it hath many flowers oblong hollow and large in form of a Trumpet of a white inclining to purple to which succeed little slender cods or husks full of a brownish seed smaller than that of Poppey It s root is thick hath several lobes is woody yellow within bitter easily separating from its bark and like all Herbs hot and dry for this is so in the second degree it requires moist places and shadow and delights to be cultivated Moreover 't is kept in Gardens as well for its beauty as for its faculties of curing abundance of Maladies to which 't is the more proper in that it hath an unctuosity familiar to our Body whose excrementitious humours the seed of most Diseases it potently resolves For as Plants are of a middle nature between Minerals and Animals so they are more proper and safe for the preservation and restoring of Man's health than Animals themselves which by reason of their similitude act less on us or than Minerals and inanimate Bodies which through the too great diversity of their nature act with too much violence The Second said That this Herb heats resolv's deterges and is somewhat astringent whence it is that its leafs apply'd hot to the head cure the Meagrim and old headach proceeded from cold or wind and if the pain be contumacious you must rub the place first with oyl of Orange-flowers Moreover 't is us'd for the Cramp and all other pains arising from the same cold humour particularly for that of the Teeth by filling them with the leaf bruis'd It s decoction in common Water is good for maladies of the Breast of the same kind as the Asthma and old Coughs causing expectoration of the phlegm which produces it Also Its smoak taken by the nose and swallow'd down by respiration frequently cures the Asthmatick and such as have ulcers in the Lungs by the same reason that Galen saith he saw a Baker's Wife cur'd of
and not finding the same in the Cannon issues forth to seek it by the same reason that an Exhalation inflam'd in the middle Region of the Air disengages it self from its prison by breaking the Cloud which holds it inclos'd in its belly thereby forming the Lightnings and Thunders whereof the shots of the Cannon are true Images upon Earth where nothing comes nearer Thunder and consequently the Power of God who oftentimes imploys those Arms to punish the crimes of men Whence Pagan Antiquity assign'd indeed severally a Trident a Sythe a Bow a Helmet a Lance a Club a Sword and such other Instruments to their false Deities but all attributed Thunder to the mightiest of the Gods CONFERENCE CV I. Of Blood-letting II. Which is the most Excellent of the Soul 's three Faculties Imagination Memory or Judgment BLood-letting whose invention is fabulously attributed to the Sea-horse who finding himself too full of Blood rubs himself against the sharp points of Reeds or Canes and afterwards stops the wound with mud is celebrated either in the Arteries and is call'd Arteriotomie or in the Veins and is term'd Phlebotomie which Physitians by good right hold with Galen in the Book which he writ thereof against Erasistratus for a singular remedy and one of the readiest for all sorts of Diseases especially Inflammations Fevers Revulsions or Derivations griefs of the Eyes difficulties of Urine Pleurisie Peripneumonie Squinancy Epilepsie Fractures Luxations and all acute Pains and Diseases And as there are two general and most frequent causes of Diseases namely Plethora or Repletion and Cacochymia or depravation of the Humours Blood-letting is the remedy of the former and Purgation of the latter But Blood-letting is the best and safest causing less agitation and disturbance in the Oeconomy of the Body than Purgatives which are ordinarily violent and enemies of Nature yea it serves not only to evacuate the juices which abound in excess but sometimes remedies their depravation by correcting the hot and dry Intemperies of the Bowels which is the cause of Cacochymie because Bleeding of its own Nature evacuates and makes revulsion but by accident refrigerates and takes away obstructions Therefore Avicenna and all his followers enemies of Blood-letting are ridiculous alledging That the Blood being Fraenum Bitis the bridle of choler this becomes exasperated and enflam'd the less Blood there is to restrain it For if there be any Humour that keeps Choler in order it must be Phlegm which is contrary thereto and not Blood which symbolises with it by heat But Blood-letting checks the impetuous motions of Choler which it evacuates with the Blood if it be in the greater Vessels and if out of them as about the cavities of the Liver it tempers them correcting the ardent constitution of the Liver which produces it The Second said That by reason of Contraries affections against Nature as well as Health have their seat in the Parts Spirits and Humours The Parts are the seat of Maladies the Spirits of Symptoms and laesion of Functions and the Humours of the Morbifick causes either antecedent or conjunct And as these humours which are the source and leven of most Diseases being in a natural state are in their proper place in the quantity and quality requisite to their Nature so in a state against Nature they are out of their due place and offend either in quantity or quality To these three defects Physick opposes Revulsion Alteration and Evacuation this latter is done either by evacuating only the bad by convenient ways in Purgation or the good with the bad Blood-letting which is defin'd an Evacuation of all the humours of the Body by section of the Vessels For though the Blood be the Treasure of Life the Source of all Passion and if we believe Galen the Seat of the Soul nevertheless its corruption as that of the best things of the World being so much the more dangerous as it is the most perfect and temperate of all the Humours it must be presently evacuated out of the Body not only in plenitude where Nature requires nothing but to be discharg'd but also in depravation of the Blood by mixture of the other Humours corrupted of which the less there is the more easily they are subdu'd by Nature which wants not strength to re-produce more laudable Blood than that from which she was unburden'd But regard must chiefly be had to the distinction of Veins according to the diversity of Diseases So the most apparent Veins of the arms are open'd when the Body is plethorick without affection of any Part If it be so by suppression of the Moneths or Hemorrhoids the Vein of the Foot must be open'd If it be by Choler then that of the right arm If by Melancholy then that of the left arm in regard of the situation of the Liver and Spleen as for the various communication of the Vessels the Cephalick Basilick or Median are chosen Hippocrates opens the Vein of the Forehead call'd Praeparata in pains of the Hinder part of the head that of the Occiput in fluxions of the Eyes the Hypoglottides or Veins under the Tongue in the Squinancy for derivation that of the tip of the Nose or great Canthus of the Eye in its Inflammations the Jugulares and Salvatella those of the Temples and in brief all others are open'd according to the sundry intentions of the Physitian The Third said That Blood-letting is the greatest of Remedies there being none sooner communicated to all the Parts which having need of nourishment which is carried to them by the Veins you cannot evacuate any one sensibly but that motion will be communicated with all the Blood in the other Veins that is to say over all the Body It s use was anciently so rare that Galen and the Greeks made conscience of letting Children blood before fourteen years of Age and Avenzoar was accounted too ventrous in Phlebotomising his own Son at seven Hippocrates appoints it in four cases in Inflammation Metastasis Repletion and Obstruction 'T is above all necessary when the Body is too replete evidenced oft-times by spontaneous evacuations at the Nose and Hemorroids whether this Repletion respect the Vessels which are too full and in danger of breaking or the natural strength oppress'd under the weight of the humours But it seems to me impertinent and unprofitable in case of Cacochymie without Repletion which requires Purgatives to purifie the sanguinary mass and not this bleeding Remedy For there being three principal seats of Cacochymie to wit the First Region the Veins and the Habit of the Body Blood-letting is alike unprofitable to them all As for the First Region which is the sink and channel of the humours Blood-letting cannot reach thither without emptying all the Blood of the Body and should it penetrate thither it would draw those excrementitious humours into the Veins where they would corrupt the laudable Blood But Cacochymie residing in the Region of the Veins Purgation which only eliminates the
namely the Will and Notions in the Understanding which cannot know any thing but by the phantasms or species forg'd in the Imagination it must be the most excellent of all the Faculties of the Soul Moreover the Temper which constitutes it being the most laudable and the Age wherein it prevails being the most perfect its Actions must also be the most sublime since being not performable but by help of corporeal Organs the more perfect these are the more will the Minds actions be so too Now the Qualities of the Imagination have much more conformity to the Soul according to the Opinion of some Ancients of an igneous nature and according to others an Entelechie and continual motion which either causes or depends on heat the most active quality of all wherewith the Brain being impregnate renders the Spirit more lively quick in retorts and in all that they call Pointe d' Esprit or acumen and inspiring Enthusiasms to Poets On the contrary the Judicious who want this Imaginative Virtue are cold heavy and as tedious in conversation as the other are agreeable and welcome Yea the Judgment it self ows all its advantage to it For if it were equitable it would regulate it self only by the species which the Imagination represents to it and if it be corrupted and without having regard to the pieces offer'd to its view will follow its own sentiments it runs the hazard of committing a thousand extravagances and impertinences Yea all the Judicious Sciences are ambiguous and their followers divided a sure note of their weakness as well as of that of Judgment which guids them since Abstracted Truth its Object being unknown it must leave the same in perpetual darkness unless it borrow light from the Imagination Moreover the Sciences Arts and Disciplines of this Faculty are all pleasant and as delightful and certain as those of Memory are labile the Faculty only of Children and Liars Yea the maladies of the Imagination are in such veneration that Hippocrates calls them Divine as having miraculous effects The Third said That there is no intire and perfect Good in this World is verifi'd also in the Goods of the Mind which are not often possess'd by one single man but every one hath his share therein For goodness of Wit consisting in the excellence of his three Faculties Imagination Memory and Judgment the first of which forms the species the second preserves and the last judges of and frames its Notions from them 't is a very rare thing to find a man possessing these three advantages in an excellent degree besides that they are incompatible in one and the same subject inasmuch as they depend upon the contrary temperaments The Memory on a hot and moist such as that of Children which nevertheless must not be like water which easily receives but retains not all sorts of Figures but it must be aerial and have some consistence and viscosity to retain the imprinted species The Imagination requires a hot and dry temper for fabricating and composing abundance of species like that of cholerick and young men who are inventive and industrious The Judgment demands a constitution of Brain cold and dry like that of melancholy and old men to hinder the sudden eruptions or sallies of the Mind which therefore reasons better when the Body is at rest than when it is in motion which produces heat as much an enemy to the operation of the Reasonable Soul as profitable to those of the Sensitive or Vegetative whose actions are perform'd by the Spirits and Heat But the Imagination cannot know any thing without Memory which furnishes it with species nor this remember without help of the Imagination nor the Judgment conceive and judg without the help of both Nevertheless as amongst Qualities there is always one predominant so amongst these three Faculties one commonly excels the rest and the Judgment is the more excellent inasmuch as 't is peculiar to Man whereas the Imagination and Memory are common to him with Beasts So that the Judgment is our proper good and is better worth cultivating than the Memory to which they who wholly addict themselves are like bad Farmers who improve others Commodities and let their own perish On the contrary they who only form their Judgment acquire the true Treasures of Wisedom and may be said rich of their own Stock But great Memories are commonly like Aesop's Crow adorn'd with borrow'd Plumes and indeed raise admiration in the weak minds of the Vulgar but not in those who are accustomed to solid Truths the Principle whereof is the Judgment CONFERENCE CVI. I. Of Dew II. Whether it be expedient for Women to be Learned IF Pindar deem'd Water so good that he thought nothing better to begin his Odes with Dew which is celestial Water deserves to be esteem'd since it surpasses that as much as Heaven whence it comes is elevated above the Earth For Heaven is the source of Dew whence it distills hither below impregnated with all aethereal qualities and properties incommunicable to any other thing whether it come by a transcolation of super-celestial Waters which the Hebrews call Maim in the Dual Number to signifie the Waters on high and those below or whether there be a Quintessence and Resolution of the Heavens whence it proceeds like those Waters which Chymists distil from Bodies put into their Alembicks indu'd with their odour and other qualities and sometimes augmented in virtues Whence some Divines endeavour to derive the reason why Manna which is nothing else but Dew condens'd for fourty years together wanting one Moneth and allotted by God for sustenance of his people had all sorts of Tastes for say they Heaven whence it fell contains eminently as the efficient equivocal cause all the forms of things to whose generation it concurs here below and therefore God employ'd this Dew to represent the several kinds of each Aliment And Honey whose sweetness is so familiar to our Nature yea so priz'd by the Scripture that God promises his people nothing so frequently to raise their longing after the Land which he had promis'd them what else is it but this same Dew condens'd and gather'd by the Bees who rubbing their thighs upon the flowers and leaves of Plants on which this Liquor falls load themselves therewith and lodg it in their hives Wherefore Naturalists seem too gross in teaching Dew to be only a Vapour rais'd from the Earth by the heat which the Sun leaves in the Air at his setting and for want of other sufficient heat unable to advance it self higher than the tops of herbs for its tenuity and effects manifest the contrary its tenuity much exceeding that of Water witness their experiment who make an egg-shell fill'd with Dew ascend alone to the top of a Pike plac'd a little bowing in the Sun which it will not do if fill'd with common Water how rarefi'd soever Its effects also are to penetrate much more powerfully than ordinary Water which is the reason why
and melancholy of Old-people than the sight of Children and the memory of things done or learnt in their minority which partakes the more of its source the Deity the less 't is remov'd from it The Fourth said Youth hath too many extravagances to be accounted happy and 't would be against the order of Nature if the Extreams Infancy and Old-age contain'd more perfection than that which holds the Middle wherein she hath establish'd the Virtue of all things The weakness of the first shews that it hath not wherewith to content it self but needs support from others and is therefore an object of Compassion which never arises but from Misery It s Innocence proceeding only from impotence and imperfection of the Soul's operations hath nothing commendable and 't is as much unable to will as do good But true Innocence consists in the acting of difficult good If Child-hood fear not the Future it receives a present Evil with more pain and is as sensible of the least discontents as incapable of consolation or prudence to avoid them nor can it by hope anticipate or prolong the enjoyment of a future good In short He cannot be happy who is not conscious of his happiness as Children cannot be Then for Old-age 't is a second Childhood and more to be pitied in that it always grows worse partakes all the defects of Nonage and hath this worse that its desires awaken'd by the memory of past contentments upbraid its impotence and the thirst of getting is at perpetual jar with the fear of leaving Aches the forerunners of Death dayly attaque its patience and there remains no cure of its Evils but the extremity of all Evils To be no more Infancy is therefore like the Spring which hath only Flowers and expects Fruits hereafter so that 't is an Age of Hope without Enjoyment Youth hath only Summer-fruits of little lasting Old-age is a Winter without either Flowers or Fruits possessing only Evils present and oblig'd to fear all and lose all But Man-hood betwixt these two resembles Autumn denoted by the Horn of Plenty possesses the felicity of Life enjoys the Goods acquired and by hope anticipates those to come it hath a Soul commonly accordant with the Body the Faculties of that making a sweet harmony with the Actions of this On the contrary the Soul in Child-hood seems not to be well in tune with the Body in Adolescence 't is always at discord with the Appetites of Sense and in Old-age it jars with it self and by a speedy separation endeavours wholly to break the Consort and have its part by it self CONFERENCE CX I. Of Mineral Waters II. Whether it be better to give than to receive AS the goodness of Common Waters is judg'd by their having neither colour nor smell nor taste and the least weight that may be wanting all other virtues besides to cool and moisten so that of Mineral or Medicinal Waters depends upon the qualities of the Minerals wherewith they are impregnated and by means whereof they purge and alter the Body Humidity being easily susceptible of extraneous qualities and preserving the same best in a dense and gross subject as Water is These Waters are either cold or hot the former are drunk and the latter serve for Bathing as that of Aix in Germany of Plombieres in Lorrain of Bourbon in Bourbonnois of Bagnieres and Barege in Gascony of Balleruc and Barbotan in Languedoc of Acqs and Tersis neer Bayonne and abundance of other hot Baths caus'd by Subterraneous Fires Of cold Waters some are acid and pungent to the taste as the Vitriolate such as those of Spa in the Country of Liege and of Ponges in Nivernois Others are sharp and rough as those Springs of Forges and Montdor neer Rheimes not long since found by Sieur de la Framboisiere those of Chasteau Thierri of la Herse neer Bélesme whose acidity likewise argues something of Vitriol and divers others discover'd daily by experience Some are found heavy stinking fat and impure other leight pure clear and sweet Some are salt or brackish of colour reddish green black and otherwise different according as these Waters are variously mix'd wherein Minerals are contain'd either in substance and their grosser parts or else only their Spirits and subtiler parts so well blended as that there appears no extraneous Body at all which mixtion depends on the Nature of Minerals some whereof are never perfectly mix'd with Water by reason of their hardness others though soft and liquid mix only confusedly as oyly Bodies Others mix easily as Spirits in regard of their tenuity and Salts which melt in the Water The Second said That in this matter Experience is rather to be consulted than Reason which falls short in the examen of many Waters of which Histories are full as of those of Nile in Aegypt which make Women fruitful of a Fountain in Arcadia which prevents Abortion of the River Styx in the same place and of Leontini in Sicily which presently kill such as drink thereof of Cydnus in Cilicia which cures the Gowt Such also is Fountain of de Jouvence in the Isle Bonica which makes old men young again that of Ise-land which hinders gray hairs the two of Baeotia whereof one strengthens the others abolishes the Memory two others of the Fortunate Islands one of which causes Sardonian and mortal Laughter unless the other be presently drunk of and those of Thessaly and Macedon one whereof makes the Sheep that drink of it to have black Wooll which the other makes white and both mix'd together make it of several colours that of the Isle of Andros and another a league distant from Coblentz which inebriate having the taste of Wine which the first retained but for seven days and quitted when carried out of sight of a Temple of that Island dedicated to Bacchus the oylie Fountains of Zant the red Spring of Aethiopia which causes loss of Judgment as the Mad Lake in John's Country also doth which thrice a day and as often in the night becomes blackish and sharp and returns as often to its own sweetness the Sabbatical River mention'd by Josephus which dries up every Sabbath-day render'd credible by that of Varins neer Saumur which hath its flux and reflux as the Sea the Water of the Babylonian Lake which continues red eleven days in Summer the Fountain of Dodona so famous among the Poets at which they lighted extinct Torches like to another neer Grenoble which at the same stream sends forth Waters and Flames and many others which convert Wood and immers'd Bodies into Stone the true causes whereof are altogether unknown The Third said That Mineral Waters though humid to the touch are desiccative as appears partly from their composition of Mineral detersive and desiccative Spirits and partly from their effects which are to heal Ulcers dry up Scabs and Pustules and correct the moist intemperies of the Stomach and other lower Parts Some argue them all hot from their acrimony
Mountains on the South are very healthy especially if they lye towards the East the Winds whereof are most healthy And this is the cause of the diversity observ'd in Countries lying in the same Climat which experience not the same changes as the Isle of France is very temperate and yet lyes in the same Climat with Podolia a part of Poland where the cold is extreamly rigorous and in the Islands Bornaio and Sumatra men live commonly 130 years and are not black as the Africans whose life is very short and yet they lye in the same Climat namely under the Aequinoctial Line The Sixth said That Life being the continuance of the radical heat in Humidity that Climat must be properest for Longaevity which will longest preserve that conjunction The violent heat of the Climats near the Equator consumes the radical moisture and makes the natural heat languish although under the Line the coolness of the nights twelve hours long renders it more supportable whereas in our longest Summer-days when the Sun is in Cancer he is no more then 18 degrees from the Horizon and so diffuses his rays upon the vapours hovering about the Earth which reflecting the same after a refraction make the nights almost always light and consequently hot there being no light without heat On the contrary the Northern parts towards the Pole receiving the Suns rays only obliquely are very cold and unfit for long-life combating the heat and desiccating the radical moisture But the temperately hot are the most healthy especially if the air of greatest necessity to Life be pure and not corrupted by vapours CONFERENCE CXVII Which is most necessary to a State and most noble Physick or Law THese two Professions are not absolutely necessary to the subsistence of a State but only suppose some evil which they undertake to amend Physick the disorder of the humours in Mans body and Law that of Manners in the body of the State So that if all people were healthy and good both would be useless But the misery of our Nature having made us slaves to our Appetite and tributaries to Death and Diseases which lead thereto this adventitious necessity hath given rise to two powerful remedies against those two evils Physick to oppose the diseases of the Body and Law to repress the disorders of our Passions which being the sources of all mischiefs Law which restrains their course seems to have as much pre-eminence above Physick as the Body which the latter governs is inferiour to the Mind which the former regulates Moreover Health the end of Physick is common both to Men and Beasts who have a better share thereof and have taught us the best secrets of Physick but to live according to right reason which is the aim of Law is peculiar to man although oftentimes neither the one nor the other obtain its end The Second said These Disciplines are to be consider'd either according to their right use or as they are practis'd Physick consider'd in its right administration is the art of curing Diseases and preserving Health without which there is no pleasure in the World Law taken also according to its institution is that Tree of the Garden of Eden which bears the knowledg of Good and Evil Right and Wrong as Physick is the Tree of Life Now if we compare them together the latter which maintains the precious treasure of Health is as the foundation upon which Law builds its excellent Ordinances for without Health not only the administrations of Justice but all employments of Arts and Exercises cease And though Laws and Justice serve for the ornament of a State yet they are not absolutely necessary to its conservation there being society among Robbers and many States having begun and subsisted by Rapines Violences and other injustices but none without Health which is the foundation of all goods preserving the absolute Being of every thing and by that means maintaining all the faculties of Body and Mind Wherefore Physick is profitable not only to the Body but also to the Soul whose nature faculties and actions it contemplates But if these Arts be consider'd as they are practis'd now a days 't is certain that if there are Mountebanks Ignorants and Cheats who practise Physick amongst a good number of good Physitians there are also Champertors Forgers and other such black souls who live by fraud which they exercise under the mask of justice We must likewise distinguish the bad judgments of certain Nations from the truth For if the Romans sometimes banish'd their Physitians and Chirurgians this might be done out of ignorance as when they saw the Gangren'd Leg of one of their Citizens cut off And though they were for some time without Physitians yet they were never without Physick at least natural The Third said Law hath the pre-eminence above Physick upon account of the great benefits it brings to a State by delivering the same from greater more troublesome and more incurable evils And good according to the Moral axiom being the more divine by how much 't is more common and diffus'd it follows that Law is more divine then Physick For by checking our passions and obstructing the career of illegal Ambitions and Usurpations it does good not only to private persons as Physick doth but also to the whole Publick which is engag'd by particular passions whence Law-sutes Seditions Wars and other evils arise which being publick are of more importance then those to which Physick is design'd whose whole business is about the four humours either to keep them in a just temper or reduce them to their natural state from which Diseases debauch them Besides Physick only cures the Body whereas Law represses the mind's disorders and even the intentions Lastly the evils Physick defends us from are of easie cure having all sensible indications but Law remedies such as depend upon the thoughts and counsels of men impenetrable by sense Moreover Physick regards only particular persons but Law maintains a moral union and good intelligence between all the parts of a Commonwealth namely men of several conditions and keeps every one within the bounds of his own quality and station and so is like a Universal Spirit or Intelligence presiding over all our motions hindring ruptures and dissensions the bane of a State as that doth vacuity which tends to the destruction of the World The Fourth said That as the multitude of Physitians in a City is a sign of a multitude of diseases reigning therein so the multitude of Laws and Judges argues corruption of manners Wherefore both these Professions may seem equally useless to a State free from wicked and miserable persons And indeed we see many Nations have wanted both at Rome Physitians were unknown for divers ages and are so still in some Countries and most States of the World dispense very well with the want of Lawyers whose contrary opinions are as destructive to the State and particular persons as the number of Physitians is to the Sick
pores being more open cannot retain those volatile substances So that had the Fat less heat as they have not for plenty of fat argues plenty of blood the purer and more aiery part whereof distilling like dew through the coats of the Vessels and passing through the Muscles when it comes to the Membranes is by them condens'd into that whitish substance rather by their density and natural property then by their coldness yet this Heat being better dispens'd and less alter'd in the Fat then in the Lean must consequently cause fewer diseases and last longer The Third said Life is the continuance of Heat in Humidity not aqueous and excrementitious as that of fat people is but oleaginous and aerial and the longer this Heat subsists therein the longer doth life last Now it continues longer in the Fat whose more open pores let out the fuliginous excrements rais'd by Heat which in fat bodies whose passages are stopt by the coldness or clamminess of pituitous humors stagnate and choke the heat like fire that wants free transpiration so necessary to life that it cannot subsist a moment without this action whereby the soul attracts air in at all parts of the body especially the mouth for refreshing and ventilating the heat and recruiting the spirits and by the same passages emits the fuliginosities necessarily following all consumption of humidity by Heat Which causes of Death being internal and consequently necessary and inevitable are much more considerable then the external whereto lean people are subject and which may be more easily avoided and remedied The fourth said That Fat persons have a more moderate and less consuming heat its activity being allay'd by the humidity of their Constitution and therefore 't is more durable than that of lean people whose heat already violent of it self is render'd more active by siccity which is a spur to it Hence they indure fasting with more trouble than the Fat whose moist substance both moderates and feeds their heat which appears to the touch very gentle and temperate as that of lean persons is sharp and pungent Moreover Diseases of Inanition to which the lean are subject are more difficult to cure than those of Repletion incident to the Fat. And old age which continually dries us up is the tendency to Death which is siccity it self The Fifth said Health being a Disposition according to Nature which renders a man capable of performing the offices of life aright and this disposition consisting in a due proportion of the first qualities which makes a harmony and laudable temper of the four humors the principal evidence thereof is a good state and habit of the body call'd by the Physicians Euexia and that Extreme which comes nearest this is the most healthy and fittest for long life The functions of life are Natural Vital and Animal all which are better perform'd by the lean than the fat First the Natural which are Nutrition Growth and Generation because the hotter flesh of the lean attracts more than that of the fat which may indeed imbibe the nutritive juices but cannot perfectly concoct and assimilate the same for want of sufficient heat whence they produce abundance of crude flegmatick excrements which render them pale and bloated For their more fatness proceeds from want of heat to consume superfluities Secondly growth being an effect of heat the Fat grow less because they are less hot than the Lean. For heat rarefies subtilises dilates and make the parts mount upwards as its defect makes the humors settle downwards hence women are never so tall as men and their lower parts are grosser whereas the upper parts of men as the head and breast are more large Thirdly the lean are more apt for generation because their spirits are more refin'd and their seed more concoct and plentiful than that of the fat the purest portion of whose blood is turn'd into fat instead of seed whence all guelded Animals become fat and according to Aristotle fat women are for the most part barren bear seldom who also as well as men of the same habit are more inclin'd to love but we are commonly most led to that which we perform best Then the Vital Functions too are more perfectly perform'd in the lean as appears by their large respiration their strong and great pulse the nimbleness in their motions and passions Lastly so also are the Animal to wit outward and inward sensation by reason of the pureness and subtlety of their spirits which likewise causes goodness of wit and of the disposition of their Organs more purifi'd and less burden'd with clouds and excrementitious humidities which render the fat more heavy both of mind and body CONFEERNCE CXXIV Whether we may better trust one whom we have oblig'd or one that hath oblig'd us COnfidence being the fruit of Friendship yea the sweet bond wherewith this Virtue unites Hearts it may seem we ought to have most in him that loves most perfectly namely he that hath oblig'd us For as 't is harder to give then to receive because we cannot give without depriving our selves of what we enjoy which is contrary to our natural inclination so it is a more virtuous action and argues a greater kindness the receiver of a benefit finding no difficulty in this action of receiving it Moreover we cannot doubt of his good will who obliges us by his benefits but we may of his that receives For it frequently happens to those that do good as it did to the Sower in the Gospel part of whose seed fell in stony places part amongst thorns part in the high-way and was devoured by birds and the least part upon good ground and brings not forth fruit but in its own time Yea there are many that hate nothing so much as the remembrance of those that have done them good as if their presence were an Universal Reproach notwithstanding that a second benefit revives the first and a third or fourth cannot but mind them of the preceeding But when you have obtain'd of them to remember it yet many regret nothing more then to pay a debt because constrain'd thereto either by Law or Duty and Man being of his own Nature free hates nothing so much as to do any thing by constraint Hence if he requites an Obligation 't is not with that freeness and cheerfulness which is requisite to good Offices and becomes a Benefactor in whom therefore we have more reason to confide then in another The Second said The little fidelity now in the world even amongst nearest Relatives makes it reasonable to enquire Who may be trusted And if the fear of Ingratitude the most vulgar crime though in shew much detested by all the world is the cause why he who hath done good to another yet dares not trust him the receiver thereof hath oftentimes no less doubt of his Benefactor 's intention For though he hath receiv'd a seeming testimony of his kindness yet the motives of benefits proceeding sometimes from an other cause
are the cause of all Mischiefs might be taken away For by this means that importunate solicitude of Appropriation and Jealousie which oftentimes afflicts both parties would be no longer any thing but a phantasm Women would find their satisfaction in the plurality of Husbands these how many soever to one woman having always enough and more then they needed and the woman being cunning enough to divide her favours so that all her Husbands might be contented who besides dividing the burden of domestick cares would have an easier task by having the more Associates But especially 't would be much for the womans interest for if she be belov'd by all her Husbands 't will be unspeakable happiness to her if hated by any the caresses of some will make her amends for the bad usage of others whereas finding no remedy in that Gordian knot which tyes her to one person she abandons her self to despair insomuch that in the time of Spurius Carvilius seventy women accus'd one another to the Senate of having poyson'd their Husbands But if she be constrain'd to share the caresses of one Husband with a douzen rivals there will be nothing but perpetual feuds envies and jealousies Witness Leah and Rachel who though holy women yet daily contested for the possession of their common Husband Jacob. And the Scripture observes that Leah who was blear-ey'd was constrain'd to purchase of the fair Rachel with mandrakes the liberty of lying one night with Jacob. The 5th said That seeing a Woman is a hagger'd and indocible animal Experience shewing us that one single man is not capable to reduce her to reason 't were more expedient to allow her many Husbands the reverence and aw of whom and in defect thereof their force might tame her pride and insolence which is risen to the highest pitch since the time that Justinian's Wife got the Law of Divorce repeal'd which ever before had been a Bridle upon them CONFERENCE CXXXI Of the manner of Accretion MOtion which is the mutation from one state to another is either simple or compound Simple is either of Quality is term'd Alteration or of Place and is call'd Lation or Motion Local Compound is either to Substance and is nam'd Generation which includes alteration and formation or to a greater Quantity which comprehends Local Motion with Accretion or Augmentation which cannot be made unless the parts extended change place This Accretion is an effect of one of the Faculties subservient to the Vegetative or Natural which are three the Generative the Auctive or Accretive and the Nutritive according to the three operations observ'd in living bodies which have parts generated nourishing and increasing for a thing must be generated before it can grow and acquire the perfection wherein it is maintain'd by Nutrition The Generative Faculty which is compounded of the Alterative and Formative regards the foetus in the womb The Auctive governs it from its birth till the twentieth or one and twentieth year which is the term of Accretion The Nutritive continues all the time of life which cannot subsist without nourishment because this repairs the continual dissipation of our substance caus'd by the action of heat upon humidity in which action Life it self consists Now though the body may be nourisht without growing yet it cannot grow unless it be nourisht For Accretion being an Extension of the parts in length and breadth new substance must be supply'd to fill up the place of that which is extended otherwise a living body should grow no more then a bladder doth when it is blown or a piece of leather when it is stretcht in the former what is gotten in capacity is lost in thickness and in the latter what is gotten in length is impair'd in breadth so that the augmentation of parts would be rather imaginary than real without supply of new matter to succeed that which is equally extended in all its dimensions amongst which nevertheless that of stature and of the solid parts as the bones is call'd Growth and not that which is made in thickness and the fleshy parts which are enlarged manytimes after the time of full growth The second said That all things being finite must have bounds of magnitude sutable to the use whereunto they are appointed which bounds are not determinate in inanimate bodies as Stones Metals Hair and Nails whose accretion being made by the bare apposition of matter they are augmented continually so long as there is accession of new matter to the former But in living bodies the same are regular for the accretion of these being internal and the work of the soul continues till the body hath attain'd the proportion and stature requisite to its functions To compass which Nature employs Heat as the Efficient Cause and Humidity as the Material Hence children grow most in their infancy because they are then most moist and men to a larger size then women because they have more heat Young men indeed have a more pungent and vigorous heat then Children but these are better stor'd as being nearer the principles of their generation and though it be not so active yet 't is more proper for the growth of the solid parts which being desiccated by a violent heat are not so extensible as when they are full of a fat and unctuous humidity But as for the manner of Accretion 't is almost the same with that of Nutrition The Aliment having been prepar'd in the Stomach and Liver and by this latter transmitted by the veins into all the parts of the body the purer particles of it sweat through the coats of the Vessels and fall like a gentle dew upon the parts which first imbibe then agglutinate and lastly assimilate the same So that Nutrition is nothing but Assimilation of the substance of the food to that of the living body and as Aliments nourish by resemblance of their Substance and by vertue of their Form so they cause augmentation by their Quantity and Matter which arriving at the solid parts as the Bones Cartilages and Ligaments causes the same to extend and grow in all dimensions but especially in height by reason that 't is proper to Heat to drive Humidity upwards And as when the Nutrition is equal to the Dissipation the body is only nourisht as in the Age of Consistence so when the Income of matter is greater than the Expence the surplusage meeting with a due heat causeth augmentation if it be less there follows wasting or diminution as is seen Old-Age The Third said As Animals are indu'd with a nobler degree of life than Plants so they vegetate after a more sublime manner and not only by bare heat and moisture For amongst Animals the Elephant a melancholy and consequently cold and dry beast is yet the greatest of the field the Crocodile though cold grows all its life and some Serpents have by long age attained to the length of sixty foot So amongst Trees Oaks though the dryest are the largest Of Bones the
Malleus Incus and Stapes in the Ear which serve to reproduce sounds grow not at all though they be full of mucosity and humidity on the contrary the Teeth the dryest of all parts as is manifested by their rotting last yet grow all the life long But if Heat and Moisture were the causes of Accretion then the Sanguine who are hot and moist should be of the largest size as they are not but commonly grow as well as the Flegmatick more in thickness than height augmenting their flesh and fat more then their solid parts On the contrary the tallest men are commonly cold dry and lean the lowest generally hotter and people grow upon recovery after fevers which dry the body Wherefore 't is more probable that the Growth of Animals is an effect of the Spirits which insinuating into the Vessels extend the same and withall the membranes muscles and other parts encompassing them proportionably The Fourth said That the Spirits are indeed the Soul's Organs and Instruments whereby she performs her functions but being of so volatile and fluid a nature as not to be reckon'd in the number of the parts of Man's Body they cannot of themselves cause Accretion which requires Apposition of new matter which insinuates it self equally into all the parts just as the nourishment doth both without penetration of dimensions or admission of vacuity This matter must be humid because of all Bodies the moist are most pliant and extensible Whence the Sea by reason of its humidity produces Monsters of strange bulk Yet this humidity as well as the heat must be in due degree for a great heat consumes instead of increasing whence the Males of Birds of prey are lesser than the Females because they are hotter but if it be too weak then the moisture instead of ascending falls downward by its proper gravity which is the cause that Women who have less heat are also of lesser stature than Men and larger downwards as Men are upwards According to the various marriage of this heat with moisture bodies grow variously some more slowly others more speedily some are little and dwarfish others Giants according to the defect or abundance of the matter serving to their first Formation But as for the rest of Man-kind Wise Nature hath set her self such bounds as she hath judg'd convenient beyond which the most part grow not which are between six and seven foot Not the Accretive Faculty is then lost or corrupted for 't is that power of the Soul and consequently incorruptible and inseparable from her but it cannot act longer for want of fitting dispositions to wit the softness and moistness of the solid parts As a Mule hath a Sensitive Soul but not the virtue of generating which is one of the Faculties of that Soul and a Load-stone rub'd with Garlick hath still the virtue of attracting Iron but cannot employ the same by reason that its Pores are stopt no more then the Eye can see in a Suffusion CONFERENCE CXXXII Whether the Dinner or Supper ought to be largest DIet or the Regiment of Living which is the first and most general part of Physick because it concerns both the healthy and the sick consists in regulating the quantity and quality of Aliments and the order and time wherein they are to be taken The Quantity must be proportional to the nature of the Person so that his strength may be repair'd and not oppress'd thereby As for the Quality they must be of good juice and as pleasing and agreeable as may be The Order of taking them is to be this such as are moist soft laxative and of soonest Digestion or Corruption must precede such as are dry hard astringent and of more difficult Concoction The Time in general ought to be so regulated that the interval of Meals be sufficient for digesting the nourishment last fore-going The Custom of most Nations hath made two Dinner and Supper Break-fast and Afternoon-collations being but Diminutives or parts of them two and the over-plus of notorious excesses Now if we compare Dinner and Supper together it seemes requisite that the latter be more plentiful because the Time ensuing it is most proper for Digestion in regard of the intro-recession of the natural heat during sleep which becoming by that means more united and vigorous performes the natural functions to wit Concoction Distribution Apposition and Assimilation more perfectly then after Dinner when it is diverted otherwise to the Senses and Operations both of Body and Mind Besides that the coldness and darkness of the night contributes not a little to the same effect upon the account of Antiperistasis Unless we had rather with some establish a new power of the Soul governing and disposing the Spirits according to necessity sometimes giving them the bridle and causing them to move outwards as in Anger Shame and Indignation sometimes summoning them inwards as in Fear Sadness and Sleep which for this reason renders the Countenance pale and all the extream parts cold whereas in the time of waking the external parts being hotter leave the Internal more cold The Second said That he agreed with the Church which enjoynes Fasting in the Evening but allows Dinners which it doth not without mature consideration drawn as well from Nature as from Grace For it thereby designes the eschewing those Illusions and Temptations attending good Cheer taken before going to bed and conceives a light Supper fittest for meditation and serenity of Mind The reparation of our dissipated Spirits by Food causeth the same disorder in the Body that happens in a Town or Village upon the entrance of strangers to people it after its desolation by some accident and therefore 't is better that this trouble arrive in the day when our waking senses are able to secure themselves from the Commotions caused by this change than in the night whose darkness helps to multiply the Phantasms which are in the Imagination pester'd with the vapors and gross fumes of Meats the Digestion whereof is then but begun Whereas in the day time such vapors transpire more freely by the Pores which are opened by the heat of the Sun and by the Exercises which are used in the Afternoon Besides Meats being onely to fill emptiness the time of the greatest inanition is the fittest for repletion which certainly Noon must be after the Evacuations of the fore-going Night and Morning The Third said There are four manners of taking Repasts First Some eat often and very much at each time so did the Athletae of old and so do those Gourmandizers who are alwayes hungry and whose Stomacks have been found after their death of unusual capacity This way is altogether opposite to Health Secondly Some eat little and seldom which course befits acute Diseases those that are judg'd the fourth day requiring sometimes a total abstinence in case the Patient's strength can bear it those that reach to the seventh or fourteenth very little Food and seldom Thirdly Such as must eat little but
often as little Children and Old people whose heat being weak and easily dissipated they must be often nourish'd but by a little at a time for fear of overcharging their too weak Stomacks The last and commonest way is to eat plentifully but seldom which is the manner of middle-ag'd people who usually eat twice a day and more at one Meal than at the other it being hard for a Man to satiate himself both at Dinner and Supper without indammaging his Health Which made Plato wonder when he heard that the Sicilians fill'd themselves with Meat twice a day and oblig'd the Romans to make a light repast about Noon and a splendid Supper which I am for Upon this account the Church hath to macerate us forbidden Suppers on Fasting dayes which is an Argument that they are more agreeable and more conducing to Health than Dinners For such quantity of Food is to be taken as answers to the natural heat which being not onely more vigorous but also of longer duration between Supper and Dinner than between Dinner and Supper the interval whereof is seldom above six or seven hours whereas that between Supper and Dinner is about seventeen 't is more reasonable to sup more largely than dine For if the Dinner be largest we shall eat either as much as the heat is able to digest by Supper-time or more If we eat more and go to Supper before the digestion of the Dinner is wholly finish'd we shall beget crudities which are the seed of most diseases If we eat as much as the heat can digest and the Supper be less then the Dinner then the heat which follows the Supper being stronger and more active will soon concoct the meat taken at Supper and because 't is a natural agent not acting from a principle of liberty but of necessity and cannot remain idle having no extraventitious matter to work upon it will necessarily consume the laudable juices of the body drying up the same during sleep For whereas sleep is said to moisten whence arose the Proverb Qui dort mange He that sleeps eats 't is true when the stomach and entrals being fill'd with sufficient nourishment the Heat raises and disperses to all the parts the purest of the juices and vapours like gentle dews which it cannot do when the Stomach is empty The fourth said Nature having given us an Appetite to advertise us of the need of all parts there is no certainer rule of the time of Repast than this Appetite which for this reason is seated in the upper Orifice of the Stomach render'd sensible by the Nerves of the sixth Pair terminating therein For there is a continual dissipation of our substance in all the parts which being exhausted attract from their neighbours wherewith to fill their own emptiness these solicit the Liver for supply that the Guts by the Mesaraick Veins these the Stomack at the top whereof this suction terminates the sense or perception whereof is call'd Appetite which if of hot and dry is call'd Hunger if of cold and moist Thirst So that Nutrition being onely to recruit and repair the loss of our Substance there is no more assured sign of the fitting time to eat then when the said Appetite is most eager at what hour soever it be The fifth said That this might have place in well temper'd bodies which desire onely so much as they are able to digest but not in those whose Appetite is greater than their Digestion as cold and melancholy Stomacks or who desire less as the hot and bilious whose heat melting the juices abates the Appetite as on the contrary Coldness contracting the membranes of the Stomack augments it So that 't is most expedient for every one to consult his own Temper Age Nature and Custom of living Old people little Children such as are subject to Defluxions or have weak Stomacks must sup sparingly on the other side the Cholerick and such as are subject to the Head-ach must eat a larger Supper than Dinner But above all the Custom of every particular person is most considerable herein CONFERENCE CXXIII Which of the Humane Passions is most excusable MAn being compos'd of two Pieces Body and Soul and upon that account styl'd by Trismegistus The Horizon of the Universe because he unites in himself the spiritual nature with the Corporeal the Inclinations whereof are different he hath also need of two guides to conduct those two Parts the Rational and the Animal and make them know the Good towards which they are carried of their own Nature The Intellect makes him see the Honest and Spiritual Good the Imagination enables him to conceive a sensible and corporeal Good And as the Rational Appetite which is the Will follows the light afforded to it by the Intellect in pursuit of Honest Good whence Vertue ariseth so the sensitive Appetite is carri'd to the enjoyment of sensible Good which the Imagination makes it conceive as profitable and pleasant and that by motions commonly so disorderly and violent that they make impression not only upon the Mind but upon the Body whose Oeconomy they discompose and for this reason they are call'd Passions or Perturbations and Affections of the Mind These Passions either are carri'd towards Good and Evil simply as Love and Hatred the first inclining us to Good which is the Parent of Beauty the latter averting us from Evil or else they consider both Good and Evil Absent as Desire and Flight or Lastly they consider them being present and cause Pleasure and Grief which if of longer duration produce Joy and Sadness Now because difficulties frequently occurr in the pursuit of Cood and flight of Evil therefore Nature not contented to have indu'd Animals with a Concupiscible Appetite which by means of the six above-mention'd Passions might be carri'd towards Good and avoid Evil hath also given them another Appetite call'd Irascible to surmount the Obstacles occurring in the pursuit of Good or flight of Evil whence arise five other Passions Hope Despair Boldness Fear and Anger Hope excites the soul to the prosecution of a difficult but obtainable good Despair checks the motions of the soul towards the pursuit of a Good no longer obtainable Boldness regards an absent Evil which assures it self able to surmount Fear considers the same absent Evil without any means of being able to avoid it Lastly the violence of Anger is bent against a present Evil whereof it believes a possibility to be reveng'd And because a present and enjoyed Good cannot be accompani'd with difficulty hence there is no Passion in the Irascible Appetite answering to Anger as there is in the other Passions which again are divided according to the several objects about which they are exercis'd The desire of Honours is call'd Ambition that of Riches Covetousness that of fleshly Pleasures Concupiscence that of Meats Gourmandise or Gluttony The Hatred of Vice causes Zeal that of a Rival Jealousie The sorrow arising upon the sight of Evil suffer'd by an
another Understand this Equalness only of Qualities not of Elements for were there as much Fire as Water as much Air as Earth the more active fire would consume the rest and reduce into ashes all living things whose dissolution shews us that they consist more of Earth and Water then of the other Elements The other call'd Temperament according to Justice is found in every sort of compound-substances amongst which there is one that serves for the rule or standard to all individuals compris'd under it and possesses in perfection the temper require requisite to the functions of its nature Thus amongst Animals the Lyon is hot the Swine moist the Salamander cold the Bee dry but Man is temperate and amongst his parts the Bones Cartilages and Ligaments are cold and dry the Blood Spirits Muscles Heart and Liver are hot and moist the Brain Phlegm and Fat are cold and moist each of them being temper'd according to Justice The Skin alone especially that in the Palm of a well-temper'd mans hand being moderate in all the Qualities and seeming a texture of the Flesh and Nerves is equally cold and hot soft and hard and consequently the prime Organ of Touch and the judge of all other Temperaments The unequal Temperament which nevertheless lyes within the latitude of Health is either simple or compound The former wherein one of the four Qualities prevails over its contrary while the other two remain in a mediocrity is of four sorts Hot Cold Dry and Moist The second wherein two excell is likewise of four sorts according to the four combinations which the qualities admit viz. Hot and Moist Hot and Dry Cold and Moist Cold and Dry for Hot and Cold Dry and Moist cannot subsist in one and the same subject And though the heat incessantly consuming the moisture and the cold collecting plenty of humid excrements hinder the hot and moist and cold and dry tempers from subsisting long in the same state yet they may continue therein for some time though they become chang'd by succession of ages Now of the nine sorts of Tempers to wit the four simple four compound and one perfectly temperate this last seems to me the most laudable and perfect a body thus temper'd being neither fat nor lean hot nor cold dry nor moist but of a square and indifferently fleshy constitution not inclining to one extream more then another being in an exquisite mediocrity and consequently more laudable then any of those which approach nearer the always vicious extreams The Second said If there be such an exquisite Temperament as reason seems to demonstrate then since there is no passing from one extream to another but by the middle when a Child changes the heat and moisture of his infancy into the cold and dryness of old-age that middle equal Temper must pass away as swift as lightning and it's duration will be almost insensible Wherefore though it be the most perfect and desirable yet since 't is only the standard and rule of all others I am for Hot and Moist as most sutable to life which consists in those two qualities as Death and its forerunner Old-age are cold and dry This is the Temperament of Child-hood allotted to us by Nature at the beginning of our life and therefore the most perfect answering to the Spring the most temperate of Seasons and to Blood the most temperate humour whence 't is call'd Sanguine as the cold and dry is Melancholick the hot and dry Bilious the cold and moist Phlegmatick Which is not to be understood of the excrementitious but of the natural humours contain'd in the mass of Blood which follow the principles of our Generation Moreover 't is proper not only for the functions of life whereof health is the foundation and joy the most sweet support which the Blood produces as Melancholy doth sadness Phlegm slothfulness Bile fury and anger but also for those of the Mind which depending upon the pureness of the Animal Spirits as these do upon that of the Vital and Natural which are more benigne in the Sanguine their conceptions must be likewise more clear and refin'd The Third said If Heat and Moisture are sutable to the actions of the Vegetative Soul Generation Accretion and Nutrition they are no less prejudicial to those of the Rational the seat whereof is therefore remote from the two Organs of Concoction the Ventricle and the Liver lest the fumes of the Food coming to be mix'd with the Animal Spirits might offuscate and cloud the phantasms and ideas wherewith those Spirits are charged and consequently hinder the operations of the Understanding which depend upon those phantasms so long as it is linked to the Body For all Souls being alike their operations differ only according to the diverse temper of the Brain which causes that of the Animal Spirits which must be subtle and luminous but not so far as to be igneous like those of the cholerick and frantick whose motions are precipitate and impetuous but in the just proportion observ'd in the Melancholick temper which being cold and dry that is to say less hot and moist is most proper for Prudence and Wisdom which require a setled compos'd Spirit like that of old men who owe not their Wisdom so much to the experience of many years as to the coldness and dryness of their Brains which makes men grave and sedate All brave men have been of this temper which gives patience and constancy without which nothing grand and considerable can ever be perform'd And as the hot and moist temper is most subject to corruption so by the reason of contraries the cold and moist must be least obnoxious to diseases as amongst Trees and Animals the dryest and hardest are least offended by external injuries upon which account the Melancholy is not only most desirable but also because it most contents the mind of him that possesses it who being at his ease makes more reflection upon the benefit he injoys unless otherwise diverted by contemplation The Fourth said That that is the most laudable temper which is most adapted to the functions both of body and mind between which there is so great a disproportion that what agrees well with the one seems prejudicial to the other The Sanguine is the most excellent for the operations of life and good habit of Body but incommodious for those of the Mind partly through the softness and mildness of that humour which cannot suffer strong attention and partly through its excessive humidity which filling the Imagination with vapours cannot supply fit matter to the Animal Spirits whose temper must be dry for producing Wisdom whereunto Melancholy is by some judg'd conducible but were it so 't is too contrary to the health and good constitution of the body to be desirable The phlegmatick temper is proper neither for the health of the Body nor the goodness of Wit But the Bilious is for both being less repleat then the Sanguine and less attenuated and dry'd then
full enough of miseries without needing addition of those that commonly attend Marriage which a Philosopher who had triy'd it said hath but two good dayes the first when there is nothing but laughing and the last which delivers us from that sad slavery perfectly contrary both to liberty and quiet the two greatest Goods a wise Man can enjoy in this Life which are inconsistent with the turmoil of Houswifrie and the Cares of Marriage from which therefore the Brachmans Gymnosophists Galli and Vestals and at this day such as are devoted to God's Service have been exempted to the end the better to mind Contemplation and Virtuous Exercises both hard to be done in Marriage wherein scarce any other Virtue is practis'd but Patience whereof 't is the true School which Socrates said He had learnt better by the scolding of his Wife than by all the Precepts of the Philosophers The Fourth said Men would be Vagrants and Stragglers like wild Beasts were it not for Marriage which is the foundation of the State for it makes Families and Families make Common-wealths which consequently owe their Nativity and increase to marry'd people who have a much greater interest in the Conservation of the State than those that have neither House nor Home as unmarry'd Men seldom have But as there is no compleat Good in this World so Marriage though a most holy and good thing in it self instituted by God in Paradise and during the state of Innocence hath nevertheless its incommodities not so much from it self as from the fault of the persons who know not how to use it as they ought The Fifth said 'T is peculiar to Marriage to have nothing small or moderate every thing in it is extream 'T is either full of sweetness and Affection or of Hatred and bitterness 't is either a Paradise or a Hell When 't is suted with all Conditions requisite there 's no state happier but when any is wanting no Infelicity equals it And because Good requires the integrity of all its constituent parts but Evil comes from the least defect 't is no wonder that few or no Marriages are happy since there is none wherein there is not something to be wisht for especially when the match is made as most commonly 't is by another's Hand though 't is strange that Men who are so circumspect and wary in other bargains searching examining and taking Essay of what they buy should have so little Prudence in an Affair of such Consequence and Danger There is nothing but a Wife that a Man is oblig'd to keep as long as he lives but they have been taken at a venture since at the instance of the Roman Dames the Law of Ancus Martius was abolisht who had purposely built a Temple to Male-Fortune near the Tyber where Women were carefully examin'd And as t is an intolerable madness to engage voluntarily into fetters and a perpetual Prison by subjecting one's self to the Caprichio of a Woman so 't is great simplicity in a Man to entrust his Honor the chiefest of all Goods to her inconstant humor who may render us infamous when the Phansie takes her I think therefore every one ought to consult himself Whether it be fit for him to marry or not that is Whether he believes he ha's Virtue and Constancy enough to suffer the defects of a Woman who may be commendable in some Point but at the bottom is alwayes a Woman CONFERENCE CXLII At what time the Rational Soul is infus'd AS Religion obliges us to believe that the Soul which is of an Immortal Nature comes immediately from God who drawing it out of the Abysse of Nothing at the same time creates it in the Infusing and infuses it in the Creating so nothing is determin'd absolutely touching the time in which that infusion is made For knowing which we must observe that the whole time of the Child's residing in the Womb is divided into four parts namely the Conception Conformation Motion and Parturition so distinguished between themselves that the time of Motion is about treble to that of Conformation and the time of Parturition double to that of Motion The whole work of Conformation is divided again into four times according to which the Matter contained is diversly fashioned and wrought and is called Geniture or Coagulated Milk Foetus Embryo and an Infant when the Conformation of the parts is finished which is at the thirtieth day for Boyes and at the forty second for Girles whose less Heat and more waterish materials require a longer time for Conformation of their Spermatick parts After which the Blood arriving fills the void spaces of the Muscles Fibres and other carnous parts which are not perfectly shaped till towards the time of Motion which is the third month for Males and the fourth for Females at which time the Second Conformation ends and the whole organization is compleated At first the Infant hath onely a Vegetative Life by means of which his parts are generated by the Alteration and Conformation of the Matter and are nourished and take their growth not onely by their Attraction from all parts of the Matrix but also by an Internal Vital Principle which is the Vegetative Soul residing in all fruitful seed and being the same with the Formative Faculty Now because the Vegetative or Sensitive Soul is but an accident namely a certain Harmony of the Four Qualities therefore they easily give place upon the arrival of the reasonable soul which I think happens when the organization of the parts is perfected to wit about the third or fourth month before which time the Body not being organized cannot receive the Soul which is the act of an Organical Body which also she forsakes when upon any notable solution of continuity the Organs are destroyed and abolished oftentimes though the Temper of the similary parts be not hurt which consequently is not the sole requisite for the Infusion of the Soul but also the convenient Fabrick of the Organs The Second said That the opinion which introduces the Rational Soul in the first days of Conception as soon as the matter necessary for receiving it begins to put on the diversity of Organs is the most probable since by this means this soul differs from others in that it proceeds and makes the dispositions whereas others follow the same and absolutely depend thereupon And the same reason which obliges us to acknowledg the Reasonable Soul after motion constrains us to admit it before which nothing hinders us from attributing to some other cause as to the Sensitive Soul introduc'd before the Rational saving that causes are not to be multiplied without necessity and one Soul alone may suffice for Sense whilst yet the defect of Organs allow not the exercise of Reason The same reason shews how absurd it is to assign any other cause in the first days of the Vegetative Actions it being as easie to infer the presence of the Reasonable Soul by this sort of actions as
amounts to 5920. years according to the most probable Opinion which reckons 3683. years and three months to the Nativity of our Lord the Matter may also be decided by Reason provided we lay aside two powerful Passions the one proper to young Men who alwayes value themselves above their Predecessors and like Rehoboam think their own little finger stronger than the whole Body of their Fathers the other ordinary to old Men who alwayes extoll the time past above the present because the infirmities of their Bodies and Minds no longer allowing them the contentment they formerly enjoyed they know not where to charge the fault but upon Time though in truth it lyes upon Themselves For Nature being still as Wise and Powerful as heretofore and the Universal Causes the same their Operations must be likewise as perfect and their Effects as excellent in these dayes as they have been in any Then as for our Minds they are so far from being impair'd that they improve more and more in acuteness and being of the same Nature with those of the Ancients have such an advantage beyond them as a Pigmy hath upon the shoulders of a Gyant from whence he beholds not onely as much but more than his supporter doth The Second said As a Stone hath more force by how much 't is less from the hand that flings it and generally all Causes act more powerful upon their next than upon their distant Effects so also Men are less perfect proportionally to their remoteness from their Source and Original from whence they derive all their perfection This decay is chiefly observ'd in our bodies which are not so sound and well-constituted as those of our Ancestors and therefore 't is no wonder if the Souls where-with they are inform'd have less Vigor though the same Nature For although in order to judge aright of the Excellence of the Souls of one Age compar'd with another we ought to wave that advantage which the later have over the preceding by enjoying the benefit of their inventions whereunto 't is as easie to add as 't is to build upon a good foundation whereof others have firmly lay'd the first stones and Pillars Yet for all those great advantages there hath not in these last Ages appear'd any one equal to those grand Personages of Antiquity who have had the vogue in each Art and Science Moreover want of things made them more ingenious and the Experience of many years render'd them capable of every thing whereas now we cease to live when we but begin to know our selves Indeed they had the true Disciplines and Sciences whereof we have no more but the shadows and instead of real and solid Philosophy such as that of the First Ages was nothing remains to us but an useless Scholastick Gibberish which having been banisht the Company of all discreet people is shamefully confin'd to the inclosure of Colledges where I am confident the Professors will readily yield to Socrates Plato Lycurgus Solon and the Seven Sages of Greece to whose Age which was the year of the World 3400. I clearly give the prize there being no indowment of the Mind preferrable to that of Wisdom The Third said If Wisdom must carry it there is no Age to be compar'd to that of Solomon but because one Swallow makes not a Spring I should prefer before it that of Augustus and Tiberius when the Roman Empire was in its greatest Glory the rather because our Saviour the Paragon of all great Men liv'd in it and Virgil Ovid Cicero Cato besides many others flourisht at the same time Not to speak of the rare Inventions which also then appear'd as Malleable Glass and Perpetual Lights both now unknown The Fourth said If the complaint of the decay of Witts were true and new the World must be very old since Seneca who liv'd 1500. years ago made the same in his time But if the present Wits are not inferior to those of Seneca's time it will follow either that the world grows not worse as is commonly said or that long Series of years which makes above a quarter of the whole Age the world is taken but for one and the same time In which Case the world must be older than religion and truth teach us before it fell into that decay wherein we see it continue for so many Ages But indeed 't is a weakness to imagine that Witts diminish our Natural Inclination to despise what we possess and to regret what is pass'd making us judge to our own disadvantage that we are less perfect than our Ancestors and that our Nephews must be worse than our selves whence arose that Fiction of Four Ages differing according to so many Metals the Golden one by reason of its excellence that of Silver Brass and Iron proportionably as Men fell from the former Perfection of Soul and Innocence of Manners But all this while 't is in the beginning of the World that the weakness of Man appear'd by suffering himself to be govern'd by his Wife and the damnable Resolution of a Fratricide Moreover the Mind of Man being a Power of well Conceiving Reasoning Inventing and doing other Functions whereof he is capable he may arrive to a Supream Degree of Excellence either by the pure and liberal Will of his Maker or by the disposition and concurrence of Natural Causes or by Humane Industry So that God Nature and Art the three sole Agents of this World being the same as heretofore they must produce the same Effects For God creates not Souls now with less advantages and grace than formerly he is as liberal of his favours as ever especially in the Ages of Grace Nor doth Nature and other Second Causes contribute less to the perfection of Souls than heretofore And the Humane Soul however independent of Matter as to its Essence yet is so link'd to the Organs of the Body that it operates well or ill according as those are diversly affected which is what we call Good or Bad Wit whilst we judge thereof by the Actions and not by the Essence For those Organs and Dispositions depend of the Elements and Superior Bodies which are alwayes the same and consequently must produce the same Effects and hence the equal Dispositions of Bodies will inferr equal perfection of Minds But as for the difference of Souls arising from Art and Instruction undoubtedly those of our Age are better cultivated than any ever have been in times pass'd The Fifth said When I consider the high pitch whereunto so many great Men have carry'd the Glory of these last Ages I find more wonders than in the preceding but it pertains onely to the Ages ensuing to make their Elogiums Great Men whilst living being kept down by Envy or Contempt One Age must be let pass before we begin to judge of the worth of it then the following begins to regret what it sleighted it being natural to us to seek onely what is wanting and to be disgusted with plenty And truly I think
Danubius and Nilus The first which runs from West to East is observ'd in Hungary to move slower about Noon then at other hours of the day as appears by the Water-mills which grinde less at that time because the motion of the Earth being then contrary to that of the Ecliptick it consequently appears more slow And as for the other effect namely the increase and inundation of Nilus which begins at the Summer Solstice this River running directly from South to North from one Tropick to another which is just the middle part of the Earth when it comes to incline its Axis and return the Antarctick part to the Sun the stream of this River which is contrary to that motion waxes slower and being besides augmented by the continual Rains of Summer swells and overflows the Plains of Egypt Which made some Ancients imagine that the North Winds blew again the stream at that time and forc'd the water back upon themselves CONFERENCE CXLVIII Whether is better to Love or to be Lov'd THe same Nature which by an instinct common to us withall things in the world causes us to seek our own good obliges us likewise to Love when we meet Goodness or Beauty in an object capable to render us happy by its possession which consisting in being united to the thing lov'd 't is in this union that the Lover places his greatest felicity and accordingly goes out of himself to joyn himself to what he loves the motions of the will of whose number Love is differing in this point from the actions of the Understanding that these are perform'd by the Species receiv'd by mediation of the Senses into the Intellect which cannot know any thing but what comes home to it but the Will when it Loves must go out of it self and become united to the thing it Loves to the end to beget somthing for Eternity And because things are not known by the Understanding till they have been first purifi'd from the grossness of their matter by the illustration and abctraction which the Agent Intellect makes of their Phantasms or Species hence the notions of the foulest and most dishonest things are always fair and laudable being spiritualis'd and made like the Faculty which knows them On the contrary the Will in loving renders it self like the object which it Loves is turn'd into its nature and receives its qualities if the object be unlawful and dishonest it becomes vicious and its love is criminal Which seems to argue that the Lover is less perfect then the Loved into which he is transform'd as food is less perfect then the body into which it is converted And as that which attracts is more excellent then what is attracted because the stronger draws the weaker so the thing Loved must be more excellent and noble then the Lover whom it attracts to it self Moreover Love according to Plato is a desire of Pulchritude which desire implies want and therefore he that Loves shews thereby that he wants some perfection which renders the thing Lov'd amiable since the Will is never carri'd to any object but what hath some goodness either apparent or real Only God loves not his Creatures for their goodness since they have none of themselves but his will being the cause of all things he renders them good by loving them and willing good to them The Second said Since friendship consists in the union of two or at most of three Wills whose mutual correspondence makes that agreeable harmony and those sweet accords which make ravishing Lovers dye in themselves to live in what they love there is no true love but what is reciprocal which is the reason why none can be contracted with inanimate things no more then with Beasts or Fools And Justice commanding us to render as much as is given us 't is a great injustice not to love those that love us yea if we may believe the Platonists 't is a kind of homicide of the Soul since he that loves being dead in himself and having no more life but in the thing lov'd if that refuses his love by means whereof it should live also in him as he in it he is constrain'd either to dye or languish miserably And whereas he that loves is no longer his own but belongs to the thing lov'd to whom he hath given himself this thing is oblig'd to love him by the same reason that obliges it to love it's self and all that pertains thereunto But though perfect love be compos'd of these two pieces to love and to be lov'd yet the one is often found without the other there being many Lovers wounded with the Poets leaden Arrows who instead of seeing their love requited with love have for all recompense nothing but contempts and refusals 'T is true that it being harder to love without being lov'd then to be lov'd without loving there is no body but would chuse rather to be lov'd then to love upon those terms because nothing flatters our ambition so much as to see our selves sought unto Yet loving is a nobler thing then to be lov'd since honor being more in the honorer then the honored the honor receiv'd by the lov'd thing reflects upon him that loves who for that reason being commended by every one that esteems a good friend as a good treasure and not he that is lov'd is also more excellent and hath more vertue inasmuch as he hath more honor and praise which are the attendants of vertue Moreover the Lover acts freely and therefore more to be valu'd then the lov'd person who is forc'd to suffer himself to be lov'd For though desire commonly follow Sensual Love yet Love is not a desire nor consequently a sign of Indigence otherwise it should cease with the desire and expire after enjoyment which is false for Mothers love their dead Children and even before they came into the world not by a desire but by a motion of Nature which causes us to love what appertains to us and the more if it cost much pain which is the reason why Mothers who contribute more to the birth of their Children and have better assurance that they are their own love them also more tenderly then Fathers do The Third said That to compare the lov'd person with the Lover is to equal the Master with the Servant for the amorous assuming to themselves the quality of Servants of the Ladies whom they call their Mistresses manifest sufficiently thereby that they yield them the pre-eminence And although they be the most interessed in this cause yet they will never have the vanity to prize themselves above what they love which would be to condemn their own choice and their love of defect of judgment which making them sigh after the enjoyment of the object they adore argues their want and indigence not to be supply'd by possession of the good they expect from it which herein like the Intelligences which move without being mov'd themselves excites passions and motions in the
referr'd than to the Sun The Seventh said That an univocal and certain cause of whiteness cannot be found in the first or second Qualities Not in Heat or Cold since Snow Sugar and Salt are equally white though the first is cold the second temperate and the third hot Nor in Siccity or Humidity since humid Milk is no less white than dry Chalk and Plaster The density and weight of Silver the rarity and levity of Snow the sweetness of Sugar and the acrimony of Salt in short the examen of all other Second Qualities of white things shews that it depends not on them Nor yet on the third for white Agarick is purgative white Starch and flowr of Beans astringent Lastly what some call Fourth Qualities or Properties of the whole Substance depend as little upon Colours since the same whiteness which is in the Meal that nourishes us is also in the Sublimate that kills us It remains to inquire the reason of Colours and consequently of Whiteness in the proportion between the Sight and the Surface of the colour'd body When therefore it happens that the Visual Ray which issues forth pure and white that is to say colour-less finds no Colour in a Surface if the same be Diaphanous it takes it for a Medium not an Object as is seen in Glass Crystal Air and Water if opake it stops at the said Surface and finding no Colour thereon returns with the Species of the Object to make its report to the Common Sense that it saw nothing and this is what they call Whiteness Hence White so little delights the Sight that it disgregates and wearies it as a false stroke doth that brings nothing Now to apply this to Snow the Visual Ray is indeed stopt by its condens'd Surface but whence should it have Colour since 't is compos'd of Air and Water both colourless The Truth is sutably to its Principles it must necessarily remain without Colour that is White whereby it so disgregates the Visual Rayes that sometimes it blinded a whole Army CONFERENCE CLV Whether Courage be natural or acquir'd COurage being the Contempt of Danger which we naturally fear we cannot be naturally courageous for then two contrary Effects should proceed from the same Cause But the Truth is our Nature is indifferent to every thing whereunto it is lead and fashion'd Thus skittish Horses are made sober by inuring to the noise of Muskets which before they could not endure On the contrary brave Coursers kept in a dark Stable and unemploy'd become resty and jadish Moreover since there is no true Courage without Knowledge of the Danger whence Fools and Drunkards cannot be styl'd courageous this argues that this Virtue hath need of Rules and Precepts as without which our Knowledge cannot but be very imperfect Nor did any thing render the Romans more valiant than the Nations they subdu'd but Military Discipline wherein the Roman Legionary under-went his Apprentisage as other Artificers do in their Trades Which Instruction some of their Descendents despising have shewn thereby what difference there is between themselves and their Ancestours and determin'd this Question to the advantage of Industry At this day our Souldiers are not more strong and courageous than Town-people and the Officers whom alone we see perform all the brave Actions surpass not in Courage ordinary Souldiers saving that these have not been so well instructed as they and reflect not so much upon the shame and loss which they incurr by Cowardize And because that Courage is greatest which makes us contemne the greatest dangers hence that which leads us to the Contempt of Death the most terrible of all things is undoubtedly the greatest But the History of the Milesian Virgins is remarkable who upon the perswasions of a certain Orator were contrary to the natural timidity of their Sex carry'd to so great a Contempt of Death that nothing could restrain them from killing themselves but the example of their Self-murder'd Companions drawn forth-with naked about the streets Whereby it may be judg'd how powerful Perswasion is to encourage us Which Captains and Generals of Armies are not ignorant of who employ all their Rhetorick to impress Audacity in their Souldiers breasts upon an assault or a battel and those that have been in such encounters affirm that nothing conduces more either to inflame the Courage of Brave Men or infuse it into such as have none than an Exhortation well apply'd and suted to the Minds of those that are to be encourag'd sometimes by the Memory of their former Gallant Actions sometimes by those of their Enemies Cowardice sometimes by the greatness of the Danger and the inevitable ruine they incurr in case of turning their backs but commonly by the salvation of their Souls and the good of their Country and always by the fair spur of Honour and Glory Considerations directly opposite to those dictated to us by Nature which tend onely to preservation of the Individuall The Second said If Instruction made Men valiant and courageous than all that receive the same Education learn in the same Academy and fight under the same Captain should be equally courageous Yet there is so notable a difference between them that it cannot be imputed to any but Natural Causes such as are the structure of the parts of the Body the temper of the humors the nimbleness or heaviness of the Spirits and especially the diversity of Souls which inform our Bodies which diversity is apparent even in Infancy before the Corporeal Organs can be suspected to be the Cause thereof One Child is more timorous than another and no sooner begins to go but he beats his Companions who suffer themselves to be beaten by one weaker than themselves the first not quitting his hold for the rod for which another will do more than you would have him The truth is if the Soul be the Architect of her habitation to her must be imputed the Principal Cause of the variety found therein upon that of our Actions visibly depends For as every one readily addicts himself to those employments and exercises of body and mind whereunto he is most fit and which he performs with most ease so he is more easily lead to Actions of Courage whose Organs are best dispos'd for the same And because Children commonly have some-what of the Habit of Body and Temper of their Parents hence Courage seems to come by Descent which possibly renders our Gentry so jealous of the Antiquity of their Families in which they had rather find a Man beheaded for an Action that speaks Courage than a Burgess who had not liv'd in a noble way Moreover to judge well of Courage we must not consider it solely in Man since 't is found so resplendent in Animals incapable of Discipline and Instruction that the certainest Physiognomical Rule whereby to judge of a Valiant Man is taken from the similitude or resemblance he hath with the Lyon Bear or other Beasts of Courage Which shews that the
true and original Valour being in Animals Precepts rather alter and pervert than produce it in us Hence the most learned are oftimes the greatest Pultrons For which reasons the Romans caus'd the warlike people whom they had subdu'd to descend from the Mountains into the Valleys that by that means they might change their Nature Indeed these Romans were better disciplin'd than the Nations whom they call'd barbarous and by that means more easily overcame them but they were not the more courageous for that he who is vanquish'd abating nothing of his Courage thereby witness King Porus whose Courage Alexander more admir'd for his refusing to eat that so he might by dying avoid the shame of being overcome than for the single fight to which he had challeng'd him Officers out-do common Souldiers because they have more to lose than they and their Pusillanimity would be more taken notice of And the Speeches of Generals in a day of battel are not for the truly courageous who need them not but for the Cowards who are encourag'd against the fear of Death by false suggestions of the Enemies paucity and their own number Whereas true Courage as Socrates saith in Xenophon is not in those that fear not because they ignore the danger but in those who beholding it great yet judge their own strength greater and thereupon presume of surmounting it which Resolution is never learnt by Books or Precepts but is inherent in the Mind The Third said That he was of the Opinion of Socrates in the same Xenophon namely that as some Bodies are more robust so also some Souls are better to undergo dangers That nevertheless Instruction serves greatly to perfect Nature Whence certain Nations cannot sustain the assaults of others better train'd and accustom'd to manage some sort of Arms. All the kinds whereof both offensive and defensive proceeding from Humane Industry Nature alone must not arrogate the advantage we have over other Animals whose Courage being by the help of Art surmounted by that of Man as Art can do nothing without Nature so the Courage which leads us to attaque and vanquish them must be ascrib'd to Art without which Man durst not attaque them The Fourth said We must distinguish Courages according to the diversities of Subjects whereon they are employ'd The highest Class is that of persons who freely offer themselves to certain death for their Religion whether true or false So did amongst the Romans Q. Curtius who threw himself into a Gulph to appease the anger of the Gods Metellus who ran into the fire to fetch out the Statue of Minerva and of Hereticks a great number of whom Books are full But this Martyrology shews us a greater number in the true Church yet the Courage of so many Martyrs cannot be ascrib'd to Nature alone but to Perswasion and to Faith Next comes the Courage of those great Heroes and illustrious Men of Antiquity as David and his nine Worthies Alexander the Great the three Horatii and Curiatii Caesar Cato and many others whom none can say would have done those brave Actions unless they had been lead thereunto by a noble desire of Glory to which our Minds are carryed onely by Reasons Precepts and Examples and consequently their Courage may be judg'd rather acquir'd than natural Lastly Courage is found in all Callings and Employments A Minister or Counsellor of State a Divine and a Judge acquire the Title of Courageous when they resolutely perform the Office whereto they are call'd This is not taught any person by Nature and therefore I find more effects of acquir'd than of Natural Courage which besides how great soever is perfected by Industry CONFERENCE CLVI Whether Men not having learn ' d of others would would frame Language to themselves NAture having given Animals a Voice for mutual communication at distance and that distinguish'd into as many severall Tones and Accents as they have different Passions and necessities 't is not credible that she hath provided worse for Man as to what was more necessary to him as being subject to more passions and necessities than any other Animal which oblige to a Society no-wise imaginable without Speech which consequently two Children would frame to themselves as soon as the moisture of their Brain and Organs serving to Speech being dry'd by Age permitted free motion to their Tongue beginning by imitation of voices or sounds which they hear and giving names to things sutable to the voices or sounds they render'd In defect whereof they would frame other articulate words first Monosyllables and Simple as those of the Chineses are and afterwards compounded by which they would express all their other conceptions if not with such facility as other Languages which time hath enrich'd yet at least after their own Mode using the most conformity they could to the nature and property of each thing And where reason fail'd them they would be help'd by hazard our Nature being so strongly carri'd to imitation that he of the two who first apply'd a word to some thing would be follow'd by the other without contradiction For the mind of Man being an Act incessantly conceives his greatest pleasure is in communicating those conceptions and as a Torrent or River without shore take their course every way so Man's conception being destitute of terms to imitate would frame new according to his phansie which coming to be receiv'd by others would acquire the same perfection whereunto other Languages arrive in time Yea when the Organs of Speech fail dumb persons move their members a thousand ways to make themselves understood and that so happily that when Monsieur de Sancy was Embassadour in Turkie he hapned to see two Mutes the one a Turk and the other a Persian who not understanding one another because they had different signs there was found a third Mute who serv'd them for an Interpreter Which being harder then to articulate a voice argues that Nature would much sooner teach Speech then expression by gestures For no body is ignorant that it is easier to speak then to do The Second said That Speech being only an imitation he that should never hear another speak could never speak himself Hence persons born deaf are always dumb though they have all the Organs fit for formation of Speech and yet none will imagine that they have not all the same faculties and necessities of expressing themselves that other men have yea and greater too being depriv'd of all instructions which are aquir'd by the ear and other benefits proceeding from the same Which is further verifi'd by the examples of all savage Men that have been found even by that of the Satyre who by the report of S. Jerome in his Epistles appear'd to S. Anthony in the Desart all which instead of words pronounc'd only inarticulate voices liker sounds and bellowings then words these men being like one ignorant of playing on the Lute who though he hath fingers yet cannot make it speak as he can who is
excepting even virtuous ones which is not found in a Bird. The Swallow is skill'd in Architecture the Halcyon is able to divine how far the Nile will overflow and knows that out of Nature's respect to her there will be no Tempest at Sea while she is building her Nest the Goose is so safe a Guard that it sometimes sav'd the Capitol to the shame of the Sentinels the Wren serves for a guide and a scout to the Crocodile the Crow and the Turtle are patterns of conjugal amity so are the Storks of piety and even the swarms of Bees are models of Common-wealths and the Pismires when Age and Experience has render'd them more advised acquire wings The Silk-worm is nothing but a Caterpiller till its wings appear and then fluttering about it perpetuates its species with such prudence that it doth not lay its Eggs in heaps which would hinder their hatching but disperses them in several places in order to being more commodiously animated by the heat of the Sun Then as for Art we see no Animals besides Men capable of speech the first of Disciplines but Birds And the particular Examples of the Elephant and a few other Beasts that have shewn some shadow of Judgement are out-done by the Eagle which flew into the fire wherein her Mistresses Body was burning and many other Instances too numerous to be mention'd The Second said That the little head of Birds in comparison of the rest of their Body their driness and abounding Choler permit them not to be so intelligent as other Animals their chattering jargon as little deserving the name of a Language as their other actions do that of Virtue Moreover their sleep being not so sound and deep as that of Terrestrial Animals which by sucking their Dams are more humid and sleep being the restorer of Spirits Birds cannot have such plenty as other Creatures Whence they suffer themselves to be more easily taken than Land-Animals whose Bodies being more symbolical with ours they must also have greater aptitude for exercising some functions correspondent to those of our Mind For the cavities of their head and brains more resemble ours than those either of Birds or Fishes particularly that of the Ape which consequently is the most intelligent of all Animals next Man with whom all will agree that no other Animal can dispute the preeminence of Judgement with the least shew of Reason if any should it would never gain the Cause in regard Man must be the Judge The Third said Man hath no more reason to award this Cause to himself than to pretend to the advantage of flying better than Birds or swimming better than Fishes who exceed all Creatures in point of Health even to a Proverb which is a thing altogether necessary to the functions of the Soul Moreover they are of a very long Life which begets Experience as that doth Understanding Their Health is manifested by their Fecundity and since coldness is the Complexion of the wife and Salt is reckon'd the Symbol of Wisdom Fishes the inhabitants of the Sea and the coldest of all Creatures must have a share thereof Besides if softness of Flesh be a sign of goodness of Witt every where else as 't is in Man and Physiognomy teaches us to draw consequence from other Creatures to him Fishes have this advantage above all the Inhabitants either of the Air or Earth both which were indeed made for Man but the Sea was primarily made for Fishes it s other conveniences being only accidental Silence the common distinction between the wise and the foolish is natural to them whereas the voices and chantings of Birds and other Animals is oftentimes the occasion of their ruine Yea they are so subtle that Fisher-men cannot take them but with a white line of the colour of the water otherwise if it be gross and visible they will not come near it Diffidence the Parent of safety is more common to them than to all other Animals and their vigilance is greater Land-Animals have no sleight equall to that imperceptible charm whereby the Torpedo chills the arm of the Fisher-man or to that of the Cuttle-fish which when she is in danger of being taken moils the water with her Ink to keep her self from being seen or to that of the Polypus who becomes of the Colour of the Rock upon which it holds to void being perceiv'd And though the Element of Water so separates us from the commerce of its Inhabitants that the hundreth part of what concerns them is unknown to us yet there is none but observes that Fishes need more sleights to secure themselves from the ambushes and hostilities of others than the beasts of the field have which are also more easily taken The Fish call'd the Mullet strikes off the bait of the hook with her tail instead of being taken by it and if she cannot do so she is contented to bite it round about and the Sea-wolf finding her self taken shakes her head this way and that way with much pain till she have cast out the hook again and for the same purpose the Sea-fox turnes her inside outwards The Loubine and Sea-dog finding themselves surrounded with the Net make a hole in the ground and sculk therein till the Net be drawn over them but the Dolphin rejoyces in the Net because he may with ease fill himself with his fellow-prisoners yet when he perceives he is drawing near the shore he bites the Net which if he cannot do quick enough the Fisher-men knowing him a Friend to Man pardon him the first time and only thrusting a bul-rush through his skin let him go if he be taken again which seldom happens as Plutarch saith out of whom most of these Relations are taken he is beaten Yea they are ingenious not only for themselves but for others for when the Gilt-head hath swallow'd the hook his companions bite the line and if one of them fall into one of the Meshes they lend him their tails to bite and draw him through and when the Barbles see one of their companions caught they get upon him and with the indented spine they have upon their backs cut it asunder Crassus's Lamprey would take bread out of his hand and was bewail'd by him when it dy'd The story of Arion and that of the Fish call'd Manaro in the Island of Hispaniola which was delighted with praises and Musick carry'd nine or ten persons upon his back and having been wounded by a Spaniard disappear'd the Raye which Olaus writes defended a man from Dogs upon the shore of Denmark and the Sea-Eele which the Indians carry behind their Boats to let him play about the Tortoises and other Fishes which they take are abundant instances that Fishes are both sociable and docible This also is justifi'd by the Pinatere which pricks the Oyster to advertise it when its prey is within by the Spongothere which performs the same office for the Spunge and by the Whale's guide whom she suffers to sleep in
and divorce of them asunder Diseases of bare Intemperature which is either simple or with matter the Imagination may produce by moving the Spirits and Humors which it hath power to do For the Spirits being aerious and naturally very hot when they are sent by a strong Imagination into some part they may so heat it as by the excess of their heat to destroy the temper of such part as Anger sometimes heats the Body into a Fever And as the too great concourse of these Spirits makes hot intemperatures so their absence from other parts causes cold Diseases as crudities and indigestions familiar to such as addict themselves to Study and Meditation after Meat the Spirits which should serve for Concoction being carry'd from the Stomack to the Brain In like manner the Imagination having dominion over the Humors which it moves by mediation of the Spirits as Joy Shame and Anger bring blood and heat into the Face and outward parts and Fear and Sadness give them a contrary motion it appears that it hath power to produce Maladies of Intemperies with matter by the fluxion or congestion of the Humors into some part and out of their natural seat But if the Phansie can disorder the work of Conformation in another body then it s own as that of an Infant whose marks and defects wherewith he is born are effects of his Mothers Phansie much more may it cause the same disorder in its own Body whereunto it is more nearly conjoyn'd Wherefore since it can destroy the temper of the Similar parts and the harmony of the Organs it may also cause Diseases and by the same means cure them too for if contraries be cur'd by their contraries then it may cure a cold distemper by producing a hot one and if it hath power to cause by motion of the humors an obstruction in some part it may by the same means return them to their natural place and cure such obstruction 'T was to the Phansie that the cure of those Splenetick persons is to be attributed who were cur'd by the touch of the great Toe of Pyrrhus's left Foot and we see many Cures wrought by Amulets Periapts and other like Remedies which having no vertue in themselves to produce such an effect the same must be referr'd to some other cause Now none hath more empire then the Imagination over the Spirits and other Humours wherein almost all Diseases consist The Second said That the Imagination being a simple Cognoscitive Power cannot of it self produce the effects that are ascrib'd to it For all Cognition is Passion and to know is to suffer and receive the Species of the thing that is to be known whose impression made upon the Organs of Sense is by them carry'd to the Imagination which judges thereof upon their report Moreover there is this notable difference between the Sensitive or Cognoscitive Powers and the Vegetative or Motive which are destitute of all Cognition that the latter are active out of themselves and operate upon the Members which the Motive Faculty moves with full power and upon the aliments which the Vegetative Faculties as the Nutritive and Auctive alter and turn into the nature of the parts But the Sensitive Faculties and all other Cogniscitive Powers have no real sensible action They are active indeed so far as they are powers issuing from very perfect Forms but their actions are immanent and produce nothing beyond themselves and consequently can have no influence abroad So that the Imagination cannot immediately and of its own nature produce either a Disease or Health in the Body but only by means of the Motive Power or Sensitive Appetite the Passions whereof are acknowledg'd by Physitians to be the external causes of Diseases If the Phansie could produce any thing it should be by help of the Species it is impregnated withall which being extracted from things some think that they eminently contain the vertues of the objects from whence they issue and whereof they are Pictures and that hence it is that the Teeth are set on edge upon the hearing of grating sounds that the sight of a Potion purges many and that of salt things makes the Stomack rise in others and that the thought of the Plague oftentimes propagates it more then the corruption of the Air. Nevertheless these effects proceed only from the various motion of Heat and the Spirits caus'd by the Appetite and the Motive Power which are distinct from the Imagination For if the Species had the same power with the objects from which they issue they would not be perfective but destructive of their Organs the Species of Heat would burn the Brain that of Cold would cool it both would destroy it which is contrary to experience For though Heat and Cold are contraries in Nature yet they are not so in the Understanding but rather friendly the one contributing to the knowledg of the other and the end of Intentional Species is not to alter but onely to represent the objects whereof they are copies The Third said That Aristotle hath built his Physiognomy upon the great connection and sympathy of the Soul with the Body which is such that the one causeth considerable changes in the other To which purpose the Soul employes no other more effectual instrument then the Imagination Which power of the Soul upon the Body is evinc'd by the mighty effects of the Passions especially of Fear Love and Anger Fear having kill'd many as particularly St. Valier before the stroke of the Executioner On which account it is also that Mirth is commended for one of the best preservatives from the Plague And we see that Fear and Sadness are no less the causes then the infallible signs of the Disease call'd Melancholy The same is further verified by the strange Histories of those who being become sick by Fancy could not be cur'd but by curing the Fancy first the Remedy being to be of the same kinde with the Disease Thus he who fancy'd he had no head could not be restor'd to his right sense till the Physician clapping a leaden Cap upon him left him to complain a while of the Head-ache And another who having study'd Physick a little and took up a conceit that he had a prodigious excrescence in his Intestinum Rectum could not be cur'd till the Chirurgeon had made semblance of cauterizing it Another Gentleman who durst not piss for fear of causing an universal Deluge was cur'd of his conceit by the Countrey peoples crying out Fire and desiring him to quench it In like manner another believing himself dead would not eat and had dy'd in good earnest had not his Nephew who was reported dead come into his Chamber in a winding Sheet and fallen to eat before his Uncle who thereupon did the like And to go no further the tying of the Codpiece-point is accounted an effect of the Fancy and is cur'd by curing the Fancy alone So likewise a Lord of Quality falling sick accidentally in a
whom he ravish'd with his Voice and Harp which was first instituted to honour the Gods The Indians perform'd their Worship by Dancing to Songs Cybele's Priests with Cymbals the Curetes with Drums and Trumpets the Romans sung Spondaick Verses whilst they offer'd their Sacrifices and David danc'd before the Ark all his Psalms being fitted to the Harp and other harmonious Instruments of that time And in this see what power Organs have to enflame the zeal of the devout and how melodious voices are with it so that the chief difference of Divine Service is in the Singing And as for publick or private Feasts and Ceremonies nothing renders them more compleat then Musick whence the Verse Convivii citharam quam Dii fecêre sodalem 'T was the custom to present a Lute to the Guests and to him that could not play a branch of Bayes which oblig'd him to a Song But above all the use of Musick is effectual in War whence the Spartans march'd to the sound of Flutes in a kinde of Dance to the end that by the motion of their Souldiers they might discern the valiant from the poltrons The Pythagoreans themselves were lull'd asleep with the Harp to appease the troubles of their minde In short Musick accompanies us to the Graves where people sing Elegies for the deceased Thus the Phoenicians added Flutes to their mournings and the Romans had their Siticines who sung at their Funerals For Musick excites both sadness and mirth And just as Physick either quiets or purges the humors of our bodies so doth Musick the Passions of the minde Plato conceiving that it was given to man not only to tickle his ears but also to maintain the Harmony of the Soul with the Body and to awake our sleeping vertues Thus of divers modes the Dorick makes prudent and chaste the Phrygian excites to War and Religion the Lydian abates pride and turns it into lamentations the Ionick excites to honest pleasures and recreations Hence Aegysthus could never corrupt the chastity of Clytemnestra Agamemnons Wife till he us'd the help of the Poet and Musician Demodocus and the Emperour Theodosius being ready to destroy the City of Antioch was diverted and wrought to mercy by the melodious Sonnets of little Children instructed thereunto by Flavianus their Bishop Yea the Prophet Elisha recommended this Art when he commanded a Harp to be played on before him and then Prophesi'd to Joram the overthrow of the Moabites And Michaia did the like in the presence of Ahab King of Samaria refusing to prophesie till one had played before him upon a Musical Instrument The relation of Saxo Grammaticus in the 12th Book of his Danish History concerning Henry the 2d King of Denmark who being told of the excellent Musick of the Violin desir'd to see the effects of it which were such that at first it put him into a deep melancholly and afterwards chearing him up again rais'd his spirit to such a degree of rage that he slew four of his Guard and at last it return'd him to his first temper serving onely to shew the excellence of Musick when it is rightly us'd The Second said That Musick effeminates mens courage whilst it sweetens like that of Wine taken to excess intoxicates them and transports them out of themselves which hurtful effect gave just cause to the fable of the Syrenes who allur'd Pilots by their melodious voices to split against the Rocks But above all it excites to filthy pleasures and blindes the eyes of the Understanding as Mercury did those of Argus And its great delectation through the dissipation of the Animal spirits which the sweetness of the sound attracts by the ear leaves us less refresht then wearied and incapable of setting about any serious matter It s easing the Sciatica as 't is reported is common to it with every thing that causes great attention whereby the spirits and with them the humors being suspended the fluxion must consequently cease and the Rabbins attribute the driving away Saul's evil spirit not to the Harmony alone of Davids Harp but to the vertue of the Characters of the Divine Name written upon it What did the Sybarites get by training their Horses to the Pipe but this that the Crotonians causing Minstrels to play at the joyning of a Battel render'd their Horses useless to the Fight because they did nothing but Dance Moreover Orpheus one of the most ancient Musicians was torn to pieces by women because he debauch'd their Husbands Whence also Antisthenes said that Ismenias was either a Fool or a bad Citizen because he could play so well upon the Flute and Philip was angry with Alexander for singing too well and Antigonns his Governour broke his Harp Therefore the Egyptians banish'd Musicians as corrupters of Youth and the Lacedemonians were so afraid lest they should grow into credit amongst them that they expelled Timotheus out of their City for adding a string to his Lute Aristotle also places this Art amongst the Ludicrous and blames Painters for representing the gods singing and playing upon Instruments whose goodliest effect is to break silence and waste time leaving no permanent action after it more then the play of Cards Dice and Tennis doth which last is much more profitable for health and is accounted as honourable to be perfectly skill'd in by persons of quality as 't is shameful to be an excellent Musician In fine we read not that our Lord ever Sung nor yet Adam in the state of Original Righteousness but one Jubal the first Bigamer and second Murderer of the world is said to have been the inventer of it CONFERENCE CLXXVII Whether Barrenness is most commonly tht fault of Husbands or of Wives AS Fruitfulness is a power whereby every living thing is able to produce its like so Barrenness is an impotence in it to re-produce is self by the way of Generation by means whereof mortal individuals acquire immortality in their Species to which purpose nature hath furnish'd every one with necessary Organs The generation of perfect Animals requires three things diversity of Sex matter or seed which flows from both Male and Female and contains in it self the Idea and Character of the parts from which it issues and lastly conjunction of both together without which nothing is produc'd And though the defect of Generation may be sometimes on the mans part as well as on the womans yet she is more subject to sterility which is an impotence proper to a woman who after the knowledge of a man in an age and time convenient cannot conceive For those that conceive not after the 50th year or before the 12th are not term'd barren Conceptions beyond the former or before the latter term being supernatural or extraordinary as those of the Manandri and Calingi and that of one mention'd by Savonarola whom he saw big with Childe at nine years of Age as also the miraculous conception of Elizabeth after she was seventy years old The cause of Barrenness is ascrib'd by
prohibition of God in holy Scripture which calls it having a heart and a heart so that no person of sound judgment can think such demeanor consistent with true Courage The Second said That there is as much difference between Rusticity and Complaisance or Civility as between a Beast and a Man the former leaving us to the guidance of our Appetites and Senses and to say and do whatever they dictate to us the latter over-ruling them by that power of Reason which after the contest remains victorious over the body and sensuality A cholerick man suffering himself to be transported by his Passion utters whatever the violence thereof suggests to him whereas one of a more sedate temper masters his anger although he have as good reason for it and by this prudent action he reduces his friend stray'd out of the rode of reason as he that instead of retorting the ill language his friend gave him ask'd him what the Diamond upon his finger cost him Which put the other into such confusion that having answer'd the question he ran to embrace him and ask'd his pardon Whereby it appears how much more courage is requisite to surmount ones self thus which is an effect of Complaisance then to obey the swing of choler as vulgar people do For Complaisance forces our nature and constrains us to speak and do things contrary to our first inclinations and consequently is of more difficulty then 't is to obey them Plutarch relates how one Telerus answer'd his brother who ask'd him how it came pass that he was less belov'd then himself who had been made one of the Lacedemonian Ephori whereas he was treated with great contempt The reason is said he because you are not complaisant and cannot bear any injury As therefore it requires greater courage to bear then to revenge an injury as 't is observ'd in the life of Socrates who hindred his Scholars from revenging an affront which was done to him so 't is more difficult to be complaisant then rude And as the same Author saith Complaisance consisteth in speaking pleasing things and in doing good offices both which require a good resolute Spirit for our Gallants falsely account it courage to run into the Field upon the least slip of an ambiguous word Which perverse phantastry hath cost many a brave mans life who for want of not having attain'd to that high point of Magnanimity which teaches us not to place the point of Honor in every triflle but only where it ought to be have really lost the life both of body and soul for an imaginary folly which carry'd them away with the torrent of the popular errour of this Age. The Third said That we may as well place Continence in infamous places as reckon Complaisance an effect of Courage the respect being alike of both For all the actions of a complaisant person are so many marks not only of respect but also of a servile fear such as was that of Alexander's Courtiers who held their necks awry and hung down their heads in imitation of their Master who was forc'd to do so by reason of a wound and those of Dionysius who stumbled at every step because this Tyrant was pur-blind So when some person begins a tedious old story I pray who shews most courage he that tells the relator 't is an old one or he that suffers himself to be tir'd with it Besides that there is nothing more dangerous then this Complaisance Certainly a Confessor that is complaisant to his Penitents and a Preacher that is so to his Auditory will damn both and so also a General that yields to every advice and resists not such as deserve it will infallibly ruine his Army A Physitian of this temper that to comply with his Patient neither bleeds nor purges him because of his unwillingness thereunto will be the cause of his death as the Apothecary diminishes the vertue of the Medicine whilst he strives to make it agreeable to the taste and a pitiful Surgeon makes the sore A Lawyer that uses the same course with his Client thrusts him into many needless and unhappy Sutes In brief there is nothing so dangerous nor which argues more weakness then Complaisance which like too sweet Sauces makes us nauseate it and leaves us as far to seek for Counsel as before Whereas plain and vigorous Counsel oftentimes saves the State from shipwreck The Fourth said If you consider all the kinds of Complaisance they have need of constraint which employs more force and courage then is requisite for following ones inclination Thus he that is more thirsty then his neighbour and yet tenders the first glass to him does this violence to himself out of complaisance which likewise obliges him to put his hand last to the dish though his Stomack be never so sharp if he meet with an occasion of anger he only smiles to himself and with dissimulation gives the upper hand to his inferior On the contrary a rough-hewn person had rather go to the Gallies then commend Verses which to him seem not good and as Plato said to Diogenes eat nothing ever but Coleworts than comply with the Ceremonies and Modes of great persons Thus he that spares his disarmed enemy shows greater courage then if leaving himself to be guided of his hatred he should slay him which yet is no more then a testimony of his having overcome him whereas in sparing him he overcomes himself which is the greatest victory a man can obtain To conclude Praise is the reward of Vertue and because it follows complaisence as scorn and contempt doth rustick opinionastry this is an evident sign that the latter is less vertuous because less commendable then the other CONFERENCE CLXXIX Touching the means of re-establing Commerce MAn being born sociable and society not possible without Commerce the same seemeth one of the main Concernments of mankind who are generally troubled when the same is either interrupted by War with strangers or extinguish'd by the negligence of Natives whereby it appears to be of two sorts in general viz. between those of one State and with Strangers Now this difference is so essential that each of them hath its contrary Maxims Forreign Trade is exercis'd commonly by the truck or exchange of one Merchandize for another the transportation of Gold and Silver being prohibited by the Laws of the State as also some Merchandizes call'd Contre-band are or in case the Forreign Merchants like not the permutation of commodities they make their payment by Letters of Exchange which was come to be taken up upon the prohibition of transporting money On the contrary Natives of the same Country commonly make all their Bargains for money either ready or upon Credit till a set time And as the Prince endeavours to promote and facilitate Trade amongst his Subjects for their accommodation so he ought to be circumspect to hinder Strangers from carrying away the Materials and especially unwrought Commodities about which his own Subjects should
Children whence amongst the old Spartans and at this day amongst the Aethiopians as Alvarez reports 't is a shame to blow the Nose or spit because it signifies Effeminacy and the Thracians as Pliny records freed themselves from many Diseases by cutting the Nerves behind the Ear whereby all fluxions from the Brain were stopt On the contrary Animals having a dry and less Brain sleep in the open Air without inconvenience The Fourth said That as Man exercises the greatest variety of Actions so he is liable to most Diseases Animals which reason not have no Delirium those that speak not are not subject to be dumb But the truth is Men consider not remote things further than their interest reaches Hence more Diseases are observ'd in the Bee and Silk-worm than in the Elephant Unless we had rather say that there being so great a variety of dispositions and tempers requir'd to the Health of all the parts humors and faculties of a humane body it happens very rarely that they are all as they should be As 't is harder to make good Musick with a Lute or other many string'd Instruments than with one that hath fewer strings and accords as Animals have in respect of Man CONFERENCE CLXXXIII Of the Greenness of Plants COlours being the illuminated surface of Mixt Bodies alter according to their various mixture and because the less a body is distant from its simplicity it partakes the more of light hence as soon as water becomes consistent and solid it puts on Whiteness which is so near akin to Light that the latter cannot be painted but with the former For this reason new-sprung Plants issuing out of the Womb of their Elements retain a White Colour till having thrust their stem out of the Earth the nourishment they attract adding to their composition they assume a new Colour which sutably to the Temper of the Compound whose upper part is heated by the Sun-beans and lower part nourish'd with the juice and vapors of the Earth becomes Green upon the same reason that Blew and Yellow make a Green the Blew proceeding from condens'd Moisture as appears in deep Seas and the Yellow from the Sun-beams Hence a Plant depriv'd of the Sun's aspect looseth its verdure and remaining Colour-less by the privation which is always Harbinger to some ensuing Generation it appears white as we use to make Succhory and Thistles white by burying them or covering them in a Vessel whereinto no Air can enter Greenness therefore is the first mixture of the Sun-beams with corrupted humidity as putrid waters wax green and the first assay of the Vegetative Soul and consequently an evidence of their Life as on the contrary Yellowness shews that the Sun hath dry'd up the humidity wherein the life resided and left only the Colour of Feüille-morte But when this humidity is so unctuous and adherent to the compact and solid body of a Plant that it cannot be exhal'd as Oyle is not evaporated by the Sun than the outward Cold shutting the Pores retains the Greenness longer and brighter whilst other Herbs and Trees are despoil'd of their verdure And therefore 't is no wonder if the leavs of such Plants as the Laurel Holly Box Ivy and many others feel no injury from great Cold and great Heat The Second said That the production of Vegetables proceeding from the resolution of Minerals as appears not only in the order of Generations which proceed from simple to organick bodies but also in the sympathy of the Oak with Copper of the Beech with the Load-stone of the Hazel with Gold and Silver 't is probable that Vitriol the commonest of Minerals and found in most grounds gives Plants their Verdure which many of them also testifie by their acidity For I cannot attribute the Cause to Light which is indifferent to all Colours and hath none in it self the Gold Colour of the Sun not inhereing in him but proceeding from the reflexion of bodies he irradiates But if we are to find some mixture of Yellow and Blew to make this Green I should rather assign the Yellow to the Earth which is most commonly of that Colour as the Air and Heaven are Blew And perhaps too this Greenness is but a sign of imperfect Generation since 't is lost when Plants are mature and we find it again in mouldy Bread which is in a tendency to corruption The Third said That all Bodies must have some Colour or other and a Plant being the first living thing ought to have the most agreeable as being equally temper'd of the two Extreams Black and White for at its first issuing out of the Earth whilst it is yet full of earthy humidity it is of a dark Green which becomes lighter as the Plant shoots higher till at length the more volatile particles are excluded in a Flower which borrows its Colour from the various qualities of the sap then comes out the fruit which keeps its verdure till the Sun have fully concocted its juice The Fourth said That 't is not possible to give the reason of Colours since we see Tulips change theirs almost every year and there are Black White Red and other colour'd grapes equally sweet and good for Wine as also Apples Pears and other fruit Nor is Greenness inseparable from the leavs of Plants for we have not only red Coleworts but also Roots and some leavs of Rapes Purple Violet and of other Colours All that can be said in this matter is That Colour is nothing but a resultance of the External Light from the Surface whose Particles are so or so modifi'd and posited Hence Blew appears Green by Candle-light the necks of Doves seem of divers Colours by diversity of situation and Wool appears whiter when compacted together than whilst it was in flocks whereas Water which hath no Colour shews white when Particles are divided by Air and reduc'd into Snow So also when Humidity is digested by Heat which is inseparable from Light it puts on the first of Colours which is Blew of which Colour thickned Air appears to us and the prodominant earthiness of Plants makes that Blew incline to a darker degree thence ariseth Green which is the general Colour of all Plants The Temperament contributes least to this Colour for we see Sempervivum which is cold of the same Colour with Leeks and the Aloë-Plant which are Hot. Just as Sugar and Salt are both White and yet differ much in Taste and other qualities so are Chalk and Snow Honey and Gall are Yellow the juice of Aloes and that of Liquerice black Yea in Animals too the diversity of their Colour Hair and Plumes is deceitful whence came the Proverb Of every Hair a good Grey-hound And whereas Physicians reckon the Colour of the Hair a sign of the Temper 't is not always true since we see persons of the same Hair totally different in Manners and Humors and others of different Hair perfectly agreeing in temper wherein consequently we must not seek the reason of
Health by repairing the radical humidity and by Astrological Application of Specifical Remedies deriv'd to them from their Predecessors and having by their great work secret means of supplying the common necessities of their Confreres and Associates Then follow the Magi of Persia where Cicero saith it was required as a Condition of admitting any to be King that he were skill'd in natural Magick that is in the most profound and admirable secrets of Nature to learn which Empedocles and Plato purposely sail'd into Persia Of this Magick they make Zoroaster the Author who liv'd six hundred years before Moses and spent twenty years in a Desart in studying the works of Nature trying the Effects ensuing upon the Application of Actives to Passives whence he got the name of Necromancer as if he invok'd Devils Next they quote the Chaldaeans in Babylon and the Brachmans in India both sorts visited by Apollonius to whom Hyarchas the Moderator of the East shew'd a Well four paces broad by which they swore having near it a Cup full of fire which perpetually burning never surmounted the brims of the Vessel and two Hogsheads the one of wind the other of rain both which infallibly follow'd upon opening the same They bring in likewise the Gymnosophists of Aethiopia who assembled under an Elm and saluted the same Apollonius by his name without having ever known him Pythagoras also they say profess'd the Secret trying his Disciples taciturnity by five years silence and hiding his mysteries under Numbers They tell further of one Aucarsus who did many wonders appearing in several places at the same time killing with one word a Serpent that destroy'd a whole a Country and lastly they mention a Colledge of Arabians in the City of Damcar where the Author of this Brotherhood of the Rosie-Cross had his Academy after the establishment whereof he went to Fez to instruct the Moors where his progress was such that the Society came to be diffus'd into Germany Poland and Hungary The Second said That the rise of this Fraternity is by Mayerus referr'd to the year 1378 when a German Gentleman the initial Letters of whose name were A.C. of the Age of fifteen years was shut up in a monastery where having learnt Latine and Greek in his seventh year he began to journey to the Holy Land but falling sick at Damas he heard so much talk of the Sages of Arabia that recovering he went to Damcar the City of these Sages who saluted him by his proper name and telling him that they waited for him a long time discover'd to him many Secrets after he had learnt their Language and the Mathematicks he travell'd into Aegypt and Spain then return'd into Germany defraying his expences by the invention he had of making Gold with which he built and liv'd magnificently for five years afterwards be thinking himself of reforming the Sciences which he had design'd from the beginning he associated to himself three Brothers to whom he communicated his Secrets These four not sufficing for the great number of Patients which flockt to them from all parts to be cur'd they took four more who enacted among themselves these Rules of their Society I. None shall make other Profession but of curing the sick gratis II. None shall be ty'd to any particular Habit but left to conform therein to place and time III. Every Brother shall assemble once a year on a set day in their House call'd the House of the H. Ghost or signifie the cause of his absence IV. He shall choose a worthy and fit person to succeed him after his death V. These two Letters R. C. shall be their Symbole Signet and Character VI. The Fraternity shall be kept secret for a 100. years These Articles being sworne to he retain'd two of the Brothers with him and sent the rest about the world This founder they say liv'd 106. years was buryed secretly by his Confreres in the year 1484 after which time these Brothers succeeded one another every one of them living no less than a 100. years and in the year 1604. one of them finding a stone in a wall pierc'd through with a nail which denoted something more than ordinary pull'd it out with great difficulty and discover'd a Vault wherein amongst other strange things he found the Sepulchre of this Founder with this inscription in Latine I shall be manifested after six score years And at the bottome A C R C In my life time I made this Abridgment of the Universe for my Sepulchre with many devises one a side and four in circles The Body held in its Hand a parchment-book written with Golden Letters at the end of which was his Elogium containing among other things that after having heap'd up more riches than a King or Emperor of which he judg'd his own Age unworthy he left them to be sought for by posterity and built a little world answering to the great one in all its motions by which he had compendiously acquir'd the Knowledge of all things past present and to come and after he had liv'd above a 100. years he render'd his Soul to his Creator amidst the embraces and last kisses of his Brethren not by reason of any disease which his own Body never felt and he permitted not others to suffer but God with-drew from his Body the illuminated Soul of this most beloved Father most agreeable Brother most faithful Master and intire Friend The same Mayerus saith that the place of these Rosie-Crucians Colledge is still unknown but yet they repair to it from all the parts of the world In the year 1613. News came that one of these Brethren nam'd Mulley om Hamet having assaulted Mulley Sidan King of Fez and Marocco strongly arm'd defeated him with a handful of unarm'd men and seiz'd his throne from whence these Conquerors were to go into Spain where at the same time some Spaniards taking upon them the title of Illuminati fell into the hands of the Inquisition This report oblig'd the Society to publish two Books intitul'd Fama Confessio wherein after refutation of wrongful reputations they set down their Maxims and say That the great Knowledge of their Founder is not to be wonder'd at since he was instructed in the Book M which some interpret the Book of the World others the Book of Natural Magick which he translated out of Arabick into Latine out of which they affirm that Paracelsus afterwards learnt all his Knowledge which being new 't is no wonder they say that both he and they be derided and hated by the rest of men And that the above-said Founder caus'd to be collected into another Book for his Disciples all that man can desire or hope to wit both Celestial and Earthly Goods these last consisting chiefly in Health Wisdom Riches to acquire all which they shew the means In brief that their main end is by Travells and Conferences with the Learned to obtain the Knowledge of all the Secrets in the World and relate
Earth and so draw all Loadstones and what-ever Iron is rub'd with them towards themselves The Second said That the Cause of this Motion ought rather to be ascrib'd to some thing in Heaven because in Ships that approach that Island of Loadstone the Needle still tends towards the North and not towards that Island The truth is there is a Sympathy between some parts and things of the world the Female Palm bends towards the Male Straw moves to Amber all Flowers and particularly the Marigold and Sun-flower incline towards the Sun the Loadstone towards the Iron and the tail of the little Bear which if we conceive to be of the Nature of Iron there is no more inconvenience therein than in the other Properties attributed to the rest of the Starrs and Planets The Third said That to wave what other Authors have said this inclination of the Loadstone proceeds from the great humidity of the North which is the Centre of all waters towards which they tend For the Loadstone being extreamly dry and oblig'd to tend some way when it is in aequilibrio it veers towards that quarter to seek the moisture which is wanting to it as also doth Steel heated red hot and suffer'd to cool of it self if it be lay'd upon a piece of the wood floating gently in water The Fourth was of Cardan's Opinion who conceives that stones are animated and consequently that the soul of the Loadstone carries it to the search of its food and its good as the the Eye affects Light a Whelp is carry'd to his Dam's teat and a Sheep naturally eschews a Wolf For it matters not whether we hold That the touch'd Load-stone moves towards the tail of the little Bear which is distant five degrees from the Arctick Pole or Whether it flie and recoil from the part of Heaven diametrically opposite thereunto Now that the Loadstone is animated appears by its being nourisht with and kept in the filings of Steel by its growing old and by the diminishing of its attractive virtue with age just as the virtues of other bodies do Wherefore 't is probable that the Loadstone's soul either with-draws it from that part which is contrary to it or else leads it towards its good Indeed two different inclinations are observ'd in this Stone depending upon the situation it had in the Mine one Northwards whither it turnes the part that once lay that way the other Southwards whither it turns its opposite part But the Experiment of Iron loosing its attraction by being rub'd on the Loadstone the contrary way to which it was rub'd at first is an evident sign of such a soul in it which makes it thus vary its actions The Fifth said That all these accounts leave many difficulties to be resolv'd for if the Loadstone mov'd towards those great Adamantine Mountains of Ilva then they would draw only that and not Iron if Iron too why not before 't is rub'd with a Loadstone Nor doth this inclination of the Loadstone proceed from its dryness for then plain Iron which is as dry Pumice Lime and Plaster which are dryer should have the same effect Besides that there is not such want of humidity as that this stone should seek it Northwards the Mediterranean and the Main Ocean being nearer hand As for Heaven the Cause is no less obscure there and the terms of Sympathy and Antipathy differ not much from those which profess naked Ignorance The second Opinion hath most probability for since the two pieces of a Loadstone cut parallel to the Axis have so great a community of inclinations that a Needle touch'd with one piece is mov'd at any distance whatsoever according to the motion of another toucht with the other piece why may we not admit that the tail of the little Bear or its neighbouring parts are of a Magnetical Nature and have the same community with our Terrestrial Loadstone according to that Maxim in Trismegistus's Smaragdine-Table That which is above is as that which is below CONFERENCE CXCVII What Sect of Philosophers is most to be follow'd ALl the Sciences confess Obligations to Philosophy Divinity draws Ratiocinations from it Eloquence is diffuse Logick and Rhetorick is not to be learnt but after Philosophy Civil Law being wholly founded upon Morality is nothing but an effect of it whilst it teaches us to do voluntarily what the Laws makes us practise by force Physick supposes excellent skill in Philosophy since the Physician begins where the Naturalist ends Now there are so many Sects of Philosophers that to follow them all is to fall into manifest contradictions and to adhere to one alone is to be in great danger of mistaking the worst That which keeps us from being able to make a good choice is the little knowledge we have of these Sects and the Probability each seems to have and therefore 't is requisite to examine them in general in order to drawing a general conclusion And because Saint Augustine cites almost three hundred Opinions touching the Supream Good and as many may be brought touching other points of the Sciences I shall only take notice of the famousest Sects as seeming the most rational and most follow'd And let us compare the always contentious Peripatericks and the Stoicks together The end of the former was to contemplate and understand things the latter aim'd more to do good than to know it their design was Speculation the scope of these Practici I side with the former because that Science which embellisheth Man's noblest part his Understanding is the most sublime and consequently the most considerable And as the Understanding is more excellent than the Will so is Theory in matter Science than Exercise Acts of Virtue depending on the Acts of Reason and those of Reason not depending on those of Liberty Besides that is most to be esteem'd which must render us blessed and that is the knowledge of God and of the Creatures in God and in themselves which is to constitute the Beatifick Vision The Second said That Men ought not to get knowledge only to know but to operate comformably to their knowledge Truth would be either useless or dangerous if it lead us not to practise And though the Will is one Sense subordinate to the Understanding yet it commands the same in another To know how to do well and yet to do ill is a double crime And if knowledge alone could make happy the Devils would be soon in Heaven since Divines tell us the least of them hath more natural knowledge than all Mankind together Now the Opinion of the Stoicks regulating the Acts of our Wills and composing our Manners suitable to Reason seems to place the steps which must raise us to the highest pitch of Felicity Wherefore I conclude that the Curious may follow the first Sect of these namely the Peripateticks but good men must necessarily adhere to that of the Stoicks The Third said That there are three other Sects which seem to comprize all the rest
think 't is from some hideous Phantasms irregularly conceiv'd in the Brain as a Mola or a Monster is in the womb which Phantasms arising from a black humor cause Sadness and Fear a Passion easily communicable because conformable to the Nature of Man who consisting of a material and heavy Body hath more affinity with the Passions that deject him as Fear doth than with those which elevate him as Hope and Ambition do The moral cause of Panick Terror is Ignorance which clouds and darkens the light of the Soul whence the most ignorant as Children and Women are most subject to this Fear and Souldiers who are the more ignorant sort being taken out of the Country and from the dregs of the people become easily surpriz'd with it and by the proneness of Men to imitation upon the least beginning it finds a great accession and familiarity in Humane Nature The Fifth said That the cause of this Terror may be a natural prescience our Souls have of the evil which is to befall us which is more manifest in some than in others as appear'd in Socrates who was advertis'd of what-ever important thing was to befall him by his familiar Spirit or good Angel Now if there be any time wherein those Spirits have liberty to do this 't is when we are near our End our Souls being then half unloos'd from the Body as it comes to pass also at the commencement of a battel through the transport every one suffers when he sees himself ready either to die or overcome CONFERENCE CCI. Of the Water-drinker of Germain's Fair. THis Person is of a middle Stature hath a large Breast as also a Face especially his Fore-head very great Eyes and is said to be sixty years old though he appears to be but about forty He was born in the Town of Nota in the Island of Maltha and is nam'd Blaise Manfrede They that have observ'd him in private Houses and upon the Theatre relate that he makes his experiment not only every day but oftentimes twice in one afternoon Moreover vomiting so freely as he does he is always hungry when he pleases His Practise is very disagreeing from his publish'd Tickets wherein he promises to drink a hundred quarts of water but he never drinks four without returning it up again His manner is thus He causes a pail full of warm water and fifteen or twenty little glasses with very large mouths to be brought to him then he drinks two or three of these glasses full of water having first washt his mouth to shew that there is nothing between his teeth Afterwards for about half a quarter of an hour he talks in Italian which time being pass'd he drinks three or four and twenty more of the said glasses and thereupon spouts forth of his mouth with violence a red water which seems to be wine but hath only the colour of it This water appears red as it comes out of his mouth and yet when it is spouted into two of his glasses it becomes of a deep red in one and of a pale red in the other and changing the situation of his glasses on the left side of his mouth to the right and of those on the right to the left these colours always appear different in the same glass namely the one of a deep red and the other yellow or Citron-color Some of the water is of the color of pall'd wine and the more he vomits the clearer and less colour'd the water is He hath often promis'd to bring up Oyl and Milk but I never saw nor heard that he did it This done he sets his glasses to the number of fifteen or sixteen upon a form or bench to be seen by every one After which he drinks more water in other glasses and brings it up again either clear water or Orenge flower water or Rose-water and lastly Aqua Vitae which are manifest by the smell and by the burning of the Aqua Vitae having been observ'd to keep this order always in the ejection of his liquors that red water comes up first and Aqua Vitae last He performs this Trick with thirty or forty half glasses of water which cannot amount to above four quarts at most then having signifi'd to the people that his Stomack although no Muscle which is the instrument of voluntary motion obeys him he casts the same water up into the Air with its natural colour so impetuously that it imitates the Casts of water in Gardens to the great admiration of the Spectators who for six weâ—ks together were seldom fewer than three hundred daily For my part I find much to admire in this action For though men's Stomacks be of different capacities and some one person can eat and drink as much as four others yet I see not possibly where this fellow should lodge so much water And again he seems rather to powr water into a Tun than to swallow it though the conformation of the Gullet doth not consist with such deglutition Besides vomiting is a violent action and yet most facile in this Drinker And as to the order of this Evacuation 't is certain that all things put into the Stomack are confounded together therein so that Concoction begins by Mixtion and yet this fellow brings up what-ever he pleases as 't were out of several vessels so that he undertakes to eat a Sallad of several sorts of Herbs and Flowers and to bring them up all again in order Moreover what can be more prodigious than this mutation of Colours Smells and Substances And indeed they say he hath sometimes fear'd to be question'd for Sorcery But the greatest wonder is that smartness and violence wherewith he spouts out water from his Stomack not laterally which is the ordinary manner of vomiting but upwards which is a motion contrary to heavie bodies as water is Some speculative person that had read in Saint Augustin that a Man's being turn'd into a Horse by the power of Imagination might refer the cause of all these wonders to that faculty which daily producing new shapes upon the Bodies of Children in their Mothers womb may with less strangeness produce in this Man the above-mention'd alteration of one colour into another And as for his facility of bringing up what-ever he hath swallow'd I can find no better Reason for it than Custom which in him is turn'd into Nature The Second said That Ignorance being the Mother of Admiration we begin less to admire as we proceed to more Knowledg Now if this Maltese were a Magician he would do more marvellous things and of more than one sort whereas all his power is confin'd only to the vomiting up of liquors which he drunk before and the faculty of his Stomack being determin'd to this single kind of action the same must be natural because that is the definition of natural powers Moreover no action ought to be accus'd of Magick till good Reasons have evinc'd it to surpass all the powers of Nature
not be attributed to the Heaven but to the Earth which produceth all other varieties of Animals especially of men as is observ'd in the Patagons who are Gyants To whom are oppos'd the Pigmies which their soil likewise produceth And to shew that the tincture of the skin is not the only particularity observable in Negroes they have many other Properties whereby they are distinguish'd from other Nations as their thick lips saddle-noses coarse short hair the horny tunicle of the eye and the teeth whiter than the rest of men Besides they are not only exempted from the Pox and other Venereous Maladies but their Climate alone airs the same Not to mention the Qualities of their minds which are so ignorant that though they have plenty of Flax yet they want Cloth because they want skill how to work it they abound with Sugar-canes yet make no trade of them and esteem Copper more than Gold which they barter for the like weight of Salt and are wholly ignorant of Laws and Physick Which ignorance renders their spirits more base and servile than those of other Nations and they are so born to slavery that even free men among the Abyssins the most considerable people of all Aethiopia when they are employ'd by any one take it not ill to be lash'd with a Bull 's Pizzle provided they be paid and when their Priests exhort the people they whip them till the blood comes for the better inculcating of their Instructions those being held in most reverence who whip them most severely though they were the first Pagans who were converted to the Faith by Queen Candace's Eunuch who was instructed by S. Philip. And as pusillanimous persons are commonly the most treacherous these two vices having both the same principles and presupposing ignorance of the point wherein true Honour consists so the Moors are ordinarily base and unfaithful to their Masters as is verifi'd by abundance of Histories which meanness and poorness of Courage reaches from the second next the King's person to the most inferior amongst them all bowing down and touching the ground with their hand when they hear the name of their King Prete-Jun before whose Tent they make a Reverence though he be not there and flatter him so excessively that if one of their Kings happen to lose an Eye or other member they deprive themselves of the same too Moreover they are so credulous that they perswade themselves that this King is descended in a direct line from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba who they say was nam'd Maqueda when she came to see him as they report for some other cause besides admiring his Wisdom The Third said That the case is the same with the Negroes in respect of the color of their skin and the other above-mention'd particulars as with the long heads of the Children of Paris which Nature produceth at this day of herself ever since the Midwives had form'd the first after that manner upon a belief that this figure was more becomming and suitable to the functions of the Soul than roundness So likewise the heat of the Sun first blacken'd the skin of the Moors of either Sex by little and little amongst whom the blackest hides the thickest lips and most evers'd being in esteem every Mother endeavor'd to make her Childrens lips and nose of that figure and Nature helpt by their Imagination mov'd by the occurrence of like objects hath produc'd such ever since But 't is no wonder if the people of some Countries under the same parallels and latitude indeed but defended from the heat of the Sun by opposite Mountains are exempt from the effect of that heat as there are places in France where upon the same reason fruits are a month or two later in ripening than those of their Neighbors Moreover the frisl'd short hair of Negroes is an effect of the same heat as also their being exempted from the Pox which being a phlegmatick cold poyson as appears by its invading the spermatick parts and the encreasing of its pains in the night more than day 't is more reasonable that the Temperaments opposite thereunto such as theirs whose flesh is very dry and void of Phlegm be free from the same Now that Negroes abound not in Phlegm and Moisture appears in that they never spit in their Churches not only out of custom but express Law which would never have been made if it had not been easie to observe Moreover the whiteness of their teeth is augmented by the blackness of their faces And as for their wits Scaliger thinks them not really dull but only out of design and craft which always argues wit Whence Geographers who reckon Southern people amongst the most ingenious say They could never be brought to their duty by Reason but suffer themselves to be rul'd only by Religion Because where Humane Reason holds not as in matters of Faith there the greatest wits are oblig'd to become subject to the less when they speak to them as from God Besides their Characters are handsomer and more agreeable than either the Arabick or Turkish They are addicted to Navigation and have a Military Order under the protection of Saint Anthony to which every Gentleman is bound to design one of his three Sons except the eldest which serves for their King's Guard and amounts to 12000. Horsemen And if there be no other reason to esteem them ignorant but their having no wrangling Lawyers many other Nations would be happy if they had none neither And though Physick be not reduc'd to an Art nor taught by a Method amongst them as neither was it of old amongst us yet they want not Remedies useful for health Their want of Linnen proceeds from their abundance of Cotton and the comparison of Gold and Copper depends upon Phansie And lastly the paucity of the people finding food enough at home have less cause to be eager upon Trade abroad CONFERENCE CCXII. Of Ecstacies THough the union between the Body and the Soul be so strict as to serve for a model to all other unions observable in Nature yet is it not so strong but that sometimes it admits of a dissolution which the Philosophers conceiv'd possible both those parts continuing entire This separation is call'd an Ecstacy wherein the Platonists who first brought it into Vogue plac'd the Summum Bonum or greatest Felicity inasmuch as they pretended that mens minds were thereby disengag'd from all material things nay from their very Bodies by the clouds and humidities whereof they imagin'd that the mind was disturbed in its functions which being equally spiritual are the more compleatly perform'd the more the Understanding whereby they are produc'd is disengag'd from this corporeal mass Whence it comes that old men especially such as are near death or in their sleep have clearer visions and more certain predictions than young men and those who are in perfect health of a moist Temperament who are waking and perform all their other functions And whereas there is
thing having several times happen'd to him he had given his wife a strict charge that no Body should touch his Body during his Soul's being abroad upon the account aforesaid but some persons of his acquaintance bearing him a grudg having with much importunity obtain'd of her the favour to see his Body lying on the ground in that immoveable posture they caus'd it to be burnt to prevent the Soul's return into it which yet it being not in their power to do and the Clazomenians being inform'd of that injury done to Hermotimus built him a Temple into which Women were forbidden to enter And Plutarch in his Book of Socrates's Daemon or Genius confirming this Relation and allowing it to be true affirms that those who had committed that crime were then tormented in Hell for it Saint Augustine in his Book of the City of God Lib. xiv relates that a certain Priest named Restitutus when-ever and as often as he was desir'd to do it became so insensible at the mournful tone of some lamenting voice and lay stretch'd along as a dead Carkase so as that he could not be awak'd by those who either pinch'd or prick'd him nay not by the application of fire to some part of his Body inasmuch as he could not feel any thing while he continu'd in the Ecstacy only afterwards it was perceiv'd that he had been burnt by the mark which remain'd upon his Body after he was come to himself before which time be had not any respiration and yet he would say that he had heard the voices of those who had cry'd aloud in his Ears calling to mind that he had heard them speaking at a great distance The same Author in the xix Book of the same Work affirms that the Father of one Praestantius was apt to fall into such Ecstacies that he believ'd himself chang'd into a Pack-Horse and that he carry'd Provisions upon his back into the fields with other Horses when all the while his Body continu'd immoveable in the House Among other Examples of this kind of Ecstacy Bodin in his second Book of his Daemonomania chap. 5. relates a story of a certain Servant-maid living in the Danphine having been found lying all along upon a dung-hill in such a dead sleep that all the noise made could not awake her nay her Master 's banging her with a switch not prevailing any thing he ordered fire to be set to the most sensible and tenderest parts of her Body to try whether she were really dead or not Which being upon tryal believ'd they left her in the same place till the morning and then sending to look after her she was found very well in her bed Whereupon the Master asking her What she had been doing all the night before Ah Master said she how unmercifully have you beaten me Upon that discovery she was accus'd for a Witch and confess'd it To be short Cardan in his eighth Book of the Variety of Things affirms of himself that he fell into an Ecstacy when he pleas'd insomuch that he sleightly heard the voices of those who spoke to him but understood them not Nay what is more was not sensible of any pinching nor yet feeling the exquisite pain of his Gout whereto he was much subject as being not sensible at that time of any thing but that he was out of himself He afterwards explicates the manner how that Ecstacy is wrought affirming that he felt it begin at the Head especially in the hinder part of the Brain and thence spread it self all along the Back-bone He affirmed further that at the very beginning of it he was sensible of a certain separation about the Heart as if the Soul with-drew at a kind of wicket or sally-port the whole Body concerning it self therein and adds that then he sees what-ever he would with his Eyes and not by the strength of the Understanding and that those Images which he sees are in a continual transiency and motion in the resemblance of Forests Animals and such other things The Cause whereof he attributes to the strength of the Imagination and sharpness of the Sight He further relates of his Father such things as are much more miraculous and occasion'd the suspicion of his being a Magician Now from all these Sacred and Prophane Histories it may be inferr'd that of Ecstacies some are miraculous and others natural The former not submitting to ordinary Causes any more than all the other things do that concern Religion which stands much upon the preheminence of being above Reason The latter proceeding from the great disproportion there is between the Body and the Mind the one being extreamly vigorous the other extreamly weak Whence it follows that there are two sorts of persons subject to Natural Ecstacies to wit those transcendent Minds which are dispos'd into weak Bodies and weak Minds in strong and robust Bodies inasmuch as there being not a perfect connexion and correspondence between them the Soul finds it no great difficulty to disengage her self from the Body or the Body from the Soul which by that means obtains a freedom in her operations it being supposd that they do not all at depend one upon another as may be seen in the Formation of the Embryo wherein the Soul making her self a place of aboad plainly shews that she is able to act without it as also in swoundings and faintings during which the Body continues so destitute of sense that no active faculty at least no operation of the Soul is observable in it The Third said That the Vegetative Soul which is without motion being the first whereby we live it is not to be much admir'd if the other two Souls to wit the Sensitive and the Rational do sometimes separate themselves from it and this is that which they call Ecstacy whereof we have a certain instance in all the faculties wich are in like manner separated one from another without the loss of their Organs Accordingly he who is most sharp-sighted as to the Understanding hath commonly but a weak corporeal sight the most robust Body is ordinarily joyn'd to the weakest Mind Those persons who walk and talk in their sleep do also shew that the Rational Soul does quit the Government of the Body and leaves it to the direction and disposal of the sensitive and the same thing may be also said of the Vegetative exclusively to the other two To come to Instances we have at this day the experience of some who continue a long time in Ecstacies and that not only in matters of great importance but also in some things of little concernment which they are not able to comprehend nay there are some have the knack of falling into Trances and Ecstacies when they please themselves And this hath been affirm'd to me of a certain person who was able to do it without any other trouble than this He caus'd to be painted on the wall a great Circle all white in the Centre whereof he set a black mark
and after a long continu'd looking upon it the Visual Spirits being by degrees dissipated brought his Soul into a Vertigo or Dizziness which occasion'd the Ecstacy The Fourth said That the opinion of Bodin which allows a separation between the Souls and Bodies of Witches and Sorcerers having been invented only to render a reason of what they affirm they had seen during the time their Bodies had been immoveable is not to be believ'd without some further proof since it is impossible even by that to explicate the Relations which they make of those places where they say they had been and the things they had there done inasmuch as they positively affirm that they had made those progresses with their Bodies and all their members and that they had made use of them in eating drinking and performing such other actions as are purely corporeal and cannot be imagin'd done in a state of separation as being not compatible to separated Spirits which being immaterial stand in need of Bodies to assume corporeal affections and perform those beastly Actions whereof Sorcerers talk so much To this may be added that this separation cannot be wrought without death and that suppos'd it were impossible the Souls should re-enter into their Bodies otherwise than by a real resurrection which is an act that God hath so reserv'd to himself that the Devil is not capable of doing it Nay though it were in his power it is rather to be imagin'd that he would be far enough from taking souls out of their bodies and disrobing them of their sensual inclinations inasmuch as he does all lies in his power to involve the Souls of Men more and more into their Bodies and make them wallow in sensuality and render all their affections corporeal Accordingly great and generous Souls such as are most disengag'd from the Body are not fit for that purpose since Agrippa and all the other Masters of that detestable profession require Simplicity in those who would be Sorcerers as a necessary and previous disposition So that if the Souls of Sorcerers which are at first engag'd and afterwards continu'd in the Devil's service only in prosecution of the concerns of the Body came to be devested of that heavy mass whereby they are encompassed and stripp'd of the inclinations of the Body no doubt they would break off so disadvantagious a bargain at least they would not find any delight in the divertisements where-with the Devil does amuse them It is therefore more probable that the Devil should sometimes cast Sorcerers into a certain sleep and bind up their common sense so as that they are rendred incapable of receiving external impressions and that in the mean time he should joyn together the different species of Memory and raise in the Imagination such representations thereof as are conformable to the truths which are made else-where So that the Understanding not receiving any thing from without which might undeceive it is wholly taken up with the species it hath within the apprehension of Sorcerers being much like those of some persons who having their brains either weakned by Diseases or naturally receive such an impression from their dreams that when they awake they are hardly able to distinguish them from the things they have seen That therefore which is commonly called a Diabolical Ecstacy deserves not the name since it is only the casting of one into a dead sleep Those Diseases which Physicians call Ecstacies as Catalepsies and Madness are only such improperly and the same thing is to be said of those kind of swoundings which have frequently been taken for Ecstacies in some persons who having continu'd their Contemplations beyond the strength of their Bodies and thereupon swounded out of pure weakness have upon the recovery of themselves imagin'd that their Minds had been transported into real Ecstacies and yet can give no account of what had pass'd during the time of their Trance The precedent stories and those which may be thereto added of Socrates Archimedes and some others do not prove that naturally there can be any Ecstacy for either those stories seem to be palpably fabulous or only shew that the Souls of those Ecstatical Persons had not broke off all correspondence with the Body nor quitted the assistance of the senses and their Organs that they might be wholly involv'd in themselves and so resign themselves to Meditations purely Intellectual For he who shall examine the example of Socrates as it is related in Plato will look upon that action rather as a tryal which Socrates made of his own Patience than as a real Ecstacy especially since Socrates is imagin'd standing a posture requiring the motion of the Muscles which presupposes sentiment in the exterior parts Accordingly dead bodies as also those wherein the action of the Soul is check'd and hindred are not found standing though the Athenians have shuffled in among their stories a tale of one of their men who stood upright after he had been kill'd The other Instances are of persons who meditated with such earnestness and attention on their own thoughts and directed their minds with so much violence towards that sense whereof they had most occasion that the other senses were destitute of Spirits and without action not discerning their own proper objects if they were not extreamly violent which is no real Ecstacy inasmuch as otherwise we must call Sleep an Ecstacy And indeed the most refin'd and subtilest Meditations which we derive from those Ecstacies smell so strong of the Body and Matter that it is probable they were not the pure productions of the Soul no way diverted by the disturbances of the Body and the internal senses on which she objectively depends even in the inorganical actions she does it being a thing impossible for her to meditate alone since that in her direct actions she stands in need of the Imagination and must be excited by Phantasms but above all she cannot be without Memory which always furnishes her with the matter of her speculations and reserves the species of them Besides those who are of opinion that all the faculties of the Soul while she is in the Body are organical cannot imagine any Ecstacy wherein the Soul meditates by her self without any commerce with the Body and its sentiments and those who conceive that the faculties of the Understanding and Will borrow nothing of the Organs but the objects of their actions do nevertheless inferr that the Soul stands in need of the senses in order to the doing of her actions and is not over-earnest in the doing of them but when she is excited by the Phantasms for the stirring whereof the Animal Spirits are absolutely necessary which takes away all conceit of Ecstacies And those who imagine that in Ecstacies the Soul hath no correspondence with them and makes no use of them in her actions do by that means instead of establishing destroy the Ecstacy since it must be inferr'd that the Soul during the time of those retir'd
meditations leaves the Spirits in the Organs whose function it is in the mean time to receive the impressions of the external objects and convey them into the common Sense and thence into the Imagination and Memory whereas 't is expected that the Ecstacy should leave the Body without action Whence therefore I conclude that there is not any at all in regard that an Ecstacy signifying a state of the Soul besides that which is natural to her and besides the natural consequence there is between the actions of the senses and those that are proper to the Rational Soul it may be affirm'd that such a state never happens and that the Soul shall not be absolutely freed from the incumbrances and distractions of the Body till after Death And this hath been sufficiently acknowledg'd by Socrates in Phoedon notwithstanding all the Ecstacies attributed to him and Aristotle whose thoughts were more abstracted and transcended those of all others would not by any means admit of Ecstacies from a natural cause but attributes them all to God Which procedure of his hath been approved by Scaliger and many others CONFERENCE CCXIII. Of the Cock and whether the Lyon be frightned at his Crowing THe Germans being engag'd upon an expedition of War had some reason to carry a Cock along with them to serve them for an incitement and example of Vigilance Thence haply proceeded the custom which some Mule-drivers and Waggoners still observe of having one fasten'd to the leading Mule or Horse and sometimes for want of that adorning them with a plume of his or some other feathers 'T was upon this account that Phidias's Minerva had a Cock upon her head-piece unless it be attributed to this that the said Goddess had also the presidency and direction of War where there is no less need of Vigilance than Industry though that Bird belongs to her sufficiently upon the score of his other qualities as being so gallant and courageous as many times rather to lose his Life upon the spot than quit the desire of victory and when he is engag'd fighting with such fury that Caelius Aurelian relates that one who had been peck'd by a Cock in the heat of fighting grew mad upon it For the Passion of Anger being a short fury 't is possible it may extreamly heighten the degree of heat in a temperament already so highly cholerick that in time the body of the Cock becomes nitrous and upon that consideration is prescrib'd to sick persons for the loosening the belly and that after he hath been well beaten with a wand and the feathers pluck'd while he is alive before he is boyl'd It may be further urg'd that this Courage of the Cock was the motive which inclin'd Artaxerxes King of Persia to grant him who kill'd Prince Cyrus the priviledge of carrying on his Javelin a little Cock of Gold as a singular acknowledgement of his Valour Whereupon the Souldiers of the Province of Caria whereof he who had the aforesaid priviledge of the Cock was a Native in imitation of him instead of Corslets wore Cocks upon their head-pieces whence they had the name of Alectryons or Cocks in Latin Galli which possibly is the reason that gave the French that name And whereas the Cock commonly crows after he hath beaten another it came also to be the Hieroglyphick of Victory and that haply gave the Lacedaemonians occasion to sacrifice a Cock when they had overcome their Enemies This Creature was also dedicated to Mars and the Poets feign that he had sometime been a young Souldier whom that God of War order'd to stand sentinel when he went in to Venus to give him notice of Vulcan's return but he having slept till after the Sun was risen and by that neglect of duty Mars being surpriz'd with her he was so incens'd that he metamorphos'd him into a Cock whence it comes say they that being ever since mindful of the occasion of his transformation he ever crowes when the Sun approaches our Horizon This fable how ridiculous soever it may be thought is as supportable as that of the Alcaron which attributes the crowing of our Cocks to one which it saies there is in Heaven a Cock of such a vast bulk that having his feet on the first of the Heavens the head reaches to the second and this Cock crowing above awakens and incites all those upon Earth to do the like as these last set one another a crowing as if they all crow'd at the same instant all over the world The Cock was also dedicated to the Sun and Moon to the Goddess Latona Ceres and Proserpina whence it came that the Novices and such as were initiated in their mysteries abstain'd from the eating of it It was also the same to Mercury in regard that vigilance and early rising are requisite in Merchants And thence it came that he was painted under the form of a Man sitting having a Crest or Comb on his Head Eagle's claws instead of Feet and holding a Cock upon his fist But there was a particular consecration made of him to Aesculapius which oblig'd Socrates at his death to entreat his Friends to sacrifice a Cock to him since the Hemlock where-with he was poyson'd had wrought well The Inhabitants of Calecuth sacrifice him to their divinity under the form of a he-goat And Acosta after Lucian affirms that anciently the Cock was ador'd as a God which Christianity not enduring hath order'd them to be plac'd upon Churches on the tops of steeples and other very high structures that by their turning about they might tell the beholders which way the Wind blew unless haply some would refer it to the repentance of Saint Peter at the second crowing of one of them As concerning the crowing of this Creature it is commonly attributed to his heat and may be a certain discovery of his joy at the approach of the Star of the same temperament with him And whereas he is more susceptible than any other of the impressions of the Air whence it comes that being moisten'd by the vapors he crows with a hoarser voice which Labourers look on as a prediction of Rain it may be thence consequent that he is the first sensible of the coming of the Sun Moreover whereas there is a Solar Animal such as is also the Lyon but in a lower degree than he the species of Birds being hotter and dryer as being lighter than that of four-footed Beasts it thence follows that the Cock hath an ascendent over the Lyon which no sooner hears his crowing but it awakens in his Imagination those species which cause terror to him Unless we would rather affirm that the spirits of the Cock are communicated to the Lyon by that more than material voice and as such more capable of acting than the spirits issuing out of the Eyes of sick persons which nevertheless infect those who are well and look on them nay if we may believe the Poet bewitch even innocent Lambs The Second said That
Valour is deduc'd from the Fathers side Upon which principle is grounded the account we make of Nobility which comes seldom but from the Father's side whereas the want of Nobility on the Mother's side does not make the Child less a Gentleman Nay some have made it a Question whether the Mother did contribute any thing to the formation of the foetus or only found it nourishment But those who have treated more nicely of this matter unanimously agree that the Woman's Seed is much weaker and more watery than that of the Man serving only to qualifie it as Water does Wine yet so as that the Water is converted into the nature of the Wine and is call'd Wine as soon as it is mixt with it As to those Children who chance to be more like their Mothers than their Fathers 't is to be conceiv'd one of Nature's fagaries who delighting in variety cannot produce many children but there must consequently be a great diversity of Lineaments in their faces and figures in their members among which the idea of a Woman imprinted in the imagination of the Father may be communicated to his Seed which consequently expresses that figure The second said That there were three kinds of resemblances to wit that of the Species that of the Sex and that of the Effigies as to the Body and that of manners as to the Soul or The resemblance of the Species is when a Man begets a Man a Woman proceeds from the material Principles of Generation which the Mother contributes more plentifully then the Father the proof whereof may be seen in the copulation of Animals of different Species For if a Hee-goat couples with a Sheep he shall beget a Sheep which shall have nothing of the Goat in it save that the fleece will be a little rougher then it is wont to be And if a Ram couples with a She-goat the production will be a Goat whose hair will be somewhat softer than otherwise But as to what is related of Aristo's having had a Daughter by an Ass who for that reason was called Onoscele of Stellius's having another by a Mare who was thence called Hippona and of a Sheep which brought forth a Lyon in the pastures of Nicippus to whom it presaged Tyranny of Alcippa who was deliver'd of an Elephant having been impregnated by an Elephant are to be look'd on as monstrous and possibly fabulous Productions The resemblance of the Sex depends on the temperature and predominancy of the Seeds For if the seed of both Male and Female be very hot Males will be engendred if cold Females and both of them will be either vigorous or weak according to the predominancy of heat or cold Whence it follows that this resemblance does not proceed more from the one then the other of those who are joyn'd together but the resemblance of Effigie and the other accidents of the Body and of the manners is more hard to resolve there being a secret vertue in both the Seeds which as Aristotle affirms is continu'd in it to the fourth Generation as may be confirm'd by the story of Helida who having lain with a Negro brought forth a white Child but her Grandchild by that was black Plutarch affirms the same thing to have happen'd in the fourth Generation of a Negro And yet this resemblance proceeds rather from the Mother's side than the Father's for if the causes which communicate most to their effects imprint most of their nature into them by that greater communication those effects accordingly retain so much the more of their Causes Now the Mother communicates more to the Child then the Father does for she supplies him with Seed those who have maintain'd the contrary being persons not much skill'd in Anatomy and after she hath contributed as much as the Father to that Generation she alone nourishes the foetus with her menstrual blood which then begins not to follow any longer the course of the Moon whereby it was regulated before Besides coming thus to furnish the said foetus with nourishment for the space of nine Months it is no wonder she should absolutely tranform it into her own nature which is thence accounted but one and the same in respect of both Mother and Child Now there is not any thing liker or can retain more of it then the thing it self which cannot be said of the Father who is not only different from the Embryo whom he hath begotten but also hath not any thing common with it after that first action So that there are many Children posthumi and born long after the death of their Fathers which thing never happens after the death of their Mothers nay it is seldom seen that a Child taken out of the body of a Mother ready to dy ever thrives much afterwards Though we shall not stick to acknowledge that what is related of the first person of the race of the Caesars from whom that Section was called the Caesarean might possibly happen according to the Relation yet is it done with this restriction that most of the other Stories told of it are fabulous But if the Mother comes afterwards to suckle her Child as Nature and the Example of all other Animals teaches her which is haply the reason of their being more vigorous and of a continuance of life more regular than that of the man that second nourishment added to the former being drawn from her milk which derives the quality of the mass of blood from which it is extracted makes him absolutely conformable to the Mother For if nourishment may as we find it to be true change the Temperament of Persons well advanc'd in years with much more reason may it work a remarkable alteration in the Body and Mind of a Child newly come into the World who is as it were a smooth Table susceptible of any impression Whence it is to be concluded that they proceed very rationally who are so careful of the well-fare of their little ones when the Mothers either by reason of sickness of upon some other account are not able to bring them up as to be very inquisitive about the Nurses they put them to and the quality of their Milk Nay what is more are not the changes caus'd by Nurses in the Body of the Infant as considerable as that which happens to the two seeds of Male and Female mixt at the Generation which recover their increase by the irroration of the Maternal Blood which flows thereto and if it be impure does communicate its impurity to it as on the contrary being pure it is many times able to purifie the corrupted seed of the Male Whence Physicians have observ'd that sound Children have descended from Fathers subject to the Leprosie and such diseases Add to this that the safety on the Mothers side is greater than on the Father's Moreover they are the Mothers from whom proceeds the Imagination which acts upon their Embryo all the time they are with Child and thence it comes that
they are much more fond of their Children than the Fathers which fondness is a sign that there may be more of the Mothers observ'd in the Children than of the Fathers For the love we have for our selves is so great that God would have it to be the measure of that which we ought to bear unto our Neighbour and that which we bear to God himself hath some reference to his affection towards us Those therefore who would insinuate themselves into the favour of any one have no surer way to do it than by complying with his humor and as much he can become conformable to him CONFERENCE CCXXII Whether is harder for a Vertuous Man to do that which is Evil or for a Vicious to do that which is Good BEfore we come to the Resolution of this Question we are to consider two things the former that Man consists of two parts the Superiour which is the Soul and the Inferiour which is the Body and whereas these two parts have different objects and such as which contradict one the other there happens to be a great Conflict the body being strongly inclin'd to sensuality and the Soul endeavouring to raise her self up to spiritual things But in regard the Organs she makes use of are material such as are also the Senses which assist her in her operations it is not to be thought she can overcome without great pains inasmuch as the instruments which she stands in need of for the exercise of Virtue hold a greater correspondence with the Body and as they derive their Being from matter so they betray the Resolutions of the Soul reducing her under a Tyrannical Subjection Whence it follows that the wicked or vicious person finds it the greater difficulty to do well inasmuch as being enslav'd to vice and sin he cannot shake off that yoke as having a constant inclination to evil The Second thing to be consider'd is good and evil in it self for according to Nature there is no evil in Humane Actions inasmuch as in appearance they are all good otherwise the Will the object whereof is that which is Good and pleasing would not be inclin'd thereto since good is that which all things desire There are therefore two sorts of good and as many of evils one Natural and the other Moral the Soul is easily enclin'd to the Moral good and the Body to the Natural and consequently it is much more easie for the Vicious person to do a Moral good than it is for the Virtuous Man to do a Moral Evil. The Second said That it is harder for a good Man to do evil in regard that to the virtuous man Virtue seems so fair and taking that he finds it the greatest difficulty in the world to forsake her and so to embrace Vice which he looks upon as a hideous Monster inasmuch as Beings and Substances are more amiable than Privations are odious in regard that as Love respects the things that are amiable and aversion is not extended to that which is not in like manner Vice is not so much shun'd as Vertue is belov'd Whence it follows that it is a greater trouble for the good man to do that which is evil in regard he knows the perfection of good as much as the vicious person is ignorant of it and from that ignorance there must needs proceed a difficulty and backwardness of embracing it The Third said That the vicious person finds it a harder task to do well in regard that Nature is strongly bent towards that which is evil and consequently the virtuous person when he does that which is evil easily falls down into the bottom according to the descent of humane inclinations and the vicious person when he does that which is good climes up a high Mountain full of Rocks and Precipices and engages against Nature her self being in open hostility against the sensual Appetite and according to the Scripture We do not the good which we would do but the evil we would not do that we do To shew that the difficulties men find in the pursuance of good are so great that Saint Paul himself complains of his having a Law within him which rebelled against the Law of God This Nature of ours being full of the imperfections conceiv'd in Original Sin hath so great a repugnance to good that there was a necessity of a Law of Grace to regenerate it in order to the pursuit of good a complyance with the true sentiments of Religion and the knowledge of God not to urge that Pleasure hath so great attractions and charms that it is almost impossible to over-master them Thence it came that Vlysses order'd himself to be bound to the mast of his Ship and caus'd his ears to be stopp'd that he might not hear the harmonious voices of the Syrens otherwise his Reason would not have been so strong as to over-master his sensual Appetites which must be either destroy'd or so fetter'd that the Soul may not be drawn away by pernicious temptations The Fourth said That Virtue was natural to Man before Adam's Transgression and from the time of his rebellion against God Vice hath seated it self in her place so that when Innocence forsook our first Parent all vices and imperfections possess'd themselves of his Mind and are become so naturaliz'd there that it begat a necessity of establishing Divine and Humane Laws whereof some were for the eradication of Vices others for the punishment of Crimes all which trouble might have been spar'd if there had not been so much difficulty in the doing of that which is good The Fifth said That it being suppos'd as indeed it is true that Humane Nature is more inclin'd to Vice than to Virtue for the reasons before alledg'd yet is there a certain means to frustrate and destroy that Inclination and advance the Soul to a sovereignty over the Body by abolishing and destroying the Senses and those intellectual powers whereby the Organs are govern'd For if the Body have the Mastership the Soul will be forc'd to obey but if the Soul commands she will bring the Body into subjection to all the vertuous actions she pleases her self And then the Vertues will be naturaliz'd in man and the Question propos'd will meet with a contrary Solution for in that Case it will be much more hard for the vertuous man to do that which is evil than for the vicious to do well inasmuch as the virtuous person by that mortification of the Senses will be in a manner reduc'd to the state of original innocence and restor'd to the glorious condition Man was in before the Fall The Sixth said That such a moral regeneration is a great Cabalistical Secret unknown to all the learned that such a mortification and destruction of the Senses as was propos'd is a work not yet well discover'd to the Curious as transcending all common rules For if the Soul acts not without the assistance of the Organs and the interior and exterior Senses the weakning
or destroying of these will contribute to the weakning of the Soul and instead of making a Prophet the transformation will be into some Hypochondriack or extravagant Phanatick as it happens to those who macerate their Bodies by an indiscreet zeal insomuch that having not the perfect knowledg of that Science it were more expedient that men had a recourse to the ordinary means of Morality to regulate the Passions of the Soul and bring her to the pursuance of Virtue Now according to the rules of Morality even those who are good are much inclin'd to evil and find it no easie matter to oppose it The Seventh said That it is as hard a matter for the vicious person to do well as it is for the virtuous to do ill in regard that the inclination which the good man hath to do good and eschew evil is equal to that of the wicked person which is always bent to do evil it being very difficult for him to embrace Virtue by shunning Vice by reason of the aversion which he hath to that which is good And to make this the more clear we commonly find some persons so naturally addicted to the exercises of Virtues that what they do seems to be without any study Whence it may be deduc'd that the first seeds of Virtue and Good proceed from those natural Dispositions which are called Inclinations and consequently the difficulties in both are concluded to be equal And that may also be observ'd in Socrates who himself acknowledg'd that his natural Inclinations were so bent to Vice that if the dictates of Philosophy had not wrought things in him beseeming the person whom the Oracle had declar'd wise he would have been carry'd away with sensual Appetites according to his natural Inclinations there being some Natures truly Heroick and ever doing well and others brutish and always inclin'd to evil To this we are to add the consideration of the persons their qualities and age inasmuch as there being somewhat particular in any of these circumstances it changes the resolution in the general proposition which being universal and of a large extent it were necessary in order to the finding out of the Truth that we confin'd our selves to these circumstances yet still following the forementioned opinion For as fire finds no difficulty to ascend no more than the water does to flow downwards and make towards its centre so every one complying with his own Inclinations stands in an equal bent towards good and evil without any trouble or difficulty but to proceed contrary to that motion the virtuous person finds the trouble attending the doing of a evil action equal to that of the vicious in doing a bad one The Eighth said That this bent of the Inclinations ceases in those who are one while inclin'd to the doing of that which is good another to the doing of that which is evil as may be observ'd in Nero who during the first five years of his Government was the mildest of any of the Emperours yet afterwards gave himself over to all manner of Cruelty For what can be said of this alteration and if a man be naturally inclin'd to good Why is not the same inclination continued in him Does this inconstancy proceed from the mind or from the body If it proceeds from the mind since the powers thereof have a certain knowledge of the Good Why does it not embrace that which is good answerably to its knowledge of the same If it proceeds from the body since this hath a dependance on the mind why does it not follow the impressions which it derives from the other The Professors of Astrology who give so much credit to their Influences affirm that these diversities proceed from those Constellations whereby that change is caused and by which the Will is moved and receives a bent either to good or evil but if Reason have the sovereignty it ought to be conformable and produce such effects as are answerable thereto There is therefore a great probability that the causes of good and bad actions are to be referr'd to the regeneration of the Elect and the reprobation of the wicked who are left to the pursuance of their sensuality and thence it will follow that it shall be as hard for a truly-devout person to sin as for a reprobate to do well and so the Question is to be referr'd to the decision of Theology CONFERENCE CCXXIII. Whether a piece of Iron laid upon the Cask prevents Thunder from marring Wine contain'd within it and why SInce we are always to begin with that which is undenyable in matter of fact whereby we are assur'd that a piece of Iron laid upon a vessel full of Wine prevents its being corrupted by Thunder which without that precaution would cause it some prejudice which precaution hath also the same effect in preserving the Eggs which the Hen sits upon and in keeping Milk from turning all the difficulty of this Question is only in the latter part of it and that is to find out the reason thereof which must either be referr'd to some occult vertue in the Iron or to some of its manifest qualities If it be said that this is wrought by the manifest qualities of that metal it seems requisite that the Iron should be within the vessel with the Wine that so it may oppose the poyson of the Air whereby it is infected But on the other side to alledge those occult vertues is an argument of humane ignorance inasmuch as they are to act by the interposition of some means So that all things considered it is more rationally affirm'd to be an effect proceeding from the manifest qualities of the Iron which prevent and hinder that bad impression of the Air. But to give a more evident reason hereof we are to consult Astrology That Science teaches us that Mars by which Planet Iron is designed hath its House in Aries which is the sign of the Ram and the Naturalists observe that the Sun entring into that House causes the sap and moisture of the Vine to ascend an evident sign that there is a correspondence between Wine and Iron and that the one preserves the other by the natural Sympathy there is between them And to make it appear that the Influences exercise their vertues even upon things inanimate yet deriv'd from the root of what had been Vegetable or Animal we find that Wine though it be carried ever so far is subject to an observable alteration when the grapes of the same Vine are near their maturity that distance of Places and Climates not obstructing the Union and Correspondence which there is between the whole and its part which cannot be joyned together save only by means of the Celestial Influences The Second said That the foremention'd reason deduc'd from Astrology was not evident and that there is more subtilty in it than Truth and consequently that it is to be sought with greater probability to find it out of Natural Philosophy which treats of
contriv'd for the surprizal and carrying away of the Sabine Virgins it being easily inferr'd that what produc'd so bad an effect must of necessity have been a bad cause The Third said That Playes consider'd in themselves were indifferent but that according to the diversity of their Minds who frequent them they have a different operation as Wine excessively taken besots and layes some asleep and enlivens others according to the difference of their Temperaments For if they meet with weak Minds they imprint in them the Passions of the things that are represented much more easily than Books usually do But if they are persons of a strong Constitution of Intellectuals they consider what they see as a pure Fiction and a draught of Painting in the intrigues whereof they find a certain divertisement much like that of excellent Pâ—inters in their Perspectives they are pleas'd to see a mist cast before the eyes of the vulgar while they themselves are sufficiently satisfi'd that what others think represented to the life is only perform'd by the interposition of Scenes So that from this diversity of operations this only can be inferr'd that Playes and Opera's are advantageous and innocent divertisements to such as are well-vers'd in the affairs of the world who being over-press'd with a continu'd earnestness in the prosecution of their more serious concerns find a certain relaxation therein not in a melancholy sloath such as is inconsistent with the activity which is natural to them but in those less serious employments as on the contrary those persons who are already too much enclin'd to idleness vanity and effeminacy ought not to be admitted to Plays in regard they can have no other effect on them than to make them more effeminate The Fourth said That as Women are justly forbidden the use of the Sciences so ought they also to be forbidden the sight of Plays inasmuch as it is not expedient in order to frugal House-keeping that that Sex should be allow'd an acquaintance with those curiosities which might divert them from the care they ought to have of their domestick affairs For besides the loss of time idleness is extreamly prejudicial to that Sex whose portion should be assiduity in labour frugality and a constant keeping of the House which is not consistent with the frequenting of Shews and Play-houses and seeing the representations made there Which the more instructive they are and the more likely to fill Womens heads with new things the more ought they to be forbidden the sight of them there being not any thing a Husband should fear so much in his Wife as an excess of Wit upon the conceit whereof she assumes to her self a certain authority over him contrary to the Institution of Matrimony or at least thinks her self equal to him which is not much less to be fear'd inasmuch as it is a great disturbance to the domestick tranquillity This may be the better apprehended by the example of two Men equally learned who disputing one against the other seldom come to any agreement as a knowing and an ignorant person many times do for if the latter chance to contradict himself he is easily convinc'd and acquiesces And though the Greeks sometimes admitted Women in their Academies to execute the functions of Professors and Regents yet are not those examples to be introduc'd into this Age whereof the corruption is such as is able to change Vertues into Vices But from this general Rule we are to except such Heroina's as are the great Exemplars of all Vertues who surpassing the greatest part of Men in Wit and Intellectuals it were injurious to think them susceptible of those bad impressions which the Men are able to resist The Fifth said That the example of the Romans who gave extraordinary salaries to Comedians as Cicero assures us they did to Roscius sufficiently shews the advantages of publick representations And indeed if there be any thing to be blam'd in Plays it is this that they are too Pathetick that is too apt to raise and express Humane Passions For as an Oration measur'd in Verse is more elaborate than Prose so Verses dispos'd by a sound Judgement for the Stage are extreamly beyond those of Exegematick Poems wherein only the Poet speaks himself Moreover the observance of Time whereto all the Acts are confin'd and the other Laws of Dramatick Pieces discover their excellency above all others So that to question Whether they are advantageous is to bring into doubt Whether the Master-pieces of Poets Orators and Historians are advantageous to a State CONFERENCE CCXXV. Whether that Temperament of the Body which conduces most to Health be also the most convenient for the Mind I Shall not here insist on the division of the Temperaments as for instance into Simple to wit when one Quality is predominant over its opposite the other two remaining equal as we affirm him to be of a hot Temperament who shall be more hot than cold humidity and drought remaining in an aequilibrium and Compound to wit that which is the result of the same combination of qualities which makes the four Elements into the Vniversal to wit of the whole Body and Particular viz. that which is proper to each part into that which is of Weight wherein all those qualities are as it were in a balance one not exceeding the other and that of Justice wherein those qualities bear a certain proportion one to the other Not insisting I say on these Divisions but presupposing them as common doctrines I shall here think it sufficient to examine in the first place Which of all these Temperaments is most convenient in order to health and in the second whether the same will also be most convenient for the acquisition of a good mind that is for the better exercise of the functions of the rational Soul in a word whether the most healthy person shall always be the most wise Galen hath writ an express Treatise to prove that the Manners follow the Temperament of the body and therefore since those manners are the effects of the Will the noblest of all the faculties of the Soul in regard it hath a Soveraignty over all the others it should seem that the affirmative is to be maintain'd especially if we lay this for a ground that those persons who are subject to Melancholy are the most ingenious forasmuch as they are the most healthy cold and drought making up a more solid and firm mass then any other two qualities and heat and moisture being too variable and too much subject to corruption Upon which consideration Galen in his first Book of the Temperaments chap. 4. denies That the Spring is hot and moist on the contrary saith he it is the worst of all the Temperaments of the Air whereby we are encompass'd and that is commonly the constitution observable in sickly and contagious seasons In his eighth Book of the Method of curing Diseases chap. 7. he adds That a hot and moist distemper makes our
health incline to corruption The hot and dry is also too easily inclinable to be enflam'd as the cold and moist is too much subject to defluxions and withal to sharp Diseases such as are putrid Feavers for the first Burning Feavers for the second and Apoplexies Palsies and Dropsies for the last On the other side cold and drought are enemies to corruption and by those very qualities which are contrary thereto they more powerfully oppose external injuries by reason of the solidity of the skin and the density of its parts as the dispositions of melancholy persons are not subject to the passionate disturbances of the Cholerick the inconstancy of the Sanguine the slothfulness of the Phlegmatick and communicate the same Stability which is in them to the Spirits which act answerably thereto Of this Constitution were all those laborious and studious people and all the great Persons whose assiduous employments have made them famous in their own and subsequent Ages The Second said That if we may believe the same Galen in the sixth Book of the preservation of Health the hot and moist Temperament is the most healthy as being the most proper to man's nature and he-further writes That those who are very moist are long-liv'd and when their bodies are come to their full strength they are more healthy then others and are more robust and hardy then other men of the same Age and so continue till they grow old And thence it is saith he That all the Physicians and Philosophers who have diligently examined the Elements of man's body have commended that Temperament For as Aristotle affirms in his Book of a long and short life Our life consists in heat and moisture as cold and drought dispose us towards death and the sooner the animal grows cold and dry the sooner it grows old and dies But these two contrary sentiments of Galen may be reconcil'd well enough by affirming his meaning to be that exrernal heat and moisture are enemies to health whereas on the contrary the natural heat and radical moisture are friends to it inasmuch as these are never chargeable with excess but always moderate one serving for aliment to the other and they are so far from being capable of receiving any distemper that what results from them serves for a rule whereto all the other Temperaments are referred which the Vulgar improperly calls by the name of the four Humours that are predominant in them but that abuse being fortify'd by custom we must follow it though for no other reason then that we may be the better understood Whence it follows that the Sanguine Temperament is the most healthy as being the most conformable to life This Temperament is also the likeliest to produce a good Wit inasmuch as it exercises better then any other the functions of the Rational Soul which being distributed between the natural vital and animal Faculties and these being better exercis'd when they most abound with clear and purify'd spirits it is certain that the Sanguine Temperament the only treasury of the Spirits supplies more plentifully and with such as are more pure those in whom it is predominant then it can be imagin'd to do others in whom that blood is either puffed up by an excessive froath of Choler or drown'd in the waterishness of Phlegm or bury'd in the mud of Melancholy And this may be observ'd in the gentileness and the singular sleight nay the easiness wherewith persons of a sanguine Constitution demean themselves in all things they undertake betraying such a smiling chearfulness in their eyes and countenance as discovers their interiour joy and satisfaction and is no less delightful to those that are present then the impetuous sallies of the Cholerick give distate the sluggish delays of the Phlegmatick are tedious and the profound reveries of the Melancholy hateful and importunate But as for the inconstancy the only Objection which the other Temperaments make against the Sanguine it is not to be accounted vicious in them but look'd on as a divertisement wherewith they are pleas'd and which they put themselves upon only that their labours may by that ohange be the more delightful to them Which change is so much the more excusable in them that they court it not to the end they should be idle but they may apply themselves to some other employment which suits better with their humour such as the over-long contemplation thereof might not dry up that noble blood which runs in their veins and by converting it into dregs turn the sanguine into a melancholick Constitution to which the obstinacy wherewith it persists a long time in the prosecution of one and the same design is a greater discommendation than the inconstancy imputed to the sanguine is to that inasmuch as the latter makes advantage of it to wit that of attempting and many times executing several designs together especially when it undertakes such as it is sure to master such as may be Dancing Musick Courtship well-concontriv'd Stories and such other pleasant things And indeed it is impossible to exercise the functions of the mind well when the body is indispos'd as on the contrary when the body is in perfect health the mind acts its part so much the better The Third said That it were very unjust to deprive of the honour due to them the Heroes and Worthies of the World whose temperament must needs have been cholerick by attributing to any of the others the great and noble actions of the mind which belong to them Now to demonstrate that the temperament of the Heroes consisted of heat and drought we need bring in no further evidence than the suddenness and expedition wherewith they undertake and execute all their designs as it were complying with the activity of Fire which hath the supremacy among the Elements as they have the preheminence amongst men Nay it may be urged that great enterprizes would never be executed without some degree of choler which serves as it were for salt to all humane actions This premis'd as out of all dispute we now come to consider whether the hot and dry Temperament be the most consistent with health I affirm then that it is more consistent with it than the Phlegmatick which abounds in excrements then the Sanguine which easily admits of alterations nay also then the Melancholick whose gross humours are more subject to obstruction then Choler is the vivacity whereof is to be seen upon all occasions those of the Cholerick Constitution having always their Vessels large and as such much more unlikely to be stopp'd up The Fourth said that so far as the soul and body are different so far are also their qualities such From which consideration Aristotle took occasion to affirm That robust bodies are design'd to obey as the weak are to command inasmuch as commonly they are the receptacles of a stronger soul This rais'd a persuasion in some that the most imperfect bodies have commonly the most perfect souls alledging to that purpose
true it were absurd to look for the Causes of it in Nature whose forces are not able to attain an Effect so transcendent and so much above her reach It must therefore be a supernatural gift which God bestows on certain persons out of a pure gratuitous favour and more for the ease and comfort of others than out of any advantage to those who receive it as are also the gifts of Prophecy and doing Miracles For it is a demonstration of God's Omnipotence not to heal diseases only by ordinary means the dispensation whereof he hath left to Physicians who to that end make use of natural remedies but to do the same thing without any assistance of Nature by extraordinary and supernatural means in the application whereof he sometimes uses the Ministery of Angels as in the curing of Tobit and those sick people who came to the Pool at Jerusalem after the water had been stirr'd by the Angel sometimes by the Saints of whom it is written that the very shadow of their Bodies hath many times been effectual to that purpose as was that of Saint Peter and oftentimes those of other persons to whom he had communicated the gift for reasons unknown to us as he granted that of Divination to the Sibyls though they liv'd in Idolatry The Fourth said That Man was potentially all things and that consisting of a Body exactly temperate and of such a Soul as is the most perfect of forms he comprehended in an eminent degree within himself all the vertues of things as well corporeal as animate Whence comes it then that he shall not have the vertues and properties which are observable not only in stones wherewith he participates Being but also in Plants which are capable of Vegetation as well as he Animals with whom he hath motion sense and life and lastly in the separated Spirits as having answerably to them certain powers that are spiritual and remov'd from materiality And so since the Vertue of healing Diseases is found in most Beings which are of some nature with Man it is but reasonable he also should have the same one such as is the gift of healing the Evil which happens principally in the Seventh Male-child by reason of the perfection of his nature which performs all the most compleat functions in that number which Hippocrates upon that occasion affirms to be the dispenser of life Nay if there have been some who have had the Vertue of communicating several Diseases by their sight and touching as it is related of the Psylli Tribales Illyrians and other Nations who bewitch'd those whom they touch'd and of him whom Philostratus makes mention of in the life of Apollonius who kill'd with his very aspect as the Basilisk does far greater reason is there that there should be some to communicate health For though this latter requiring more preparations and conditions is so much the more difficultly transferr'd from one Subject to another then sickness is yet the reason of contraries will have it so that if the one is the other may be communicated and that with the greater justice inasmuch as health participating of the nature of good ought to be more communicative from one subject to another then sickness CONFERENCE CCXXXII Of Conjuration THere is as much fault to be found with the excessive curiosity of those who would know all things as there is with the unsufferable stupidity of some others who are not any way touch'd with that natural desire of Knowledge for as these latter by renouncing that accomplishment deprive themselves of the greatest satisfaction of life so the others being transported beyond the limits prescrib'd to the mind of Man wander they know not which way and precipitate themselves into the abysses of errours and impieties That of the Necromancers who make it their boast that they can command out of their Tombs the Souls of the deceas'd that they may be by them inform'd of what they desire to know is so much the more enormous in that they have made an Art of it call'd by them the Black Art or the Art of Conjuration a name as ridiculous as the precepts whereof it consists which having no ground but what they derive from the capriccio's and fantastick extravagances of those Impostors they sufficiently destroy themselves so as there needs nothing else to discover their palpable vanity no more then there is to make appear the errour of those who to confirm that diabolical invention maintain that there are abundance of effects above those of Nature which are to be attributed to those souls separated from their bodies especially that of foretelling things to come and informing those thereof who consult them it being consider'd that besides the gift they have of Science which is common to them with all spirits disengag'd from matter they have a particular inclination of doing good to men by advertising them of those things which so much concern them But this is not only absurd in it self but also impious and contrary to Christian Faith which teaching us that there are but three places where these souls have their abode to wit Paradice Hell and Purgatory it is to be believ'd that those which are confin'd to the last never come out thence but upon a special permission of God which he sometimes grants them that they may sollicit the suffrages of the Living those of the damned are further from being in a capacity to get out of that infernal prison to which Divine Justice hath condemn'd them to be there eternally tormented And the Blessed Spirits are yet more unlikely to quit their blissful State and the joys of Paradice wherewith they are inebriated to satisfie the vain curiosities of those who invocate them and for the most part make use of them rather to compass the mischievous Sorceries and such like Crimes whereof that Black Art makes profession then to procure good to any one or if it happen that at any time they do any 't is in order to the doing of some greater mischief afterwards such as may be that of Superstition and Idolatry whereto these spirits inclining those who invocate them and requiring of them such Sacrifices and Adorations as are due only to the Deity it is more then a presumption that they cannot be the souls of the Blessed but downright Devils who transform'd into Angels of Light impose upon those who are so willing to be seduc'd The Second said That as the employments of the Devils are different so is there also a remarkable difference in their natures which depends principally on the places of their abode according to which if we may believe Orpheus some of them are Celestial or Fiery some Aery some Watery and some Terrestrial and Subterraneous and among those the Aerial to whom Plato attributes the invention of Magick are by the Students of that Art accounted to be the most ingenious to deceive men by reason of their more easie putting on of the grosser parts of the air and
their appearing under what forms they please and consequently it will be no hard matter for them to assume that of the bodies of deceas'd persons and by that counterfeit appearance to deceive the credulity of those who are perswaded that by this art of Conjuration they may be oblig'd to make a particular discovery of themselves and it is an observation of Ananias in the third Book of the Nature of Devils when a dying person presented his right Hand to some other who thereupon joyn'd Hands with him Nor is this any thing less superstitious than for the said two persons to make a mutual promise one to the other that he who shall die first of the two shall appear to the survivor to give him an account what condition he is in since that in these Apparitions it is always to be fear'd that they are the Evil Spirits whose main design is to seduce them that assume their places and do appear instead of those whom we think we see The Third said That he thought it not very strange that the Souls of the deceas'd having still a certain remembrance of those with whom they convers'd in this Life and to whom they are still oblig'd by some tie of affection such as was that of the Rich man in Hell towards his living Brethren should also have an Inclination to assist them as much as they can It may therefore be inferr'd that with the permission of God they do appear when they are earnestly intreated to do it For not to speak of Moses and Elias who appear'd on Mount Thabor the day of the Transfiguration the Prophet Jeremy and Onias appear'd to Judas Macchabaeus as the Soul of Samuel did to Saul to whom the Holy Scripture attributing the gift of Prophecy that apparition was not illusory nor procur'd by the Devil assuming the shape of that Prophet but certain and real in which that Holy Man presented himself and out of the desire he had to bring that King for whom he sometime had a great affection into the way of salvation he remonstrated to him the judgments of God which would fall upon him if he turned not from the evil of his wayes The Fourth said That though there be nothing but confusion among the Evil Spirits yet is there to be imagin'd a certain Order in their Nature and such a Subordination among them that there are Superiours and inferiours whereof some have a sovereignty over others Thence it comes that among the Magicians who have unhappily ingag'd themselves in their service those who have given up their Names to a Devil of a superiour Hierarchy force the others to obey them and may exercise the same superiority over the Spirits of a lower Class as their Master can It is to these Regent or principal Magicians that some would attribute the priviledge of calling up the Souls of the dead and for want of them the Evil Spirits of an inferiour Order whom they shew to those who consult them or when they cannot do that they think it enough to procure an appearance of Spectres and Shades by that cursed Art of Conjuration distinguish'd for that reason into Necromancy and Sciomancy whereof the former makes the dead appear or rather Devils with their very Bodies and their Clothes and other marks which they had during their being here The other shews only Phantasmes which have some resemblance of them yet make a shift to answer their Questions who come to enquire of them And whereas the whole mystery is full of impostures they omit nothing that may cause terrours that so mens spirits being prepossess'd they might give the greater credit thereto It was the opinion of ancient Paganism which first exercis'd this Art that the Souls of the dead might be evocated by pouring on the ground Wine Milk and Honey and mixing it with the blood of certain Animals newly kill'd the entrails whereof being still hot were afterwards carried three several times about two Altars garnish'd with three black or blew fillets and a Cyprus But when they were perswaded that those Souls of the deceas'd which they call'd Manes were incens'd against them they appeas'd them with black Victims casting their entrails dipp'd in Oyle into a fire laid on their Sepulchres made of such Trees as bear no fruit gave them Incense cast Wine with the hollow of the Hand and exercis'd such Ceremonies for the most part ridiculous which also were commonly perform'd at mid-night and in Caves and subterraneous places there being not any thing they thought more contrary to those Spirits of darkness than the light of the day and especially the rising of the Sun Thence it proceeded that Homer sends his Vlysses into obscure places there to consult the Soul of Tiresias and Virgil makes Aeneas descend under ground to learn of the Sibyl what he had to do The Poets also have feign'd that Orpheus descended into Hell to fetch thence his Wife Eurydice and the History of Pausanias tells us that to appease the Ghost of Cleonica whom he had kill'd by mistake and for which act he was continually tormented in the night time he offer'd some such sacrifices to it in an obscure place call'd Heraclea where having appear'd to him she told him that he should be deliver'd out of all his sufferings as soon as he were return'd into Lacedaemonia as accordingly he was having been there starv'd to death with hunger in the Temple of Pallas where he had taken Sanctuary to avoid the fury of his Fellow-citizens by whom he was pursu'd CONFERENCE CCXXXIII Of Natural Magick NAtural Magick hath degenerated extreamly in these last Ages wherein it is grown as execrable even to the very name of it as it was honourable at the beginning as those of Tyrant and Sophist were heretofore denominations generally esteem'd but now they are abhorr'd The ill use which some have made thereof is the true Cause of this treatment of Natural Magick which they have fill'd with vanities and impostures whereas it is in it self not only the noblest but also the most ancient of all the Sciences For it is conceiv'd to have begun above four thousand years since in Aegypt under Zoroaster the Grandson of Noah whence it was spread among the Babylonians the Chaldaeans and the Persians among whom the Magi were in so great authority that with the Mysteries of Religion they were intrusted with the Civil Government and the conduct and tuition of the Kings who were never admitted to the Crown till they had been fully instructed in that Discipline By this it was that Orpheus and Amphion came to be so powerful as to draw brute beasts and stones after them and hereby King Solomon came to be the wisest of all men and lastly by the study of this Apollonius Tyanaeus Pythagoras Socrates and the other Sages of Antiquity acquir'd the esteem they were in But what adds much to the recommendation of it is that by its means the three Magi or Wise Men in the Gospel who
one time than at another but only seem to be such to our Senses which though they should be destitute of all qualities are then endu'd therewith so that the same Well-water which seems to be hot in Winter by reason of the coldness that is in the Touching seems cold in Summer by reason of the heat of the same Organ which judges of it comparatively For the contrary is seen in that Well-water in Summer being transported into a hot place is there nevertheless cold and the fumes and hot vapors which exhale from Springs and Wells in Winter do sufficiently demonstrate that during the said season the water is endu'd with a true and real heat too sensible to be accounted imaginary But this Antiperistasis is further more solidly confirm'd by Experience whereby we see that fire burns more violently and is more sparkling in great Frosts or in the shade than in hot weather or when it lyes expos'd to the beams of the Sun In like manner a little Water cast upon a great Fire makes it more violent than it was before and the Ventricles of our Bodies according to the Opinion of Hippocrates in his Aphorisms are hotter in Winter than in any other season of the year whence it comes that we are apt to feed more plentifully and Digestion is then better perform'd Nay if we but go down into our Cellars we shall find that the heat is more sensible there in Winter but in Summer when all things are scorch'd and burnt up on the surface of the Earth all Subterraneous Places are so much the colder the deeper they are and the nearer they approach to the Centre towards which Cold which is one of the natural qualities of the Earth gathers together and reunites it self thereto that so it may be secur'd from the heat whereby it is encompass'd of all sides And as it is to this that the generation of Metals in the entrails of the Earth is principally attributed so most of the Meteors which are fram'd in the two Regions of the Air owe theirs to this same Cold which coming to encompass and as it were to enclose the hot and dry Exhalation which makes the Winds Lightning Thunder and Thunder-bolts as also that which makes the Comets in the Middle Region of the Air these unctuous and easily-enflam'd vapors being encompass'd of all sides by the extream coldness of that Air which encloses them they in order to their Conservation re-unite and take fire after the same manner as the Rayes of the Sun darted against some Opake Body or reflected by Burning-glasses set on fire the most solid Bodies on which they are repercuss'd as it is related of Archimedes who by such an Artifice consum'd the Ships of Marcellus who besieg'd the City of Saragossa in Sicily Which instance serves as well to prove Antiperistasis as the manner whereby it is wrought to wit by the repercussion of the intentional Species of the Subject caus'd by its contrary Thus then it comes that the Water of Springs and Wells is cold in the Summer in regard the Species of the cold forc'd by the Water towards the heated Air which is all about it are darted back again by that opposite heat to the place whence they came whereupon being thrust closer together they there re-inforce and augment the Cold which happens not so in Winter when the Species of the coldness of the Water meeting with no Obstruction in the Air endu'd with the like quality insinuate themselves into it without any resistance and so not being reflected nor forc'd back towards the Water it is not then so cold as in Summer The Second said That the intentional Species being not design'd to act but only to make a discovery of the beings from which they flow as may be seen in those of all sensible Objects which these Species represent to the Organs that are to judge of them cannot contribute any thing to the vigor of the action observable in the Antiperistasis which he conceiv'd should rather be attributed to the simple form of the Subject which having an absolute sovereignty over the qualities employ'd thereby in order to Action renders them more or less active according to the need it stands in of them And as seething Water taken off the Fire becomes cold of it self without any other assistance than that of its proper substantial form which hath the property of re-instating it self in that degree of Cold which is naturally due unto it so ought it with greater reason to have an equal right of preserving that same quality when it is assaulted by its contrary Heat without having any recourse to those Emissions of Species which though we should grant the Tactile qualities what is much in dispute yet would not be able to cause an Antiperistasis inasmuch as being inseparable from them if the intentional Species of the coldness of Well-water were directed towards the warm'd Air it should take along with it the coldness and consequently it should be so far from acquiring any new degree of coldness thereby that it would lose much of that which it had before For since it is the Nature of these Intentional Species to be otherwise incapable by reason of their immateriality of producing any Corporeal and Material Effect such as is the augmentation of the degrees of any active quality as Heat and Cold are there being not any contrariety between the Species thereof no more than there is between those of â—ll other Bodies whereof they are the Images there is not any reason that obliges the Intentional Species of the Cold to retreat and close together when they come to meet with those of Heat or Heat it self no more than there is that the Species of this latter quality should make the other more vigorous by their reflection The Third said That it must be acknowledg'd that the Species of Cold and Heat and the other first Qualities were not contrary among themselves as being in their own Nature inalterable and incorruptible as the other Intentional Species are which come near the Condition of Spirits Yet does it not follow thence that these Species cannot be reflected inasmuch as the Visible Species Light and Voice which also have no contraries are not for that the less re-percuss'd by Mirrours and other solid Bodies or those hollow places which make Echoes The Fourth said That it is not sufficient in order to the giving of a reason of that effect to attribute it to the substantial form of every Agent but it is to be referr'd to a superiour cause such as is the Soul of the world whose function it being to preserve every thing in its intireness and to be assistant thereto when it comes into any danger as it happens when it is assaulted by its contrary then bent upon its destruction there lies a certain engagement on this first cause to relieve it in so great an extremity by supplying it with new forces to help it out of that oppression Thence
that the Artist should make use of a little Willow-stick which is of great efficacy in these magnetick cures The compound Sympathetical Powder is made of the same Vitriol prepar'd after the same manner and the Gum called Tragacantha exactly pulveriz'd mixt together in equal quantities instead whereof others put Gum-Arabick Sarcocolla the roots of the great Comfrey and the five-leav'd Tormentile or such other vulnerary and astringent Plants However these kinds of Sympathetical Powder may differ as to the composition of them yet in the use of them they observe the same circumstances For though the simple wound require the powder of the same name and the compound where there is any fracture requires the compound powder yet is the manner of employing them still the same And to that end as well in wounds newly receiv'd as those that are of some standing and degenerated into ulcers they apply a clean cloth made of hemp or flax to receive the blood from them or the matter wherewith being imbibed they cast the powder upon it then fold up the cloth inclosing it in another and being thus wrapp'd one in the other they are laid up in some temperate place unless it be when the wound is extreamly enflam'd or very cold If either of these happen they remove the cloths from the place where they were first laid disposing them into some cold place such as may be a Cellar or some other cool room if the part affected be excessively hot and on the contrary into an Oven or Stove if it be threatned with a Gangrene or the extinguishing of the natural heat and they dayly continue the dressing of these wounds after the same manner till they are perfectly cur'd till which time they carefully preserve all the cloaths imbu'd with the blood or matter that came from them But what palpably discovers the vanity of this practice is that they affirm the wound to be perfectly cur'd by this means how great a distance soever there may be between the wounded part and the Sympathetical Powder which they say equally produces its effect afar off as near at hand Which is contrary to Reason whereby we are instructed that every agent being confin'd to certain limits in its action beyond which it can do nothing it is impossible that this powder should at so disproportionate a distance produce the effect which they would attribute thereto nay though it were granted it might if it were immediately apply'd to the place affected The Second said That if all Agents were oblig'd to follow that general Rule whereby they are restrain'd from acting otherwise then upon the Subjects they touch either by themselves or by some vertue issuing from them it would be a very hard matter to give a reason of the action of that Sympathetical Powder upon the wounds it cures without making use of the assistance of common Surgery which are many times more insufferable then the hurts about which they are employ'd But since there is a great number of the like instances in Nature it will be no harder task to find satisfaction in the causes of this then in those of all the rest which act at a distance without any sensible transmission from the Agent to the Patient as for instance of the Loadstone which draws iron to it of the North-Star which does the same with the Loadstone of the Moon 's causing the ebbing and flowing of the Sea of the Sun 's concocting Metals and Minerals in the bowels of the Earth and of an infinite number of others which act upon subjects at a distance by certain occult qualities Which qualities in regard they are manifest and sensible in the Loastone are commonly call'd Magnetick such as is also the cure consequent to the application of this powder on the blood or matter taken from the wound which is thus treated sympathetically and whereof the action is withall animated by that universal Spirit whose general interposition and concurrence being requisite to all Agents in order to the prosecution and advancement of their operations it may be concluded that he does express it in this Powder whose vertue he conveys to the wounded part by means of the blood which issu'd from it which though separated from the body there is however some conformity and correspondence between it and its whole The Third said That he thought it a very strange humour to attribute to Roman Vitriol and the Gum Tragacantha the vertue of curing that at a distance which they cannot do near at hand and that being apply'd to the wounds about which they are employ'd True it was that they were sometimes cur'd by that kind of procedure but that it was not to be look'd on as a miracle wrought by the Sympathetical Powder but as a pure effect of Nature on which the curing of maladies principally depending as Hippocrates affirms there needs no more for the effecting that of a wound then to take away all heterogeneous bodies to reunite the gaping of the wound and to keep it clean and at ease for the natural heat with its balm the radical moisture and the Spirits will advance the cure in that condition more then all the suppurating mundifying cathoeretick and epuletick medicines which Art commonly makes use of Thence it comes that the Masters of this new doctrine give a great charge to those who would make use of their Sympathetical Powders to keep the wounds very close after they have wash'd them with Urine Sal-water or Wine and to take away the splinters of the broken bones as also the clotted and congeal'd blood and the other heterogeneous bodies which might hinder the re-union And this indeed is no hard matter for them to do in the simple fleshy wounds but they never could do it in those which are accompany'd with fractures openings of great Vessels hurts in some considerable part of the body or such other extraordinary accidents Otherwise that effect being above the reach of the remedy which is incapable of producing that cure if it happen by that means and after that manner it cannot be wrought otherwise then by vertue of a secret compact with the evil Spirit who will be forward enough to promote the welfare of the body in those who should make use of this remedy conditionally that they may run the hazard of destroying their souls CONFERENCE CCXXXIX Whether there be any such Creatures as the Ancients conceiv'd the Satyrs to be NOvelty and things extraordinary if we may credit the Professors of Artificial Memory have so great a power and influence over our minds that they do not only force them to attention when the objects are present but do also much more excite and better conserve the species then ordinary things can This it was that oblig'd diverse Poëts and Historians to speak of Hydra's Chimaera's Basilisks Satyrs Centaurs and several other things invented out of pleasure or wantonness such as have no ground in truth and are pure poetical fictions For those who have
to keep no Grooms but such as were married 'T is also the advice of Pliny who in the seventh Book of his Natural History affirms that in the Country of the Cartadulones among the Mountains of the Indies there are Satyrs a sort of very swift Animals running sometimes on two feet sometimes on all four having a humane shape and such as by reason of their activity are never taken till they are old or sick Plutarch also affirms in the Life of Sylla that in his return from Italy there was brought him a Satyr like those describ'd by the Ancient Authors half-man and half-goat which had been taken sleeping Being ask'd who he was his Answer was in such a Dialect as favour'd nothing of Man's Language but in an articulate voice between that of Goats and the neighing of Horses and the result was that Sylla taking compassion of him sent a Guard to conduct him to the place from whence he had been brought The same Author makes mention of the death of the God Pan who was a Satyr Saint Hierom in the place before cited affirms that another Satyr spoke and he gives a description of him saying that he was of a middle stature having a crooked Nose hornes on his fore-head and feet like those of a Goat and that he brought Saint Paul the Hermit some Dates not taken off the bough on which they had grown Which kindness obliges the Saint to ask him Who he was Whereto he made Answer that he was a mortal and one of the Inhabitants of that Hermitage whom the abus'd Pagans adored for Fawnes Satyrs and Incubi I come to you continu'd he as a Deputy from the rest of our Company intreating you to pray for us to your God and ours whom we acknowledge to be come into the world for the common salvation of all Having with those words concluded his Embassie the light-footed Animal ran away And that this Relation may seem the less strange we have this further to add that in the time of Constantine there was one of them brought alive to Alexandria which was expos'd before the people at the publick Shews and afterwards dying his Body was salted and transported to the City of Antioch to be shewn to the Emperour Pausanias also relates that he had heard it of one Euphemius who he sayes was a person worthy of credit that sailing into Spain he was hurry'd by a Tempest to certain Islands full of a savage kind of men who had their bodies all over hairy long tails like those of Horses and red hair which they could not force away from about them otherwise then with blows and that one of the Women-savages having been left upon the shore by the Mariners those Savages abus'd her with all imaginable violences So that to doubt whether there be any Satyrs after so many Testimonies that there are were to have too great a complyance for our own Senses and too little for the Testimonies of the Ancients CONFERENCE CCXL Whether it be better to bury or to burn the bodies of the Dead ALL the World seems to be very much concern'd in this business inasmuch as there being not any man but his coming into this world necessarily infers his departure out of it and that consequently a separation of Body and Soul every man ought accordingly to consider what will become after death of that other part of himself unless he hath discarded all sentiments of humanity and hath assum'd the humour of the Cynick whom his friends having asked where he would be dispos'd after his death he desir'd they would leave him in the place where he died without troubling themselves any further Whereupon they demanding of him whether he was not afraid his body might be devour'd by Dogs he answer'd that he should be no more sensible of their bitings then of the gnawings of worms if he were put into the earth but however they would do well to lay his staff by him to frighten those Dogs that should come near his body There are whole Nations who have made choice of the bowels of these Animals for their burial especially the Hyrcanians who kept Dogs purposely that they might be devour'd bp them after their departure The like was done heretofore by the Medes and Parthians who thought it less honourable to be interr'd then to be devour'd by Dogs and Birds of prey especially Vultures to which the Inhabitants of Colchos and Iberia expos'd the Carcases of those who in their life-time had done gallant actions but always burnt those of the cowardly Nay what is absolutely inhumane though Chrysippus an ancient and eminent Philosopher approves it in a discourse upon that Subject some were so barbarous as to eat the flesh of their Fathers and Mothers and best Friends out of a perswasion that it was one of the greatest demonstrations of piety to give their nearest Relations a burial in their own bellies The Persians religiously preserv'd them in their Houses after they had enclos'd them in wax to prevent putrefaction which was better done by the Aegyptians with honey salt bitumen rosin cedar aloes myrrh and such perfumes which have preserv'd their Mummyes to this time The Scythians did the same with ice and snow wherewith they cover'd the bodies of the deceas'd to secure them from corruption The Pythagoreans us'd to the same purpose the leaves of Poplar Myrrh and Aloes wherewith they cover'd their dead after which manner M. Cato desir'd to be buried as Lycurgus was in Olive-branches The Aethiopians inclos'd theirs in Glass the Thracians and Troglodites put theirs under heaps of stones the Hyperboreans and Icthyophagi buried them in the waves of the Sea the Poeonians in Lakes and the Inhabitants of Caria though no Sepulchre more honourable for those who died for their Country then that of their own Arms wherein they buried them as they did Persons of Quality in the High-ways that they might be the more conspicuous and especially in Mountains which were only for the burial of Kings whence came the custom of erecting Obelisks and Pyramids on their Tombes But though there were a great diversity in this kind of burying yet it consisted principally in this that some made choice of the Earth others of the Fire for their sepulture The former is not only more natural and more rational but also more advantageous than the latter since there is nothing more consonant to natural reason then to return to the earth those bodies which having been fram'd thereof cannot be better consign'd then to the bosom of that Mother wherein being once enclos'd they infect not our Air with corruption and malignant exhalations as they may when cast into the fire the heat whereof forcing the fumes and infected vapours of those Carcases to a great distance they may corrupt the purity of the Air and prejudice their health who are present at those funeral Piles which for that reason the Law of the Twelve Tables expressly forbad to be set on fire within the City
of Rome lest the corruption might be communicated to the neighbouring Houses but provided it should be done without the walls The Second said That though the general way of burying the dead now is to enterre them yet methinks that of burning them and preserving their ashes is more noble and honourable in regard the Fire excells the Earth in purity as far as it transcends it in its vicinity to Heaven the qualities whereof it communicates to the bodies it consumes purifying and preserving them from all putrefaction and making them so clear and transparent that according to the common opinion of Theology in the general conflagration the World and all bodies comprehended within it will be vitrify'd by means of the fire It is therefore more honourable to have our bodies consum'd by that Element then to have them devour'd by Worms and Putrefaction whereof fire being an enemy and the Embleme of Immortality there can be no better expedient to secure our deceas'd Friends from oblivion then that of burning their bodies whereof we have either the bones or ashes left which may be preserv'd whole Ages there being yet to be seen the Urns of the ancient Romans full of such precious deposita as those who put their Friends into the ground can never see Add to this that it is a rational thing to make a distinction between Man Beast which they do not who burying both treat them after the same manner whereas if Man's body were burnt and that of the Beast left to rot in the ground it would serve for a certain acknowledgment of the disproportion there is between them and that as the latter is of a mean and despicable condition it is accordingly dispos'd into the Earth which is under the other Elements and as it were the Common-shore of the World whereas the former being design'd for Immortatality Fire which is the most sensible Hieroglyphick thereof is more proper for it then the earth wherein if we were not carry'd away rather by opinion than reason and that Tyrant of three Letters in the Latin Tongue as a learned Author calls Custom did not corrupt our judgment it were more rational to bury the bodies of Malefactors then to burn them as is commonly done The Third said That if we may judge of the goodness of a thing by its Antiquity the way of interring the dead will carry it as having been from the beginning of the World Holy Scripture tell us that Abraham bought a Field for the burial of himself and his and that a dead body having been dispos'd into the Sepulchre where the bones of Elizeus were was rais'd to Life In other Histories we find that most Nations practis'd it especially the Romans till the time of Sylla who was the first whose Body was burnt at Rome which disposal of himself he order'd out of a fear he might be treated as Marius had been whose bones he caus'd to be taken out of the ground and cast into the River From that time they began to burn the Bodies of the Dead which continu'd till the Reign of the Antoninus's when the Custom of burying them came in again and hath since been us'd by all Nations whose universal consent gives a great presumption that this manner is to be preferr'd before any other Add to this that our Saviour would have his precious body so dispos'd and the Holy Church which is divinely inspir'd seems to mind us of the same thing when upon Ash-wednesday she tell us that we are dust and that into dust we shall return The Fourth said That there were five ways of disposing the dead One is to put them into the ground another to cast them into the water the third to leave them in the open air the fourth to burn them and the last to suffer them to be devour'd by Beasts This last is too inhumane to find any Abettors but among Barbarians Men are more careful to prevent the corruption of Water and Air without which they cannot live then to suffer carrions and dead carkasses which would cause infections and insupportable stinks so that the contest is only between Fire and Earth For my part I give the precedence to the former whose action is more expeditious than that of the other Elements which require a long time to consume dead bodies whereas Fire does it in an instant Whereto I may add this that there cannot be any other more likely expedient whereby men may secure themselves from those contagious infections which many times occasion diseases especially when they are attended by Malignancy Nay however it is to be wish'd whether dead bodies be buried or burnt that it should be done out of the City and that the Law of the Decemviri to wit Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito neve vrito were still punctually observ'd FINIS Of Sleep and how long it ought to be Which is the strongest thing in the World Of the Gowt Which Condition is most expedient for the acquisition of Wisedom Riches or Honour Of Glass Of Fucusses or Cosmeticks Of Tobacco Whether the Invention of Guns hath done more hurt than good Of Blood-letting Which is the most excellent of the Souls three Faculties Imagination Memory or Judgment Of Dew Whether it is expedient for Women to be Learned Whether it be good to use Chymical Remedies Whether the reading of Romances be profitable Of Talismans Whether a country-Country-life or a City-life is to be preferr'd Of Volcano's Which Age is most desirable Of Mineral Waters Whether it be better to Give than to Receive Of Antidotes Which is most communicative Good or Evil Why Animals cry when they feel Pain Whether it be expedient to have Enemies Of the Rain-bow Whether the Reading of Books is a fitter way for Learning than Vocal Instruction Of the Milky-way Which is most powerful Gold or Iron Of the cause of Vapours Which is less culpable Rashness or Cowardice